Grrl Power #923 – Telling pause much?
My first draft of this page had a nonomatopoeia in panel 5 that said “TELLING PAUSE?” but I decided you guys are smart enough to figure that out without the hand holding. Love me some nonomatopoeias though. It was a tough call. I wound up using it for the page title instead, cause I got to call it something and I sat here for half an hour trying to think of something else. I might have gone with something ziplocky, but I used that in the stinger.
I would make a joke about “Telling Pause” being the nickname for the mute polar bear yenta down the street, but homophone based puns don’t work as well in text form.
Really, the question Max should be asking is “Why did you have hilariously fatal rounds chambered in the first place?” but mmmaybe Max isn’t asking questions she doesn’t really want answers to. Cora has been very helpful in the past – which doesn’t give her a get out of jail free card necessarily, but it’s not like Max hasn’t killed anyone in the line of duty. At this moment, she’s probably wanting to ensure that Cora is feeling sufficiently admonished that she’s more careful in her choice of ordnance in the future… if she’s allowed to go gunning down Earthings again, that is. Unfortunately Cora doesn’t appear particularly admonished.
So there’s this game called League of Maidens that’s out in Alpha on steam. The primary hook is that you can make a superheroine and fight a bunch of single player MMO-ish type adventures throughout a number of biomes, but really, the whole point of the game seems to be the character creator, which has sliders for everything, like nipple hardness, nipple length, and breast rotation. I’m not sure who thought “My character’s breasts need to be more clockwise” but it’s in there. There’s enough freedom to make some hilarious and/or nightmarish looking ladies. It’s free to download and play, so I already made a Maxima-ish looking character without buying any skin packs, as you can mess with “skin wetness” sliders and overall shininess and make their skin look gold-adjacent. I’m told that under all the T&A, there’s the seed of a competent game, but unfortunately their financial strategy is to take every single annoying thing about free mobile games and combine them into one product. I’m totally fine with cosmetic supported games, I’ve put a few bucks into Overwatch and Path of the Exile, but League of Maidens has at least 3 different currencies, plus I think it has some kind of daily endurance meter which counts down, and you have to buy more endurance to keep playing (in their defense, I’d guess you’d probably be able to get about 4 hours of a daily charge), a cosmetic shop (which is fine, IMO) a UI cluttered with shopping opportunities, and the ability to subscribe to LoM Plus, which gives you a 20% discount in the shops. It’s a lot. I’m not sure I have the endurance to finish the sprawling tutorial, but all that said, if anyone decides they’re into it and wants to post their Grrl Power-ish creations or harrowing nipple monsters, do feel free.
The new vote incentive is up! 
I know a lot of you are here for some Sydney goodness, and the next picture I’d been working on was an A-cup three way with Pixel and Krona. Unfortunately, the whole “Everything is bigger in Texas, including our power-grid failures.” kerfuffle left me with intermittent power for about four days, so I was a little behind this month. I partially made up for that by doing a single person pinup, and Maxima won (or lost) the draw this time. There are several clothing/non-clothing variants over at Patreon, including a special version with guest art direction from JJ Abrams. (Yes, there’s a ton of lens flares, hah hah. I amuse myself.) The a-cups will return next month, so please enjoy this offering in the meantime.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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Honestly, if you want to character create superheroines, I’d recommend Champions Online or the private City of Heroes servers (Worse graphics than Champions Online, but better community. Search for “Homecoming”) rather than some fly-by-night, nickle-and-dime gang whose tit-bounce is WORSE than what non-paid Skyrim modders do.
Let me repeat myself: Random amateurs who do sexual mods for Skyrim for free do better tit-physics than Maiden Gaming Inc…
DC universe online is acctually not bad for that either they were REALLY smart in that you can slot stuff with better stats into stuff that looks cools do you can keep your look consistant i had a pretty (no pun intended) ice Clown themed villian in that game thanks to collecting all the christmas themed Elf costume pieces
Except… you can’t really change your characters’ physical appearance outside of 9 pre-set looks (originally, it was just three: Sprite, Monarch & Mesa, then they decided to split those into Small, Medium & Large)
But yes, being able to keep the Appearance of your outfit the same even when wearing different (and mis-matching) sets, is great (ah have six active characters, one of each movement type and morality {Hero or Villain}), most have had minor tweaks over the ten years of playing (still working on mah main heroes look, trying to get her more ‘bird-like’ seeing how she’s based on the largest bird of prey ever, the Haast’s Eagle), mah villain speedster has had the most change, which is largely down to the new ‘Materials’ which gives visual appearance change to their gear and hair (the one she’s using, combined with her base colour palate, makes it look like she’s made of polished gold and silver, because it gives a slight ‘glow’ to her gear, more than the usual ‘Aura’ gives)
If you like playing ‘dress-up’ with your super-heroes, (just… don’t be ‘that one’ who just recreates iconic character, even non-DC characters) then go with DCUO, if you want actual storylines that makes sense… go with something else (not saying the story’s aren’t good, they are just not always consistent)
Almost forgot: EQ2 also has an Appearance slot, nothing ‘fantastic’, so you still look armoured, or in a fancy dress (can even change the appearance of your mount)
In all fairness, City of Heroes is nearly 17 years from inception and about 8 1/2 years from being ‘officially’ defunct. Champions Online still gets updates… STILL waiting for City of Titans!
Hrm – Maybe I should give Champions a shot – I loved CoH/CoV and am kinda aching for some kind of superhero gaming.
*is still in mourning*
….I was a tiny female Dark/Electric Defender named Little Ms. Magic, on Virtue.
…had a whole SG themed that way. The little Miss Brigade.
Our lead Tank: Little Ms. Frosty. (Ice/Axe)
Our lead Controller: Little Ms. Terra. (Earth/Storm Summoning)
Our lead Blaster was Little Ms. Ice Cream (Sonic/Ice Manipulation)
…our ‘uniform’ was modeled on the Girl Scouts.
*cries*
Dude, go to the homecoming server and reroll your CoX toons and play again. I was on last night. Sonic reflex sentinel. They have all the old content, a bit of new content trickling in. They’ve done huge qol changes the game needed and there is a sizable endgame community for itrials. It LIVES ON!
Be warned that at least in the early game it gets REALLY boring and relative feeling really fast. You start with your main abilities and your combat style wont change much any time soon, and the goons you face are all pretty bland in their attacks. I only made it a few days before I gave up.
The character creator is stupidly fun though, theyve got so many options for designing your costume and look. I made a spiky looking demon imp that was only 4′ tall and could fly.
The ‘random amateurs’ are rarely amateur. Case and point, I know 9 script/programming languages. +2 markups if HTML and CSS count. +1 if regex counts (it doesn’t, lol). I learned Papyrus for Skyrim but based most of my code on the Lua structure and methodology I already learned. I’ve decompiled quite a few mods; I saw less garbage code in these than what I’ve witnessed in production software. You know, like the TES5 .esm files… It’s amazing that game even runs with so many bugs packed into one file.
Regex counts but only if you REALLY know how to use it (lookahead /lookbehind/numbered captures/self-reference etc). HTML and XML and any other ML count as one, CSS doesn’t count.
Interesting take on CSS – I usually see people lump it with HTML and accept both or neither. Advanced CSS is just as powerful as HTML5, and technically both are programming languages. The difference between them and a ‘real’ language is that they describe content and layout rather than logic and function.
There’s some great discussion on it here for those who want to explore the nuances, but having seen what can be done with wizard-level CSS (just as well or even better than the equivalent HTML/JS), I personally am convinced it ‘counts’.
That’s why I said “if ___ count.” Technically any language that causes the machine state to change upon execution is a “programming” language – including, yes, the act of typing itself. When you write letters into this text box you’re not putting letters into the CPU; it’s first translated into machine language and then binary and that final result is stored in a buffer. You’re quite literally programming. Which is why people try to draw delineating lines between the languages and consistently fail to produce anything unequivocal.
But, it is possible to draw lines between types. Low level languages that compile into machine language, JITted code, scripts, and markups are some clearly defined coding structures. Except those are actually runtimes, not languages, so… Heh. You can always tell someone who knows their stuff if they understand the difference between language and runtime. It’s a pretty basic delineation but it seems a lot of folks don’t know or don’t care that languages aren’t bound to the first runtime they’re designed for.
That was a programming joke. No way to keep count in Regex even though you can loop through matches.
Bethesda had a blog post at one point on their website about how they encouraged their employees to step outside their comfort zone — they had artists writing code.
… and it shows
Indeed. All I did was go through removing all the “null reference” tags with search and replace. My Skyrim ran 1000% better. When you open the menu the game would lock up for 1-3 seconds, and yes, doing this even fixed that. I tried to report my finding to the unofficial patch team but they insisted it was some sort of internal code and that this lockup was related to autosaves. Yeah, ok. I’m sure 0x000000 is totally how you reference valid memory, not to mention the autosaves worked fine…
Poor Sydney she really needs a hug and a vacation, she also needs some proper time with some girlfriends that doesn’t end up with a crazy Demon Hunter kidnapping a child.
I’ve suggested a month of leave with her Space Boyfriend, a classic Mustang, and the backroads of the American West, from the Rockies to the Coast.
…a nice idea, but, do you really want him anywhere near actual fur traders/trappers? This is suppose to be peaceful and therapeutic….right?
I am…so curious, about what you think goes on out here.
*concerned pose*
Fur trading and trapping?
*picture of complete innocence*
They generally avoid fur trapping anything that has fingers that can pull triggers.
Oh, in the real world no doubt: but this is a world with supers, magic, and werewolves! Even with all the spells to hide anything interesting I’d bet you could still find people that keep silver bullets in the back of some drawer.
Max should pay a bit more attention to her recruit instead of dressing down the civilian.
She should at least notice that Sydney is behaving VERY atypical and is in fact PTSD’ing pretty hard right now.
She went from Kaiju movie (and not the fun kind) to lost in space to alien invaders to being 2 seconds from being summarily executed by the worlds biggest misogynist to full on zombie apocalypse as said misogynist got ‘unwound’ all over her with extreme prejudice.
All in the span of a couple of days.
And given that she has no more than a couple of days of training so far she should not even have been on the scene at all. Certainly not without Dr. Frost signing off on the necessary forms to verify her mental fitness after her first traumatic ordeal.
Sydney isn’t likely to grab her balls and start blasting right now.
Cora very well MAY do so, given that she has gunned someone down. It’s generally more important to ensure the ones who are armed and dangerous are assessed first. If she lets Cora off now, will she see Cora splatter half a dozen other “bad guys” across the pavement when she sees that they were cooking food for the supers on the yacht? Will she use her ship to just blast the yacht out of the water? Maybe she would launch a nuke because the nation harboured bad guys?
Sydney’s mental health IS important. But she’s physically immediately safe and as far as Max knows, Cora may be a threat to the public. Making sure there are no immediate threats from neutral parties and getting an understanding – no shooting to kill, or we’re going to make life difficult – is worth the 30 seconds of not getting Sydney the care she requires.
You forget, Max isn’t a psychiatrist, not even close. She’s military and the military says suck it up and push on.
Obligatory reminder that she once told Peggy to “walk it off” (to make her laugh though). https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-591-florence-dark-knightingale/
“Military,” is a bit more nuanced than that, Steeeve-o.
Personal experience talking: I was required to observe signs of stress & psychological trauma, and I wasn’t even a zero.
Any good military knows how hugely important it is to keep up morale and combat effectiveness. This goes doubly for the uniquely powerful Halo who they cannot replace if she drops out.
Such it up and push on is for mid-mission – this is essentially a debriefing.
It’s actually very much of Max’s concern how and why Cora killed someone while out of her sight.
Maxima has made a common mistake in that because Cora looks so human and generally acts human enough that she’s forgotten that Cora isn’t really human and has lived her life as an alien with different cultural morals. Lecturing her like she’s someone that grew up on Earth or worse in the US really isn’t going to cut it. The best she can do is just inform her to keep non-lethal rounds in the forefront for her ammunition choices and not use lethal ordinance unless absolutely necessary.
Cora’s also got a point in that Sydney’s life was indeed in danger and Cora probably can’t change her ammo out as fast as Maxima can (although if she’s got the same teleporter tech as Dabbler…). I imagine next page she’ll either reveal she’s got trackers on the back-up lackies, Dabbler’s retrieved henchmen from the boat where Concretia’s body was or that alien that both of them had a love/hate relationship with was following the henchmen back to their lair.
Max could always just arrest Cora for openly carrying a firearm without a license in New York. And confiscate the guns. That doesn’t seem likely to happen in comic for story reasons, but in the real world, guess what happens to unlicensed open carry in NYC.
If you look at her back art of her, she does not have a holstered weapon, i take it that she is able to summon them just like Dabbler can. So she is not open carrying, she could try and get her on concealed carry, but that would be iffy since the weapons are not actually on her. I think Max will give her a pass, but may take steps if it continue to happen.
I was just responding to the idea that the best Maxima can do is give Cora a stern finger-wagging. In #918 Cora is seen holding a weapon while standing on the roof with Sidney. In this #923 they’re talking out the reasons why Lasagna Man got his name. Max already knows Cora shot the dude. Cora is probably going to get a pass, I’m guessing, but pretending she doesn’t have a gun isn’t why.
No, Max literally cannot do that. Max is not an officer of the State or City of New York, and has no jurisdiction to enforce such local nonsense statutes. She also cannot write parking tickets or impound any dogs that poop on the New York sidewalks… unless they are paranormal, mutant pooping dogs.
If a local officer attempted to arrest Cora and confiscate her weaponry, then Max would be forced to decide, based on mission parameters, whether to back up the local idiot or to ignore him. However, since Cora’s weaponry can near-instantly be teleported back to the ship, there would probably be nothing for the office to confiscate, once Cora stopped laughing at hthe local guy.
“Oh, you’re serious?’ (another round of hilarious laughter)
Cora isn’t human? I think you need to go back and read the pages she’s appeared in. Fact check that claim…
I believe Nightmask was referencing society / culture while you are referencing DNA. Cora is human adjacent. And that’s only if you silence the terrestrial yabos that would want to argue blue skin, photosynthesis, and/or a willingness to take conscious control of your genome is ‘inhuman’.
Just sayin’. Your personal mileage may vary of course.
Genetically human, but I like to use the term “of human descent” (for a wide range of species and off-shoots in a multiverse of madness), but regardless of one being techno-organic androids or magically enhanced or gone through generations of gene mods; even if/*we can technically* attribute some mental uncanny valley aspects to changes in the neurology thanks to these sorts of modifications; there is always the good old nature vs nurture cultural background.
even on Earth some travelers will experience culture shock as they find themselves in another culture where even a number of small things they thought were universal are completely different. Hand gestures, eye contact, nodding, smiling, what is and isn’t considered disgusting or taboo in public, clothing, food, ect…to a point that people can experience mental problems *the social survival mechanism of needing to fit into the group so the group looks out for you is stronger in some than others and can cause serious problems when they realize THEY are the outsider*.
Cora could have different outlooks thanks to being descended from gene mods, or being raised in an alien environment around aliens so her young mind adapted to their cultural norms and that’s what she kinows.
Dressing Cora down is actually the exact kind of thing Maxima should do if she suspects misconduct in the field. Especially if it lead to a death.
It shows firmly what she does and does not tolerate and is more likely to stick with Cora than a bland “Please keep it non-lethal next time”.
Personally, I’m hoping that Cora’s response is to hand over all the data from @#$hat’s ship in the harbor along with the two surviving minions, remind Maxima that they have different definitions of justice, but that Maxima should *never* make the mistake of thinking Cora is stupid.
That may just be me, however.
Let me just say that in the spirit of the fictional Grrrl Power-verse in which the comic is based (which has NO relation to the real world), I applaude Cora’s actions and whole-heartedly support them. Not a really whole lot different from some of the things Judge Dredd has done.
And the whiners bitching about it can go take a long walk off a short pier.
++
Judge Dredd is probably not the best example to pick, considering that it has it’s roots in scathing satire.
GAZE INTO THE FIST OF DREDD!
Because you never see his face :D
>Not a really whole lot different from some of the things Judge Dredd has done.
You realize Dredd exists as a cautionary tale of how not to do it right? Dredd’s universe represents a failure of society and law and order, where the Judges are nothing more than another street gang summarily executing people in the streets.
Nothing about that is Justice.
The message is lost in translation. In a future where criminal acts can be determined programmatically rather than in reliance upon often flimsy secondhand evidence and the whims of a human council (look up ‘jury nullification’) such systems of justice are exactly as superfluous as they seem. Of course, this makes easy work for an iron-fisted dictator, but that’s a failure of humanity rather than of justice itself. Justice is often hailed as moral righteousness but in reality is mostly used as justification to enforce the social status quo. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be the case that literally every single societal progression over the years has had to fight the so-called justice system first. Today’s law enforcement is already Judge Dredd just without the futuristic themes. Go wave a gun at a cop and see if you’re still alive to refute my reasoning. (Don’t, you might actually die.)
FYI I’m radical left-wing but unlike my peers I try to be reasonable. Not all cops are bad, we’ve just built a political system that legally requires and allows them to act badly… Which is true of most political systems; barely differing from the Judge Dredd universe.
“literally every single” -> wildly false overgeneralization.
Society ebbs and flows with the tides of time, and these societies are ruled by ideological blocs. Many concepts have been tested against these ideological systems over the past 10,000 years; most notably and comprehensively with the introduction of common law. Concepts not tested by an ideological system are simply not part of that system. Importantly, progress cannot be said to be progress if there wasn’t some form of roadblock preventing change from a previous ideology. The prevailing system, whether a tribal council, a church, or a parliament, is that roadblock. Any idea which has not been adopted by any major ideological system likewise does not prevail in general society. My statement is therefore both true and specific. It’s only inclusive to the concept of “societal progress” and nothing more.
Also, note I said “most political systems” in the next paragraph. Which should inform you I intentionally used absolutist language. Perhaps you could use that contextualization to discern between intentional absolutism and hyperbole in the future.
Maybe throw on some cover before the lecture… I mean, look what you are presenting to two promiscuous aliens who don’t really mind that you’re the same gender as them and strong enough for… ultimate tentacle slime-pit bedroom wrestling.
are you talking about Max’s torn clothes? i think she basically is pissed off enough about the use of lethal force that she’s not even thinking about how she looks; and i think the 2 prommies are aware that she’s mad, and are not even noticing her clothes; plus, it’s more Dabbler that teases her about her clothes and perceived prudishness, i don’t think Cora really cares, since she wasn’t raised by a succubus, and right now Dabs is trying to stay on the down-low, since Max is pissed
Max’s head and heart are in the right place. Thing is, in practice, what Cora did is actually consistent with American law enforcement officers, and they ARE in America.
Cora isn’t articulating the situation very well either. Maxima needs a more detailed report of the situation.
Speaking of where is Concretia and her sleeping body that Cora and Sydney were guarding a moment before, that should be raising some questions. As well as Concretia needing to be placed into protective custody.
Interestingly, I’m betting the council could question Captain Lasagna’s remains by summoning up his ghost or something.
Oooooooooo… Good point!
Yeah, there looked to be a few big enough chunks left for a little necromancy.
They have a way of forcing a spirit to talk if they don’t want to? o_O
Of course they do.
I mean, they have Vampires and aliens and whatnot on that Council. They had a vault filled with evil goodies. (Not as many now of course) So, they have to have SOMEONE who can do necromancy. If only to have defenses against such.
Now as to what it would cost… Um… I am not volunteering!
Yeah, they may be able to talk to the dead, but who’s to say the dead have to listen? Or to give an honest answer?
the mirror of truth, ring of solomon, corpse doll forced possession (basically a golem/robot hardwired to only tell the truth that you have installed the spirit into so even if their spirit wants to lie their new physical body is incapable of it.
ect…
there are ways of making the dead talk, and tell the truth.
you could also go full demon and summon them up via a soul body and just torture them.
Soul Body (special bodies souls get in Hells that imitate being alive, these bodies can experience pain and be damaged; however depending on the model (severity of punishment) the body may not be able to pass out from pain, will regenerate once the damaging of the body is done, new issue has zero habituation or scarring so just as sensitive as brand new tissue if not more so, the body will respawn if over 80% damage occurs at one time, otherwise the body can’t die from drowning, suffocation, shock, ect…which instead grants the body a means to experience pain unlike anything their living body could have ever experienced…like sand inside their lungs when buried, unable to move in darkness while being cut up by tiny stones from the inside…among other ways to take advantage of this. Not being able to die again is not a super power to them, its a punishment as there is no escape from being tortured to any extreme.
So yeah, you could just summon one of these up, hook them up over a flame pit and slowly carve off chunks which grow back, repeat, with their only way to relief being to tell you what you want to know. Or tie them to a chain and toss them out into a boiling tar pit, slowly pull them back and watch them scream in agony clawing at their own flesh as it won’t grow back till the damage stops; and repeat over and over until the soul of the damned spills all the beans.
I could go on, I mean there are so many horrors to be visited upon bodies like this while in Hell, employ a good torture demon squad.
but again, there should be magic items and spells to compel the souls of the head to speak truth and nothing else anyway; torturing a soul body is just normally…damnation.
Just like how the ‘truth’ serum made Sydney tell the truth?
that is biological side effects. There is more leeway with magic compulsion, especially for non-biologicals or those you can make the biology*or physical structure* and shove the ghost in.
So, you are condoning torturing someone who has already died, on the off chance they might know something you want to know? o_O
Compulsion isn’t torture, they just don’t have a choice. They could no more lie than a dog could speak Russian. But the soul body stuff..
Yes. If they are already condemned to hell they have no rights. Honestly telling the truth and being useful keeps them from going back to hell longer.
magical compulsion is no more torture than a truth serum is.
How the fuck do you manage to make ANIMATED SLAPSTICKS jokes in a COMIC?
It’s amazing!
and next the situation with Concretia and the fact they did arrest a whole boat full of people to question. We saw them tied up on the ground waiting for police pick up.
I do get the impression Cora has been asked this question before regarding being able to question the remains by various local law enforcements across the galaxy.
Hah, League of Maidens. Prepare for the reemergence of the yelly, whiney woketards. You’ll remember them from the incident where some gamers complained that a certain game review organization must have been paid, because the game sucked. The yelly, whiney people claimed that all gamers were racist (or transphobic or sexist or something, it’s hard to keep track anymore), because the game writer was a woman, possibly gay. They’re gonna LOVE this one.
We should let them have the horrid cash grab tech demo. Once they’ve wasted all their time and money on a shitty facsimile of a game they’ll be too broke and emotionally distraught to bother the rest of us. Really, it’s about time that whole movement turned into a ponzi and imploded, so I’m all for this development.
…in which we discover that among Max’s lesser known superpowers is the ability to ask questions from the Discussion Forum…truly a useful thing!
Or maybe the comment section is able to predict what questions Maxima will ask …
We readers and Dave are reasonably genre-aware, and lots of the discussion has focused on the obvious questions which Max is now addressing… That said, there was some 4th-wall breaking in-comic back in the day, so Max having a bit of extra-dimensional knowledge isn’t completely out of the question.
The last panel drawing of Cora is particularly cute!
It’s a legal system, not a justice system.
no. we have courts of law within a justice system. Department of Justice, not Department of Law. Supreme Court Justices, not Supreme Court lawyers.
Watch your words. Just because we gave it a name, doesn’t mean the meaning is there. “What is justice” had been hotly debated at least since the time of Pluto.
Ah yes, back when the poor guy was kicked out of the club of his illuminated peers – in 2006. :D
And as prominent as that example is, other famous individuals were talking about justice over 2 millennia ago.
I dunno. Panel five doesn’t look so much as a telling (guilty) pause as it does that Cora is literally biting her lip to keep from saying something rude and in the next panel Dabbler’s head shake is encouragement to her not to mouth off to Max. The calm reasoning she then provides would probably stand up to an ARCSWAT I.A. review pretty well. Which is why Max switches her argument to, “we would have LIKED to get intel from him.”
I took it as “biting her lip while considering the complex implications of that question and all the relevant strategic details.”
in the general direction of
“I suppose I COULD HAVE, if there were any strategic reason to keep that (untranslatable) slaver alive rather than having the satisfaction of splatting the MFer.”
I think it’s all of the above; Cora is evaluating not only whether to mouth off, but also Max herself and how her response might affect her future relationship with Archon and Earth.
“Why are you asking me that?” – I watched you smash an invading spaceship and grin about it, surely you believe in swift justice.
“Why are you asking me that?” – The answer is obviously yes, but I didn’t. Don’t make me say it or I’ll have to insult your intelligence in return.
“Why are you asking me that?” – I can leave any time I want, and you have to stay here and file reports on anything and everything I say. Why add exponentially more red tape to your life?
+3
But you missed the word “asking”… ;0
lol couldn’t come up with anything that wasn’t essentially just a combination of the others :D
She was waiting while noticing that Dabbler was shaking her head no. As in “tell Maxima no, you couldn’t just stun him.” Instead of “Yes but he was a douchebag so I did not want to.”
Can’t wait to see what Cora has to say about Maxima’s question…
Which one?
Cora is pretty much a “Wild West Justice” type of person.
Because, away from the nice safe planets, it is the wild West out there.
I could name a dozen stories, both well known and obscure, of people having to employ justice with the barrel of a gun. Not many all of them law enforcement.
Still, I can not wait to see Max’s face when she finds out about Cora’s “Littering” charge on the Fracture space station.
My only issue is: how long will it take before someone asks why the weapon she chose to use was loaded with ammo that turns a body into an expanding mass of Italian cuisine in the first place!
You do not want to mess with the Space Mafia. They will make a mess with you.
Cora is not a member of the space mafia. There is no space mafia. What you see is just group of friends that pooled their money and thus was able to buy a fleet of ships and weapons. They use these solely for recreational purposes. Yeah, see?
That… wasn’t meant to be a reference to Cora, or to any other specific character. It started out (badly) framed with Mafia/Italian parallels ‘and-a fals-o Napoli ac-cent’, but those didn’t really stand up as well as the shorter version and (rightly) got edited out. I can see where the misinterpreted context came from, but it is misinterpreted.
Misinterpretations are normal, buddy, so just give Cora a small cut. Aight? Yanno, we have a lot of fires this time ‘a year. She’ll keep it niiice n’ safe for ya.
I just wonder if Maxima is just jealous SHE didn’t get to kill the perp that almost killed Sydney…
Panel 5 Cora was about a second away from giving a very flippant and rude answer to Max’s question, wasn’t she?
Does that mean Dabbler just used… Diplomacy? Like, successfully??
I mean, I’d check her for dopplegangers or psychic parasites, but she’s already both of those things…
Perhaps not diplomacy so much as “don’t poke the bear, not worth the battle.” I think probably a combination of Dabbler respecting Max enough to give her some backing, mixed with her knowledge of both personalities and knowing that no one will be at all happy about the result of Cora deliberately baiting Max. And Cora knows Dabbler well enough to trust her judgement on sidestepping the matter – you don’t live long as a mercenary if you don’t trust your partners.
There are old adventurers, and there are bold adventurers, but…
Yeah, gonna be honest, I am glad that there is at least an addressing of the situation. This series has consistently made it clear that Max is completely against grotesque and needless acts of violence (even if she can get a little too in the moment herself, it’s the morals that count here). I’m sure Dabbler learned this same lesson once upon a time, adopting her more non-lethal weaponry in response, as I’m sure that left to her own devices she would be just as lethal. Point being: Cora needs to be brought in line and play by Earth rules, and keep the stun rounds loaded BY DEFAULT.
Stun rounds programmed for whom? A stun round for a blaxgrh could kill a base-line human (and probably lobotomize any super other than Les, and maybe Maxi)
Normally I’d agree, but when you can build an Unwinder that unwinds the target and only the target, with no risk of collateral damage, you can make a “smart” stun round that delivers measured stunning too.
The universal stun or tranq dart is an almost universal blunder in shows , movies, and other media. Anyone who knows tranqs can tell you almost every time you see them used in a show or movie would most likely have killed the person they were used on. They have to be adjusted for metabolism and weight a 160 pound man hit by one intended for a grizzly bear, you better be in the emergency room asap because that is going to be one dead man real quick. Same for shocking, paralysis poisons, so many animals are more resilient than others, some even differ from others in their own weight class due to natural defenses against specific toxins.
That said Cora could scan and adjust for human biology although that is another prep issue. But one she could have set to teleport the right weapon before engaging.
Same goes for alternatives like blunt force consciousness removal – you can’t whack a featherweight, a meat shield, and a bear with the same impact and get the same results. Different strokes for different folks.
+1 for this post :)
Plus another +1 for the MegaMind link.
From this comic, I’m guessing that Max isn’t so much pissed about Cora killing Sid’s abductor/attacker as she is about being unable to subject him to ‘advanced interrogation’ so that she can do terrible things to the rest of them.
You mean… the rest of them that Sydney and Cora captured on the Swan Princess?
Now if it was Sciona her questions would be …
“That round sounds usefull” rught after “did you bring a doggy bag back?”
Armed services and police have “Rules of Engagement” that express a policy, in advance, on what response is appropriate for a given level of demonstrated threat and/or hostility. Rules of Engagement are a place holder for another concept called “Due Process.” Following the Rules of Engagement is supposed to leave adversaries alive to face Due Process provided that that’s reasonable and tactically sound.
But mercenary treasure-hunters don’t really have Rules of Engagement as such. If anything Cora may have been acting according to her Rules of Enragement, which are a different thing.
Also, cop Rules of Engagement (ROE) are very different from standard military ROE. Archon seems to be straddling a middle ground between the two.
Cora’s Rules of Engagement aren’t anywhere close to any of the above. She probably HAS dealt with such situations before, so was ready with a quick answer. She doesn’t want to fight Max, and Max doesn’t want to fight her, but she did save Sydney and didn’t massacre the boatload of goons, so… I dunno.
She is a merc, so any successful mercenary does have rules that they have to follow or they don’t get work. Said rules might be flexible, they have to exist or no one will hire them. She SHOULD be held accountable for firing a weapon in the district of New York. I wouldn’t want to be the poor slob trying to prosecute her since 1) She isn’t FROM Earth and 2) She didn’t kill anyone except the guy who had captured, interrogated, slapped and was about to kill Sydney.
Yes, Cora made a hell of a mess. She probably had some super high tech means of quick cleaning besides the goop she gave Sydney. It would only make SENSE not to leave lot of evidence behind and yes, lasagna that used to be human is evidence. Disgusting evidence.
I bet, like Dabbler, she has done things that are far outside the bounds of legal, but she either hasn’t been caught or has shot her way out. She doesn’t want to shoot her way out here. She probably could, but which side would Dabbler be on that case? Food for thought.
There is no reasonable charge to be made against Cora, even if the NY DA were stupid enough to attempt a prosecution.
Before the DA gets finished writing up the charge, he will have noticed that the NY law definition of “firearm” does not in any way cover what Cora used. Not even close, not even with a judge who WANTS to find the defendant guilty. The judge would AHVE to dismiss such a charge as a matter of law.
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/265.00#:~:text=%22Firearm%22%20means%20(a),otherwise%20if%20such%20weapon%20as
3. “Firearm” means (a) any pistol or revolver; or (b) a shotgun having one or more barrels less than eighteen inches in length; or (c) a rifle having one or more barrels less than sixteen inches in length; or (d) any weapon made from a shotgun or rifle whether by alteration, modification, or otherwise if such weapon as altered, modified, or otherwise has an overall length of less than twenty-six inches; or (e) an assault weapon. For the purpose of this subdivision the length of the barrel on a shotgun or rifle shall be determined by measuring the distance between the muzzle and the face of the bolt, breech, or breechlock when closed and when the shotgun or rifle is cocked; the overall length of a weapon made from a shotgun or rifle is the distance between the extreme ends of the weapon measured along a line parallel to the center line of the bore. Firearm does not include an antique firearm.
Nor can they ticket her for jaywalking or parking violations, but somehow I doubt that NY has laws about only ‘firearms’ and not any about ‘weapons’, ‘assault’, ‘manslaughter‘, ‘murder’, and any and all combinations of the above.
Though it occurs to me, a ticket for littering may actually be pursuable given the mess she made.
which is ironicly the same ticket she got on the fracture XD
Fracture, NYC… What odds Cora keeps a collection of her ‘littering’ citations as a journal of her travels?
Cora would have to hand over her gun to prove it doesn’t fit any of the definitions in that law.
If it has a full-auto mode, which it likely does, it’s a machine gun, period – and possession of machine guns is illegal.
I don’t think Archon will throw her under the bus like that though.
>>> or (e) an assault weapon.
You missed this one. U.S. laws often have such a catch-all at the bottom of their clauses in order to screw anyone who thinks they can get away on a technicality. “Assault weapon” is exceptionally ill-defined in U.S. law. You see, military ordinance and “assault weapons” are not the same thing, therefore the strict military definition doesn’t apply. This gives the DA a lot of leeway on who they want to charge.
It’s totally bogus and definitely violates the 2nd amendment – but good luck getting SCOTUS to hear your case. The DA will dismiss their suit if you decide to take it to a circuit judge. Corruption at its finest.
No, Max definitely did not give Cora the go-ahead to engage (beyond babysitting tourists, and then babysitting prisoners). In fact, she told her to stay out of it precisely because Cora isn’t authorized to be involved in Archon / Earth business.
To recap: Cora came with the team to Times Square after Ray’s ship landed. The team’s missions was merely to observe and keep tags on the tourists. Cora and Dabbler volunteered themselves to help with the fight after Max got trapped in the stasis beam, and Dabbler reminded Cora they were supposed to keep things non-lethal, to which Cora replied that her multi-barreled gun had variable lethality. Which she chose not to utilize.
The only other conversation even alluded to between Max and Cora between the fight kick-off and this now is that Cora was standing guard duty with Ray and grumbling because they’re “not ‘qualified law enforcement professionals'”, which sounds like pretty specific directive to not do anything else but babysit. Cora ignored Max’s directive to rescue Sydney, which is justifiable, but there’s absolutely no way to pin Cora’s massacre onto Max’s leadership.
Who the hael is blaming (or pinning) it on Maxi’s (lack of) leadership?
‘Variable lethality’ is still lethal, as demonstrate by the modern art that use to be Lord Lasagne
And Cora OBVIOUSLY chose to use variable lethality. The high one, that efficiently ended the fight against three opponents in a single shot with only one selected casualty, the one most likely to cause death to the hostage.
Dang, that was supposed to be response to the last thread on pg 1, where someone asserted:
My point was, Max did not give a ‘go-ahead’ at any point. Once the fighting started, Dabbler reminded her to keep it non-lethal. After the first batch of fighters was tied up, Cora was sidelined with a reminder that she wasn’t local law enforcement. Yay for rescuing Sydney, but clearly anything she did there wasn’t under Max/Archon’s direction.
Knew it was a response to somewhere, just wasn’t sure where (almost thought it was a response to me)
I did. Maxima’s been an ineffective leader throughout this entire sequence and that’s WHY the situation led to such brutal bloodshed. Failure to communicate leading to Sydney’s peril notwithstanding. My response is here:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-923-telling-pause-much/comment-page-1/#comment-882686
Panel 5 has got to be one of my favorites. Just the whole tone of it.
I love the face she makes in panel five all the more because I have seen people make it before. XD
ARC SWAT is not civilian law enforcement, they are explicitly military. Yes, they are using a technicality to sidestep Posse Comitatus, but this is a questionable thing to do in the American context. ARC SWAT is very new and probably dubious in the eyes of a lot of the public. Despite Max repeatedly saying that worrying about public perception is Ariane’s job, not her’s, Max is in fact concerned with the “optics”. That, I think, is mainly why she is chewing out Cora over “Rules of Engagement” (since Cora wasn’t supposed to be “engaging” in the first place). Cora saved Sydney, enabled the possible recruitment of Concretia, and captured a ship full of bad guys. But splattering Mr. Hood (whom Max might agree had it coming) is going to look bad for ARC SWAT.
Archon is as much military as the Coast Guard
Posse Comitaus only applies to military branches specifically mentioned under the law. Sidestepping the law by adding new branches is obviously bogus but so much of American law is like this today.
For example, the Copyright Term Extension Act. Sounds good and proper. Except extending any preexisting federal legislation explicitly violates the constitution’s ban on post ex facto laws. You could say it’s extending the copyright itself rather than the copyright law. But by that logic I could pass a law making all jail sentences 200 years and say it’s extending the criminal’s jail sentence and not the law’s actual punishment. Anyone with half a brain would understand how nonsensical this is, and unfortunately, nearly every federal law now contains this halfass bullshit.
Now may be a good time for Cora to smile and say, “The intel you wish to have gotten from Lord Lasagna may be found from two fleeing mooks who are being tracked by my drones, and a variety of Prisoners Of The Swan Boat”.
She’s smiling already …
+1
*adds ‘Prisoners of the Swan Boat’ to list of band names *
Cora’s theme music for this page should be “Oops, I did it again”
“Did I do that?~”
This phrase urks me.
Maxima is still making a valid point though…The more of him that could have remained solid would have been easier to learn more about him (&who he was, where he came from, etc) through Forensics. Best that the lab technicians can get now, in his current state (which is flowing downhill…you know, as a current), is blood type, maybe some DNA info…But if Law Enforcement doesn’t have any records from prior encounters they still wouldn’t be able to identify him.
Cora specifically told Dabbler that her ordinance in the gun she was wielding was variable as to lethality. She choose that particular round ON PURPOSE, because someone threatened Sydney. She is just lying to Max as directed to, by Dabbler. Well, and because she likes to (remember the thugs in the dyson sphere).
I see it thusly; Max wasn’t going to drop this and her friend (Dabbler) warned her with the subtle head shake not to mess with Max the way she messes with the cops back home. So Cora gave Max an answer that while it may be unpalatable is acceptable therefore allows the situation to be de-escalated.
Honestly and depending on the level of realism desired, everyone is going to learn something from this. From Sydney letting her guard down to Max screwing around on the battlefield. And those who actually did what they were trained to do should get commendations. What gets said to Maxima by Foulk behind closed doors is the business of the author not me.
Personal mileage will vary of course.
My only comment is that Dabbler needed to use her cleanup cantrip on Sidney.
I think that’s going to “take a lot more than a cantrip“.
While not trying to make light of this situation, do hope that this* is Sydney’s ‘Gwen Stacy’ moment and learns to take this whole thing more seriously (or at least knows when to turn the jokes off)
*rather than someone she actually cares about
or realizes her weakness was obvious, that just because the orbs are Nth level tech is no guarantee of her own safety when caught off guard, and that she is a Team member only type of super hero who needs to have someone watching her back on missions.
Yeah, she’s Support Class, not Attack Class
A better defense Cora could make for her actions is that she had no reasonable method to gauge the effectiveness of her weapons in the time available to her. It was an unknown assailant with unknown abilities and powers posing an imminent threat. (The threat she mentioned.) Given that he could have been super tough or had some sort of protective magical protection, she took the shot with what she had loaded rather than gamble on something lesser.
And it would have still been a gamble. Would the same bullet have harmed Maxima at all? Likely not. Sure, most of the super-tough humans have been massively jacked, but that’s no guarantee this didn’t have a super-power, or magic, or something else.
The only ‘defense’ Cora needs, is the one she gave in panel two: Sydney’s life was in imminent danger
That’s it, arguing about what ammo she used is just being pedantic and a prick (not saying that you arguing about the ammo dude)
Right. The fact that she really had no way of knowing if Mr. Lasagna was a normal or super is just the frosting on the cake. “I was loaded for bear, and I had no way of knowing before I shot him that he wasn’t a bear. All I knew was that he was about to murder somebody.”
+1
I said essentially that yesterday. She did know was going up against an enslaved super, against whom the unhindered would only have been a delaying action.
This particular situation is a bit stickier than that, because Cora was already given the suggestion of using non-leathal munitions. (Page 912.) So why was she still loaded for bear as a default?
Furthermore, given that the munition was something that likely breaks the Geneva Convention (Not that Cora would know or care about that.) in a wildly imaginative manner; it suggests, at least, the possibility of Cora having something equally wild and effective, but non-leathal. (Maxima herself being the victim of a stasis beam.) So questioning the reasoning behind splattering a guy and what bullet was used still seems reasonable to me.
Against an armed assailant, you always shoot to kill. When dealing with a bad guy that has used torture, kidnapping and is pointing a gun at Syd, it’s time to put away any Batman ideals, and get out your Judge Dread realities.
Batman pulled a pin on a guy’s grenades and kicked him down a shaft, roasted a guy with the exhaust of the batmobile, and if not for crappy aim did try to gun down the Joker.
I assume you mean kid show Batmans and not movie Batmans though.
Honestly aside from the DC animated universe (and Adam West show) most versions of Batman I’ve seen don’t really shy away from killing in the heat of battl
Even the original comic Blatman had him killing people (that was the original fate of The Joker, until he proved popular enough to bring back, the poor soul that was literally hung from below the Blat-plane wasn’t so lucky)
Judge Dredd, required that he really wanted to save the hostage, would have used an immediatetly-disabling killshot. No several-second-delay.
“Sidney’s life was in imminent danger, so I used a bullet that wait three seconds before to kill the target”
Yeah, that is perfectly logical.
It is. We don’t know the limitations of that tech or why it waits 3 seconds before detonating. Assuming malice because someone uses a less efficient way to kill is dubious at best. It makes me doubt your morals.
Just went back and reread the goopy part of the story.
I have to take back some of what I said a bit ago. Cora knew exactly what she was doing. She even brought up the fact that Max suggested she use non-lethal ordinance.
So her attitudes are a lot more like Punisher or Dredd than I was remembering. Bad guy? *Phhhhbbbtttt* Not anymore.
I suppose simple DNA scanning can let those she takes contracts from that the job is done.
Just once I would like to see Max, Dabbler and Cora confront an enemy that’s enough of a threat to break through that insufferable arrogance of them. Just once I would love to see them actually worry.
I think Ka-Pants Kevin had Max worried.
Not that much: when Sidney had Dabbler distract him by jumping up and down, her reaction was not:’Whew, I may get out of this.’ or something like that. instead it was: ‘I’m conflicted.’ When somebody’s basically thinking, do I want to be saved this way? it’s not really a sign of worry.
Maxima was also weighing a gamble, if she could lower her defense just enough that she would take some damage but also be able to raise either strength or energy to get him off of her. She had her armor so high up that it gave Vehemence (and anyone watching the news feed like Sciona) the false impression electricity lowered her strength. when it was just the timing of it.
I was just re reading the page and thought to myself… how do you tell if someone is glaring slowly? There’s virtually no movement aside from small eyebrow motion, and I tried moving them slower and it feels and looks wierd…
Cora wasn’t in much of a hurry to save Sydney.
She shot the bandit with a delayed explosion bullet then had a little chat with him. He could have murdered Sydney as many times as he wanted during that time.
She actually put Sydney in more danger, because people with guns usually start shooting when they feel threatened.
I hope there will be at least some consequences for Cora being a sadist psychopath.
What gun? His firearm was dropped when Cora shot him
How did she know he would drop?
What if he flinched and shot Sydney?
Cora took too many risks just to amuse herself with murder.
For some reason ya’ll think she’s malicious because she didn’t kill him in the most efficient way possible. Makes me think we have a lot of sadists and psychopaths on this forum.