Grrl Power #936 – What’s blue, horny, and wet all over?
I’ll admit, this page might be a little gratuitous, but I haven’t drawn anyone showering for quite some time. I mean, I haven’t drawn anyone showering in the comic. I’ve done several shower scenes in the vote incentives. Maybe the next wet and wild superheroines I draw will be under a waterfall. Just to mix it up.
I thought wet blue alien babe would be fun. Look, there are wet lady drawing quotients that you non-comic drawing people would know nothing about.
Achilles thinks he’s getting away with something here, but Detla is obviously humoring him. She just showed up and demanded training, and figures she can put up with a little bikini party if that helps balance the scales. Plus, as she said, she looks goooo-ood in that getup.
Honestly, I think the weirdest thing about this page is that as Detla is roughly 5’6″ without those heels on, that would mean that the part of the pool she’s standing is is like 3 feet deep, tops. That seems really shallow since this is a custom built pool for underwater training, and isn’t designed to accomodate kids like a hotel pool would be. We’ve seen the interior of the pool back when they were figuring out what the green orb did, and there are tiers to it. The average depth of that first tier is probably closer to 4 or 5 feet deep. Let’s say 4 and a half. I guess Detla is standing right by the stairs.
The new vote incentive is up! I tried something different this month – instead of doing one well painted picture with a bunch of dress variants, I wanted to tell a bit of a story. Hopefully it makes sense without any dialog or sound effects. So, instead of one picture, you guys are getting nine. Well, you are over at Patreon. The vote incentive is just the first one. And yes, Pixel is bendy enough to do a full on T&A pose.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Told you you can’t tech invulnerability…
Teach
Water can be deadly, if you wear heavy clothing, and it gets soaked. That makes it even heavier and you can easily over exert yourself and drown before getting to safety. Learnt invulnerability requires teaching you about how to overcome your vulnerabilities through intelligent strategy. Like wearing the right clothes for the right environment.
Most places it is a nice suit of ultra-heavy invulnerable armour. Here it is a bikini.
Which we know to also have an ultra high defence factor, given how many armour types are made in that style.
This is a superhero comic. There is always a reason for skimpy clothes and armor.
For some it is cheap and because their body has better protection than any armor. It is just a matter of preventing the enemy from grabbing your clothing or trying to find clothing that can withstand (Super villain attack of week) and how much most costly it will be trying to replace your clothing.
But for them? Well since they get sales figures it is also done to help sell merchandise.
“Learnt invulnerability.”
A perfect synonym for Iron Body training.
*headpats*
Good boy, Yorpie. Good boy!
Uhhh, Curse of the Azure Bonds had an explanation about how the magic protected the abdomen as if the chain mail bikini whasername was wearing was a full suit of armor.
This is literally the first time I’ve seen a reference to Azure Bonds in two decades. It seems like a forgotten book. I’d love to see a modern game be done with it. Dragonbait forever!
A forgotten book from forgotten realms.
To be fair, Forgotten Realms was way back in AD&D 2nd Edition. They’re up to 5th Edition already so it’s not hard to imagine how forgotten that the Forgotten Realms are at this point. Heck, I still have the original Boxed Sets of D&D, plus most of the hardback books for 1st Edition AD&D (World of Greyhawk); these were before the Forgotten Realms setting.
I still have the crayon that was issued to colour in the numbers on the dice. In ye olde edition.
Still have the red Basic box
To be fair: Achilles didn’t beat her JUST by using invulnerability. He did genuinely subdue her using skills that can be taught.
Granted, she’s probably skilled enough of a warrior already that with a good instructor she could probably learn everything Achilles could possibly teach her within a few weeks and master it with not much more practice/training, so Achilles doesn’t really have THAT much he can teach her. Specific techniques, especially ones taking advantage of your unique advantages (in his case being completely invincible), can be taught, and adapted, by a warrior, if they are taught properly.
…Achilles is…not someone who’s gonna be good at teaching properly tho.
And to also be fair to Achiles his “style” seems to involve trying to have as much fun as you can while doing your job. And she seems like the type that forgets about fun.
this could be more valuable that more combat training if she has a habit of forgetting fun.
Bree: “…she could probably learn everything Achilles could possibly teach her within a few weeks and master it with not much more practice/training…”
Might that could be why Achilles isn’t in any hurry to teach her anything useful to her yet? Being a normal human male, I can understand why he might want her to be hanging around as long as possible.
Achilles is completely invulnerable. Invincible means unable to be defeated, and as we’ve seen, Achilles is quite vincible. He can be restrained or removed from the battle (hurled into orbit, or just the next county; teleported away; etc.). It’s just that anything that requires causing harm won’t work, so tear gas, flash-bangs, electric shock, pain compliance, chemical and biological (and nuclear, for that matter) attacks, as well as brute force that isn’t aimed at using Newton’s third law to knock him away, isn’t going to do any good at all.
Sydney is capable of beating Achilles, with no real training in fighting, in about 12 seconds.
Use the hentorb … er… lighthook…. to bind him up. Drop him in a pit that he can’t climb out of, or put him in a jail cell. Sydney wins.
I wonder if the Lighthook is also elastic? That way, Sydney could make it into a giant slingshot that fires “smart” (Achilles) missiles.
So far it’s been shown to have an exceedingly long reach from what we saw in the Vehemence fight. No idea if it has a limit though. If it does, the limit might be alterable from adding more pips (as well as increasing it’s strength, the amount of lighthooks that can be made simultaneously, making lighthooks INSIDE the shield, etc.)
Both reach and flexibility.
defeated is any action that removes the combatant from the fight. Being tied up, buried under rubble, thrown in a jail cell, a hole, hurled off the battlefield, all count as defeated. All Achilles is without other powers is the guy you have to ring out to beat, like that Winnie the Pooh thing whose name I forget from Dragon Ball Super. Good chance he could beat a weaker opponent with a bearhug other grappling move, but if they go against a stronger opponent who is sufficiently stronger all they become is an aggravating annoyance like a bug you try to squash but it keeps getting back up.
I guess… though those skills would never beat Detla in any circumstance where the person using them wasn’t invulnerable…
It could be a uniform used for traning Math! Speaking of which, surprised he isn’t there …
His spidey sense must be broken!
his inet permission slip is saturating the senses. if they make as much as it appears they do he can probably afford memberships at ‘censored’, ‘Really censored’, ‘Oh my god!’, and ‘no… just no’.
Don’t forget the next stage…”I need Brain Bleach™ & Intra-Cranial Sandpaper™” level.
Or a bigger target is at work
She sure is lucky Math didnt beat her.
Math has Jabberwocky (I assume now she’s free of Dabbler). I can see those two being a battle couple
Achilles! No exploiting the blue alien warrior babe.
Exploiting? Training. Yup, yup. I can see him working diligently. Keep it up.
Yeah, Maxima isn’t buying that, and neither am I. Say it with me, Achilles. Sex.u.al ha.rass.ment. One of Max’s hot buttons.
Actually it is not sexual harassment if the individual involved (and any bystanders) are not bothered. Which Delta clearly indicates she is fine with it, and there is nobody else around other than Maxima herself, who is made of sterner stuff. She probably does not approve of it, on principle, but she does not feel harassed by their behaviour.
Although she probably will want to stomp down on the use of the phrase “free butler girlfriend”. Which is a shame, as it is the most awesome thing that Achilles has done in the comic.
Plus Maxima might be a bit concerned about the logic behind informally incarcerating prisoners in the pool.
Is he exploiting her honour-driven desire for training, and/or is she exploiting his hormone-driven desire to see (or imagine seeing) her mostly-undressed?
If everyone is gets exploited, then no one is exploited……..
I mean, I could see an advanced alien civilization who has embraced true gender equality saying that. But it is a stretch to think that Max would accept it.
We’ve seen something like that before, or at least very close. When the old saying about “a woman should be like a lady in the parlour, a maid in the living room, a chef in the kitchen…” cropped up over dinner, Maxima and Dabbler evidently interpreted it in very different ways. Max concentrated on the limiting and prescriptive ‘and only those things’ interpretation, while Dabbler took it as ‘striving to excel in all she does’. To quote, “It only has that power over women if they let it”.
I suspect equality (of gender and other measures) in society and in language is something of a chicken-and-egg situation. Certainly the fact that there are still some skews in our own society at large should not prevent us personally acting and speaking as if the differences are for the most part as unimportant as they are inevitable, as if we were comparing blonde to brown hair. It’s very easy for language to lead perception to lead action, and we should be leading those towards differentiated parity rather than entrenched protectionism.
It’s easier to imagine perfection than to chart a course to get there. The systems we have are circularly reinforcing, each necessitating the others, so any place you pick to start you have to fight over with a bunch of people who are invested in the system as is, and don’t want to risk change. It’s hard to separate out what’s actually intrinsic from what’s merely a social construction when people aren’t willing to try. If something can’t be changed, then there’s little reason to fight so hard to prevent it from changing.
I think Achilles isn’t just quantum locked (whatever) to an 80s version of him, I think he is quantum locked to an 80s-TV version of him! Was he on “The Fall Guy” by any chance?
No, “The A-Team” and “Battlestar Galactica” (the good version), you are thinking of the “Six Million Dollar Man”
No, I was thinking of The Fall Guy as that had a lot more fan service.
Hmmm … Heather Thomas
Thought you got confused on which actor Les was initially modelled on :(
Heather Thomas? Thought her name was Locklear…
Detlas body has a high floating coefficient (or however that is called), so no worries there. Achilles on the other hand hass …. Invulnerability against sinking in water?
Yep. Profile states he can’t be suffocated
That’s not what that joke meant to be…
Wouldn’t be the first time a joke went over my head … :(
Just be sure not to listen to jokes when in water then. ;-)
I think that might be more due to something like Fighter from 8 bit theater. The Drownball Champion!
Floating coefficient would be an effect of density. Specific gravity (density of object compared to density of water) determines how much will sit above the water line, which would put her specific gravity at ~.40. As such, she’d weigh approximately sixty to eighty pounds (assuming she’s mostly muscle compared to an equivalent human woman). ‘Course, the human female center of mass is higher than the water line, so I’d think she’d capsize, unless she has particularly dense feet.
…Well, dense feet & legs perhaps. Or, as the modern term goes, “THICC.” But as DaveB already pointed out, Detla is standing on one of the underwater tiers at about 3′ depth, so she’s not floating at this level.
However, from what we could all see on the previous page, Detla’s legs & feet are lean & athletic, not THICC. I mean, just looking at this page “lean & athletic” is obvious (deliciously so).
While not an expert on the common vernacular, I would assume ‘THICC’ to indicate physical volume rather than absolute mass. The main reason I suggested feet over legs is that we haven’t seen them, they’ve had shoes, so it’s possible that they’re some variant of hoof or other high density material compared to the human one.
I would also say that Achilles standing across from her indicated similar effects, IE: standing on the pool floor, as he most definitely doesn’t have low density.
If Dave is looking for an excuse for the shallow pool, I would say it’s for training a water landing, so the water is just high enough to be an impediment, but not high enough to reduce the load of a pack full of battle rattle.
Low density is what that is called, and not likely or she’d weigh maybe 40 pounds.
Her human disguise is exceptionally good.
Yes. Although I have not met many blue humans. I think Achilles needs to keep examining it, to see if there are any other flaws.
I thought that she had weird Alien feet which we are conveniently not seeing.
Blue skin, horns, and sexy. Go DAMN I would kill to take his place and get me someone like that. :)
Why… is the beach ball full of water?
I think the water in Panel 2 is from Detla pulling her hand out of the pool really quickly in order to hit the ball, spraying water everywhere.
This is a superhero comic. Of course you need to draw fanservice.
And here we go. This should get real interesting with Max involved.
When the boss is not happy…
When the boss is the most powerful super on the planet (After Sydney!)…
When the boss is a super powered cop…
Um…
Yeah.
Achilles is invulnerable, yes. Invincible? Hardly. I am waiting to see Max drop kick him.
Other than ejecting him from the city, that would not accomplish much. Then Max might have to waste time tracking him down and digging him out of whatever rubble he ended up buried under. Then paying compensation to the owners of whatever the rubble used to be. Then spending time in prison for all the people killed and injured in the atrocity.
Meanwhile Achilles would be completely unaffected and probably behaving just as badly as ever.
I’m quite sure there are experiments in their past to prove to Maxima’s satisfaction that he is frustratingly and properly invulnerable. Just because we haven’t seen her drop kick him doesn’t mean she hasn’t done it – possibly aiming higher than and decidedly away from population centers (think kicking him hard enough to put him into low earth orbit, but aiming for a path that traces over the pacific, then over Antarctica, then the Atlantic, so that she would have time to fly up and over to catch him if she couldn’t quite get him into orbit or perhaps kicked a bit too hard and he reached escape velocity.
The “heel” on THIS Achilles is a rocket ship orbiting the Sun.
Put’s him out of everyone else’s misery, which is the point…
Shades of Warren Ellis’s Planetary, specifically how Elijah Snow got rid of Jacob Greene: marooned on a non-working vessel headed out of the solar system. Shudder.
I wouldn’t say he’d be “completely unaffected”. I’m sure he’d be updating his bucket list to include ‘get drop-kicked by Maxima while wearing a wingsuit‘.
*a PHONE rings*
Norad?
what is this thing you have launched?
you mean the small unit currently over the Atlantic? *coordinates and vector given*
yes looks small for a cruise missile.
Achilles has been drop kicked by Maxima AGAIN. this time he was wearing a wingsuit.
tell him to land in Europe then. or turn back. we will stick him in a vat of 5 minute epoxy before we send him back in if he tries to over fly us AGAIN.
understood sir.
@DaveB; some pools are built so the bottom can be raised or lowered.
So this pool is currently set to shallow for teaching people to swim and fun, yet could also be lowered deep enough for SCUBA and deep water training.
I didn’t think anyone still did the Georgian-era military parole.
To be fair, Achilles is Achilles
That.. Also revalidation. Given the accidnet-prone nature of the job….
I know quite a few pools who have exactly such a depth-adjustable floor. You can just roll up the wheelchairs, then sink to desired depth..
Also some specialised non-fun pools used for testing ( often quite heave out of the water…) offshore/underwater equipment…
Just have to say, looking at the vote incentive. Ow… her spine. OW!
Other than that, nice.
Just… ow.
The author did comment on that, in his blog, when the vote incentive was published. She is unusually flexible.
Well, my cats can do that, pretty easily. They do happen to be Ragdolls, but I think I’ve seen normal house cats do the same. Whether it extends to jaguars is beyond me, but it sure makes sense that she would be more flexible than a normal human.
Aww, I just read up on Ragdoll cats and they sound wonderful! Very similar behaviour to one of my three cats, in terms of docility, friendliness and tendency to go limp when picked up.
She also has zero sense of personal space, which can be both super awesome and terrifying. When she is being affectionate, she will rub her face against mine (or anyone else for that matter) and she loves stroking faces with her paw.
Which becomes terrifying if her paw is touching your eyeballs, when one of her sisters, or anything else, alarms her and her claws spring out!
Likewise for my landlady when she had a nightmare that an Alien face-hugger was attacking her, only to wake up and find it happening in reality! Then realising that it was actually Miss Kitty laying on her face, with paws either side of her head. That suffocating feeling is less than fun.
She also gave us the Dabbler-Approved T&A pose from back when they were investigating Sciona(‘s head on a troll body).
Sign me up for a free butler girlfriend too. Blue is fine.
I’ll have one in chrome!
What’s Maxima going to say or do to those two?
Train the blue girl and put Achilles on pool cleaning duty.
Achilles may be invulnerable to all kinds of physical damage, but he’s not invulnerable to disciplinary action.
Max will give him a toothbrush for that…
Achilles would probably take it in stride. That might be something new even for him so he would even enjoy it.
She’s probably going to read him the riot act for bring her in the way he did without actually consulting the boss. I also imagine there was a distinct lack of procedure/protocol following involved in this entire situation. Because this is happy-go-lucky 24/7 nonchalant Achilles we’re talking about.
Try a lot gratuitous. Which is half the comic and most of the premise, but anyhow.
And, I’d build pools for underwater training inside. Much less hassle, and means the thing is available for underwater training any time of year, regardless of the weather.
But would lack adequate training for how to deal with fliers when in water. Which in a modern military environment is actually very important. Whereas they can easily heat up the water. Heatwave springs to mind, amongst others. Plus Archon is not exactly strapped for cash, so simple technology could do the trick too.
Which would be justifiable cost wise mind, given that we have already seen that the pool is used for both testing super powers and training, over and above the obvious morale boosting activities and exercising options. If you can customise testing and training environments, you can simulate a much wider variety of situations.
Finally it is a lot easier to put a temporary cover over an outdoors pool, such as a pavilion, to protect against snow or the like, than it is to flip the top off a building to allow air-sea training.
“Air-Sea training”? That’s “field trip to Mariana Trench” time, really. The fliers can carry the swimmers.
” Justifiable, cost wise”. (Looks at first panel) Yes…justifiable, let’s go with that.
Rooftop pools actually are fairly easy to justify on a cost basis. They serve as a water tank for your sprinkler system, which is why they’re surprisingly common in hotels.
I really appreciate the attention to detail.
She says that she likes the outfit, so I go back to panel 4 to look closer. Oh, there are little metal rings, that’s a bit fancy. Wait, why are the strings slack? They’re not slack in panel 1, that’s good… oh, her arms are crossed under her boobs out of frame (as in panel 3) lifting them up slightly, that’s why!
There is always benefit to looking for the small details in this comic. And looking again.
And coming back late at night every now and then, in case you missed something?
And then again a few more times during the next day…Say, whenever going to the bathroom with a large-screen IPad (for reading material, of course).
I was just looking back to when Detla first showed up. On about the same page, when Dabbler and Cora were debating who would get to “loot the body”, boss lady Lapha declared “There will be no body!” Unexpectedly accurate, the way things turned out. Also, my theory as to why Detla is not in a cell somewhere is that Dabbler and Cora are well aware of her warrior code, and they thought it would be funny to let her go, just to watch things play out. Sort like how they first introduced Max to Ray. With those two true blue friends, I can’t decide who is the bad influence on who.
I think it is a jointly-reinforcing downward spiral.
…Right down into the proverbial gutter…
I have a theory about the average intelligence of a group. It does not increase as you add more members, but actually decreases. When members of the opposite sex are involved… it does so at an exponential rate. What you would not do on your own, becomes MUCH easier when you are surrounded by other idiots egging you on. So yes, together they are going to cause massive mayhem. Had Dabbler been there at the Sydney rescue… I think there would have been a need for massive repairs to the building.
Eh, even with deep water training, you still want a shallow area where you can stand up. Some folks are thalassophobic, and might panic at early training stages. Plus if you’re gonna have a pool, have a bit you can bounce beach balls in.
Not only that, but having a stretch of hip-deep water for training would also be valuable – moving around with your legs in water is tough, and you don’t want your team to get caught off-guard by having to fight in a half flooded room, or a river somewhere.
Really, they should probably also have a wave pool too. For training purposes.
I’d imagine they could have a pool with adjustable floor for various purposes – as long as you’re not looking for the floor you’re touching to be water tight, you have it move slowly enough and put the water through various ports/drains underneath the raised floor.
Whether you want deep or shallow training, or whether it’s more for a water volleyball game, you set the level of the floor to it’s purpose. The actual container for the water is probably not even concrete, since they definitely have a person that can make invulnerable cloth, it may be rather helpful in creating something like MSE, but with concrete.
Hmmm…. Alien vote incentive… bikini edition? :D
Be careful what you wish for. DaveB might draw an Umbrivion in a bikini.
I upvote this if we also get to see Pinky in one!
Been in several Dive training pools where the bottom of the pool is adjustable. IE the bottom of the pool moves up and down like an elevator.
I’m not saying I’m against a little T&A, but at some point we will get to see what Sydney spent her point on. Right?
Activate the last orb.
It’s probably not an Omega 13.
(Which sounds like a dietary supplement.)
it was, it just gave time and space the hiccups
Why is Max wearing a Vietnam-era boonie hat? Where’d she get it? There are contemporary boonie hats, but they don’t much look like that…
It makes her look like Carl Spackler.
If I recall correctly Max covers up around the pool mostly to keep from blinding everyone around her with her reflectivity
Yeah, Max in a bikini would be a dazzling sight.
Not that it answers either of your questions, but she’s worn this same hat before.
As a boonie hat wearer I would also point out that they are still a thing. I didn’t have the privilege of serving but I will invest in some milsurp. A good boonie will protect your head and ears from sunburn. They are washable and nowhere near as fragile as a felt hat. I could legitimately wear a western style hat but I’m not willing to invest the time get one broken in to the point where I don’t look like a drug store cowboy and I don’t particularly like the taco fold style that the local ranch hands wear. The point is boonie hats are practical and not too ostentatious. That would appeal to Max. Although she does appear to be color matching with her wetsuit.
I don’t know if it’s supposed to be or is even designed as a ‘training pool’.
It’s in his house so it’s more likely his own private ‘enjoying’ pool and since he can’t drown, it doesn’t really matter how deep it is, just deep enough to swim in would be plenty and to make sure his female guests had their top halves out of the water more often ;)
Dave said in the author blurb that it was the Archon pool.
I’m thinking it’s a high-tech adjjustable-depth pool. Ideal for all sorts of… training.
Okay I guess I was wrong that Max would know about this. Maybe it was Arianna who signed off on it, not Maxima.
That makes two of us.
*ponders*
…I am curious as to what Dave is playing at…
Either Ariana signed off on it or Irradon did, since he’s the Council member in charge of all extraterrestrial stuff?
That’s my new guesses.
Three of us
Was just about to comment on that, but decided to read the comments first to see if anyone else commented on it
Doubt either Ari or Irra would have done that without informing Maxi first, General Faulke on the other flipper…
Irradon might have. He works for the Council, not Archon, and probably would have alerted Faulk and/or Arianna as part of their treaty. And Faulk would be the one to alert Maxima, as her commanding officer.
I want to say that Achilles’ behavior would be… inappropriate, were he not so incredibly chill. Like, he obviously isn’t taking this any more seriously than he takes anything else. It’s cute that it amuses Detla to play along.
Though it wouldn’t surprise me all that much if there was actually some serious element under this. He may be trying to get her to loosen up a bit so that she can integrate into the team, so that she can actually train with them. She’s going to have a hard time following along if she can’t tell what’s serious and what’s just them goofing off.
The fact is, one learnable part of his fighting style is exactly what he is doing here… using distraction to throw off the opponents. Detla is not trying to learn what he is trying to teach, because she doesn’t realize it’s important. Which is why she needs to learn it.
Detla’s stiffness limits her ability to win advanced melees. Layering another fighting style where you just “have fun with it” will give her a fallback against different types of opponents.
Achilles’ primary strategies seem to be psychological. Given that his powers are almost exclusively defensive, with only moderate increased strength, he relies on manipulating his opponents. That’s how his fight with Detla started, and it gave him an opportunity to grapple her that he might not otherwise have gotten, so that is indeed what he has to teach her, and what she should be trying to learn from him. Someone else could be a far better teacher for the actual grappling techniques. From what little we’ve seen of her fighting, she relies too much on her sword, and needs to learn better awareness and tactics.
+1
Agreed. What Delta needs more than anything is training in socialization with humans… also, it’s a good test of her personality. It’s nice to see that she’s refreshingly mature and chill about things.
That had occurred to me, too…but I also feel like this something of an evaluation.
There’s a reason the “all those mundane chores were really Kung fu training” trope exists. I can easily picture Achilles thinking to himself, “Okay…let’s evaluate your reflexes & reactions…what’s fun way to do that? Oh! Volleyball! Oh oh! Pool volleyball! Water drag, and fun to look at!”
I’m telling you all…Achilles is the CMHB. The day he stops “having fun,” someone is in fora very, very Bad Time.
I’m pretty sure I remember at least one shower scene in the comic. Whatchu talkin’ bout, Dave?
Like this one: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-588-ablution-disillusion/
There was also the one where they re-enacted Harem’s friday night https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-337-superheroines-in-the-shower/
And this single panel
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-141-soapy-bosoms-and-shirtless-heroes/
So yeah, so much for not drawing shower scenes… He probably forgot them amidst all the OTHER fanservice, like the swimming pool scene
I can think of at LEAST 2. One being somewhat extended.
Recently and in the comic. He’s done so recently, but not in the comic, and in the comic, but not recently.
personally i would have given her a black ,dark grey,, or deep navy bikini to go with her mask.
Knee deep! Seriously like, she really need to be only knee deep in the pool. Dave you cheater, you’re the universe creator. Make her standing knee deep. Because….nice butt shot last panel.
Hi-keeba?
I just flash-backed to when MST3K was new and life was good…
THANK YOU! I was scrolling through all the comments and becoming despondent that NO ONE had mentioned that yet.
I like it VERY MUCH!
@DaveB I kinda get the desire to make fanservice jokes… but the implications of some of them are kind of unfortunate sometimes.
For example: it has started impacting characterizations in a fairly negative this-person-seems-to-be-sexually-predatory-in-the-abusive-sense-of-the-word-way – first Deus, then the reptile-alien-guy from a few pages back, now Achilles. It makes those figures seem iffy in a way that is a little moral-event-horizontalish (especially Deus). If that is not explicitly your goal… maybe tone it down somewhat? Or at least make more (consensual) shower-scenes instead?
It also hampers plot development.
Like. A lot.
Which is frustrating because the plot you have is actually pretty good.
Yes it sounds silly, but lets look at it from another angle. This is earth and if she has a hard time hitting the ball back without breaking it then think about how hard she might hit to somebody without super invulnerable skin, defense, or magical shields?
We already have a small PR nightmare with one “space cop” who shot an exploding bullet that caused a bit of drama and trauma to Halo. We do not need another repeat.
If she can’t hit a ball back without breaking it then lets not test if she can learn to slowly limit or raise her strength when having to TAKEDOWN a suspect instead of (hopefully accidentally) killing them.
With the voting incentive, How exactly does a torso twist like that?
watch a cat, any cat, squirm away or around or into something
So Delta being only thigh deep can be explained away, but Achilles is way further out into the pool and is also standing around with the water reaching about the same height. So in conclusion, that part of the pool must be fairly shallow.
At least Max has confirmed that Detla is actually still under arrest. She isn’t overtly hostile so she can be confined to the secure but not secret areas of the building.
Detla’s not trying to escape. so max can be calm about her. while still irritated with Achilles
For the pool depth just assume the pool has variable depth. There’s no reason the bottom of the pool couldn’t raise or lower for simulating a variety of situations like trudging through a flood zone or swamp.
“mate attracting outfit” FTW!
Supposition: Max is normally involved in discussions regarding the release of captured alien or supers. She has a lot of experience to contribute to threat assessment, and she needs to be informed so that she does take a parolee into custody in error.
Conjecture: Detla escaped Archon custody, using Advanced Space Ninja Skilz. Her priority is to shadow Achilles, regardless of the attitude of local law enforcement.
Conclusion: Max has reason for concern. Hopefully no-one got hurt, certainly Archon security needs work. Detla might be a valuable consultant.
“does” = “doesn’t”
You know, a comment about this strip (namely just what punishment Max might level at Achilles for this kind of flagrant abuse of authority, ESPECIALLY the sexist undertones of that abuse) had me wonder about his powerset.
We know that he’s literally invulnerable to EVERYTHING, including aging. Does that also mean he’s indefatigable, whether through physical exertion or sleep deprivation? Because the power perversion potential of the former is simply MASSIVE.
good question. we do have people in the real world who don’t build up lactic acid so can do things like run indefinitely so long as they eat, drink, and sleep; they just never get exhausted by it.
sleep however is a tricky one and goes back to how invulnerable his brain actually is, is there even a human like brain in his head with a power set like this and still be able to function *no new pathways because membranes have to be broken and reformed* but he clearly gets new memories so something is going on. Is he like Gems from the animated series Steven Universe where they don’t have to sleep but can still do it if they want to.
this also opens up the question if he is vulnerable to psychic attacks, hypnosis, mezmer spells, and the like.
Some SCUBA training pools have a 3′ on one side sitting area to gear up in while sitting.
And he’s just interogating her, using a Water Boring technique to wear her down.
/minor detail
No offense, but we just had a whole mini-arc about the two alien mercs’ escape, and, personally, I don’t really feel ANY emotional investment in Achilles breaking in his new alien waifu.
Sydney is suppose to be the main character of this comic, right? So why is it she only gets a single page to deal with her latest trauma that ends with a gag while the obvious filler and fan service packages get their own mini-arcs?
because there are a crap ton of side characters who were introduced years ago in real world time who have had very little character development. The way this comic updates and only the one person for writing and drawing is clearly very restrictive on that schedule especially when they are also coloring the pages (there is a reason beyond just tradition why so much manga is not colorized unless it is a special edition or just the cover and back art), it is time consuming.
so the story either has to take detours, or a slow pacing if looked at in update time *but if you try to move things quickly for update time then a straight through read feels rushed*, an attempted balance I would not wish on anyone, especially to maintain the art quality and page sizes. Look at webcomics with a quicker update and you’ll see they are usually shorter strips, sometimes newspaper quality using those techniques to get it out quicker to move the story along and squeeze in more side gags and character development.
heck we still don’t even know what Vance’s actual super power is, Achilles has had some development, but mostly for slapstick gags. Heatwave more, Anvil a little bit too…basically a lot of this cast comes across as tertiary seat fillers for the super team.
that said I can understand the idea of it being Sydney who unveils these details through interacting with them. Although that audience surrogate approach can sometimes make your main character look nosey and annoying trying to get into everyone’s business.
Filler and fan service is basically the point of the whole comic. The plot is secondary. In the author’s own words:
Sometimes the book you want to read
Is not the book the author wants to write.
There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just a thing.
fun little aside to that; that was actually one of my motivators to start writing again after Highschool (whose writing assignments had made me lose the love of writing for a few years), in about 2002 or so I couldn’t find a story fitting the themes I wanted to read so I decided to just write the story I wanted to read. and pretty much never stopped since.