Grrl Power #940 – Aegis. Beskar. Adamantine. Mlem.
Please ignore that the layout of headquarters has dramatically changed since that picture. Sydney didn’t return to an alternate version of Earth from her space adventure, or anything. I’m just… bad at remembering to look at old pages for stuff like that. “Well, I drew that building nine years ago, so I definitely remember how it looks probably.” Just like every time I draw Dabbler’s blonde and pink haired glamor disguise, it changes a little. That actually makes sense though, even if it’s not necessarily intentional on my part. We actually see her tweaking it on one page. (She’s redrawing the face stripes there in the first panel.)
Lapha didn’t do quite as poor of a job of prepping her team as it may seem. It’s just that Detla was a late add on to the group and all they told her was “expect challenging fights.” Her regulars had a little more prep, in that they’d reviewed a bunch of Terran media concerning the team, so they had some idea what they’d be up against. What really fucked them was the other supers showing up. Well, initially their appearance saved Lapha from getting wrecked by Maxima after she overpowered the stasis field, but then it all went downhill from there.
Detla maybe shouldn’t be so surprised that Achilles didn’t get cut there, as she tried to whack him with her sword, but it was at an awkward angle and she was getting choked out at the time. I’ve decided that Stygans are distant cousins of devils and/or demons… kind of like Tieflings. Like a Balor and a Space Drow got it on and that kid banged a bunch of more traditional player character races and diluted out most of the demon, but they still can call on some weak infernal powers now and again. The point of telling you all this is that Stygans are familiar with demonic soul weapons, like Dabblers Soul Reaver there, and know they’re at least equivalent to the schism blade she hit Achilles with – using a full powered swing.
I did mess up that last panel a bit though. Dabbler’s sword is has at least a four foot blade with a two foot handle (as it is a 4 handed sword.) It looks about 2/3 the size it ought to be there.
Star Justice 13 is still out! I’ve finished it, and it’s really good! I mean, it’s hard to beat book 6 or 7, or 10, or 3. But it’s still pretty good.
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!
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
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.
Math on the other hand could probably teach her a whole lot. You need to Max level super to actually be a threat to him.
Or have the most common super power.
To be fair, Math has been working on that weakness of his & been making progress. Detla may actually get some decent training from Math at this point…Without too many distractions.
If Math gets too distracted, Jabberwokky might be able to teach her some stuff. Mind you, her fighting is enhanced by her super-powers, so there will be some limitations.
I was thinking that if Math gets distracted Jabberwokky might get jealous.
I mean, she’s hot for Dabbler, but I thought it was pretty clear that she also has a thing for Math that goes maybe a bit beyond ‘sparring partner.’
It’s just that she’s doing that sitcom thing where she never actually tells Math about this. Or that anime thing they call tsundere. Or maybe she’s waiting for him to realize that kidney punches are her way of flirting.
You could consider that continued advanced training for both of them then.
I love how this statement is hilarious in two completely different ways depending on whether the reader knows what The Most Common Superpower is.
What IS the “most common superpower”?
80085
tfw I thought this was an NH nuke code for a second
A photo that explains it bettter than any post…. https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/superheroines_most_common_power.jpg
This image works if you don’t want to try linking to anywhere:
(‘____’)
It’s been quite a while since this topic was discussed in the Comments section here but it was mostly kicked off when DaveB mentioned it & admitted that he wanted to get it right in his comic…So he went on extensive research in Boobs Physics.
The rest of us admired his dedication.
In a nutshell though, “the most common superpower” is related to why almost every single super-powered person has a perfect physique. There are some that don’t conform to this concept, like Benjamin Grimm (the Thing) of the Fantastic Four, for example but for the most part, everybody looks ripped & also tend to emphasize their physical gender to an extreme.
I am both surprised and disappointed with Dabbler spoiling Achilles’ fun here :(
Also, disclosing probably classified information. Sure, it makes her sound important and knowledgeable, but it’d probably have been better for her to be mysterious and pompous.
They don’t have the tech because the ones who could’ve made it don’t *need* it.
I’m disappointed that Achilles didn’t have another explanation for all this besides “I’m an idiot frat boy”. It was a chance for him to show himself to be deeper than a running gag. Nope.
I guess the male Terrans are all just set dressing.
How’s that book cover?
Pretty good?
Well, considering he’s also immune to age related damage… They haven’t said enough. And he’s worse than an idiot frat boy, he’s an adrenaline junkie immune to damage.
its not classified. It was shown to the public he is invulnerable, and he shows that off.
that supers exist and that Maxima shot down that Fel carrier is also not classified.
Umm…really the only classified thing here is Halo’s skill tree being on full display.
…
Is this one going to turn out to have some knowledge of the language in the tree…?
No it’s not, it’s been on full display in front of the press already
none of whom could take a picture of it.
Not even Dabbler’s cyber-eye could perceive it, although her normal biological eye could.
however Krona got a good eyeful of it…
Krona’s eyeful: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-506-square-root-access/
You are correct, they couldn’t record it, they still saw it though
Achilles good with the grapple bad with every other form of fighting
Do we know that? We haven’t had an opportunity yet to see and judge his skill at, say, kickboxing, and it seems like his ability to just tank strikes would be a huge advantage there. He can focus on his offense because he simply doesn’t need to worry about most froms of attacks.
Indeed. He is strong, experienced and unstopable. He handled himself well in the restarant brawl up until he was burried.
And that’s why Achilles is NOT unstoppable…Trap him good enough & he’s effectively stopped. Not a “casualty” by any means, but stopped nonetheless.
Stopped or just delayed to the point where he won’t be taking part in your evening, like a British train.
You know the Rails are operated by private firms, yes?
Well that may be the case but you still occasionally get engines that should have been sent to the roundhouse if not the scrap yard, when I was there a couple of years ago the train was roughly 3 hours off schedule getting started but it did get going in fairly short order only to get to the first stop and Break down, they did send in a diesel unit to tow off the train and it promptly hooked up to tow it off,… only for it (the diesel) to break down by dumping its fuel and shutting down, the train they finally got to pick us up then started off down the track and… all the lights went out.. I think it got about 100 yards. granted after that things seem to get back on track.
That said you have to take the train on the Devon Sea Wall. on a mostly sunny day it was well worth the trip.
Bharda, I’d read RowenMorland‘s comment as addressing the stereotypical reputation rather than who’s actually operating the system. It’s an exaggeration of mostly-outdated anecdotes, as nearly all such stereotypes are, but not as extreme as many such.
Steven, I would definitely agree that the stretch of track from Exeter, past Dawlish, to the ‘Devon Riviera’ resorts is worth taking a trip along if you’re in the area. Sunny days help – especially since that means the ice cream shops are probably open – but it can get a bit hairy in stormy winter weather.
If your anecdote of breakdown was from that trip, note that reliability isn’t as good in that part of the network as it is in most of the rest. The infrastructure to allow electric trains rather than diesels on that line has been promised repeatedly for decades, but it’s one of those ‘always in the next Budget’ projects – partly due to privatisation-related disorganisation, partly due to legitimate engineering complications.
Actually, he got judo thrown and subsequently disabled by Heavenly Sword quite quickly, without achieving much – experience in grappling-adjacent martial arts would have helped him perform better. But he has trained since, and we have nothing on his striking skill either way.
I’d think that’s the problem. Most people have to worry about being shanked, skewered, sliced or broken in some way. Skill is almost entirely about footwork and positioning to get yourself in a position where you can hurt the enemy and the enemy can’t hurt you.
Taking training from a guy who only needs to worry about half of the equation because they could give him a nuke enema and he’d be fine is probably not very effective.
It’s like having a regular guy learn fighting from Superman. “Yeah, that’s very impressive, but how do we do this if we aren’t impervious to damage and can’t shoot heat beams from our eyes, Supes?”
Granted, just because he’s invulnerable doesn’t mean he can’t have learned martial arts in the normal way, but that’d really be a waste of his time if he could instead learn how to fight more effectively as the invulnerable hunk of unobtanium he is.
For a guy like Achilles, a nuke enema might even be a good thing. At worst, he’d end up with a well-cleaned digestive tract…Let’s see those “elite celebrity” types (with more time & money on hand than they have common sense) try the same kind of “colon cleansing” procedure.
The human digestive system requires the assistance of a variety of symbiotic organisms. I’d think if Achilles did a nuclear enema, he’d likely need some probiotics afterwards.
Actually considering that eating super Ebola and sky diving into an active volcano are two of the things Achilles has done, it’s entirely possible that he doesn’t actually digest anything, especially since taking nutrients requires passing through the cell membrane, which his powers would block since he’s avoided sub atomic disintegration. Since we see Dabbler stabbing Achilles on the inside of the mouth here, even if his power is some type of super force field or something, it extends through his digestive tract. Achilles probably only eats things for the mouth feel. Though that does bring up the question of how he can taste anything. My point is, Achilles powers PROBABLY mean that symbiotic organisms aren’t a problem, since they either share his invulnerability, or he killed them all drinking hydrochloric acid and hand grenade salad.
taste like touch does not require pain or being damaged *except for spicy*,
so there should be no problems for him. He likely can also taste and feel things no normal human could, like the thin edge of that blade, he likely can feel how thin it is, but there is no slicing damage involved so its a texture feel that no one can imagine.
His power isn’t some sort of force field. His power is that he can’t be damaged. Ordinary ingestion is not damage, and would not be blocked.
That depends. If his intestinal bacteria share his power or are protected by his power it wouldn’t be a problem.
If they aren’t, well, if the doctors at Archon have good samples of his intestinal flora stored frozen it should be possible to recreate the original microbiome. There is some indication that the right composition of your microbiota is important for a persons health. Of course less of a problem for a Super like Achilles.
Therefore, if push comes to shove, in an emergency he could just eat shit.
You worked hard and took an interesting path to get to that punch line. I don’t know whether to chuckle or groan here.
I guess I’ll just have to settle for a $h1t eating grin and call it a crappy joke ;-)
Then there’s also the (logical) argument that Achilles’ digestive flora was a part of him for his whole life, being the good little symbiotes they are, so that when he grew old enough for his Invulnerability Power to kick in his body considered them as the same as the rest of his body…protected by the Invulnerability but not hindering their normal function in any way.
That being the case, there should be no time that Achilles should need to take probiotics or even for Archon to be keeping any samples of his symbiotes for any reason…They would still grow & reproduce normally for him, because they ARE a part of him & always have been.
Even so, Achilles could never die or even be weakened by starvation anyway, so I guess the point is moot…
If Achilles’ gut flora are considered ‘part of him’ by his Power, would ARC even be able to take that sample if they wanted to?
“It’s like having a regular guy learn fighting from Superman. “Yeah, that’s very impressive, but how do we do this if we aren’t impervious to damage and can’t shoot heat beams from our eyes, Supes?””
Actually that has happened a few times in the comics.
Lois learned Torquasm Vo from Superman. Admittedly it’s more of a meditation-based martial art like Tai Chi though.
But she also learned some Klukor from Supergirl, which is an actual Kryptonian martial art and part of the reason that Supergirl so regularly is able to kick other people’s butts, including her cousin’s. She actually knows how to fight a lot better than he does (plus she was also taught how to fight by the Amazons, by Batman, and by Darkseid’s Furies). I’m ignoring the idea that, at least as written by Loeb an in most of v5, v6 of New Earth Supergirl, and New 52 Supergirl, that she’s litearlly physically stronger due to how her spacecraft was designed to bombard her with yellow solar radiation for decades (in New Earth with actual emitters built in, in New 52 with being in close orbit around the sun for 30 years – sun-dipping tends to overcharge Kryptonians, and the longer they’ve sun-dipped, the longer they retain the increased power).
Wonder Woman also is not as strong as either Supergirl or Superman, nor is she as fast as the Flash, but even Batman has said that in a fight between her and Superman, Wonder Woman is the superior fighter, which can sometimes turn the tide of a fight. (Wonder Woman has fought Superman a few times, and once actually beat him when he was being controlled by Maxwell Lord).
“Granted, just because he’s invulnerable doesn’t mean he can’t have learned martial arts in the normal way, but that’d really be a waste of his time if he could instead learn how to fight more effectively as the invulnerable hunk of unobtanium he is.”
Nah, it’s not a waste of time, since Superman has had to fight the occasional bad guy who was more powerful than he was (Darkseid, Doomsday, Imperiex), or at least AS powerful as he is (Justice Lord Superman, Uberman, General Zod, Faora, Ursa, Non, Supergirl, Martian Manhunter, etc). Not to mention, as Batman said to Supergirl when he was training HER, you should be able to fight without just relying on your powers – because there are many ways to have those powers taken away from you, by an opponent who understands how your powers work.
”Torquasm”? Really? Sounds more like something Dabbler would be skilled in.
Never change, Ro Jaws. Never change.
Yeah a part of my mind is obviously stuck in 15 year old mode. But I’m sure I’m in good company in this forum.
Agreed! A good, foul mouthed, sewer droid is always welcome and useful in these comment collumns.
Some bad, crude and stupid jokes are necessary to balance out the toxic, political and trolly posters.
Dabs knows just how much rotational force to apply, using if necessary a torquasm wrench..
This is the best comment on this forum of the year thus far.
Indeed she is…But that’s Dabbler “performing” at her nastiest, if we were to judge it by this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%C3%A1s_de_Torquemada
Fun fact: There was a Superman series where the city of Argo from Krypton was enlargened, so there were about 100k kryptonians wandering around earth for a while. They eventually created their own planet with kryptonian science, on the opposite side of the solar system from earth.
If that sounds confusing, don’t worry. The TLDR is that in the story there was a kryptonian society, where everyone had powers like Superman. They also had a fully fledged military run by General Zod, and Supes was conscripted into this military because he had more combat experience with kryptonian powers than anyone else in the city.
The story is REALLY good, and goes into detail about how Superman’s powers do require a lot of skill to use them to their full potential, and that even when fighting people who have his powerset, Supes still kicks ass since he has so much experience fighting peer opponents on earth, like Darkseid or Doomsday.
One of the best points in the story is when a mouthy lieutenant thinks that he can take Supes on because he’s Kryptonian, and a soldier, and Supes demolishes him, because not only is he more creative with his powers, he’s taken martial arts classes from Batman in preparation for these kinds of fights.
Gotta admit that I’m not that into comics. I mostly watched the cartoons and movies, in which Superman mostly just pummels stuff using his superhuman strength while ignoring incoming attacks because… Obvious things are obvious.
I really like the idea of super heroes preparing for the moment when an enemy figures out how to negate their specific super power (Superman being the obvious example again because the moment he became prominent it started raining green rocks for some raisin) and Achilles could absolutely be learning martial arts to prepare for when his invulnerability suddenly isn’t, but that’d really need some good old “show, don’t tell” to establish in-universe.
…
Which is what this story-line might be leading up to -right now- so, uh… Let’s see, I guess. :D
Fun fact, at various times Supes actually DID learn martial arts. I can’t quote the issues etc, but I recall in one continuity, it was boxing from Black Cat (of the Justice Society) and in more modern comics, some obscure kryptonian martial arts.
Technically he learned Torquasm Vo, which is martial arts to the same extent that Tai Chi is. Soft form martial arts, mainly dealing with meditation forms. Supergirl knows Klukor though, which is a hard form martial arts according to the comics that she had been trained in since she was 6 years old. :)
Tai Chi IS a martial art form, just practiced in slow motion. Those same moves at full speed are quite effective, see Jet Li in “The One”.
If you say so. I’m not an expert in martial arts. I just googled ‘martial arts heavy on meditation’ and tai chi and i-ching were the ones that came up. And more people know what tai chi is. :)
Tai Chi is a “martial art” but not effective martially – it’s art. When a tai chi master fights a moderate level MMA fighter, the tai chi guy goes down hard, probably because (A) they have no experience taking a punch (B) you fight as you practice, e.g. if you only practice slow you can only fight slow, but mostly (C) tai chi moves are too far from being actually tested in fights.
If Jet Li appears to be an exception, it’s because he practiced wushu from the age of eight and competed in sparring matches until he was injured and turned to film.
Apparently the question whether traditional noncompetitive martial arts have serious combat value has political ramifications in China. It’s all very interesting.
That’s describing the difference as more like Taekwondo being the more contemplative, artistic form but Taekwonjutsu being better geared towards actual combat usage. The suffix -do is the “artistic” (ie: learned in a dojo) side while -jutsu is set more for actual combat use without being taught much of the philosophies behind it.
Tai Chi IS effective in combat, but it’s normally taught with the philosophical background intact. The difference in the use of the suffix better denotes the substance of training rather than the style being trained.
Well, this is getting a bit far from the subject of the comic, but I would like to see a tai chi master win a fight for a change. All the videos I see on YouTube have them getting pounded because of reasons A, B and C. What … other than their verbal claims … would lead someone to believe that a tai chi master could survive even a moderately-skilled boxer? Where is the video proof?
Those videos are mostly to show up the tai chi ‘master’
A real master would know how to preform those moves at full speed, not in slow-mo
I didn’t say anything about training – his skill as such is measured by how well it works for him.
And yes, I wouldn’t want to learn striking from him, because his style is likely quite adapted to his unique abilities and not very good for anyone else, but in grappling(which is what he offered to teach Detla) this applies less – if Achilles gets locked in a hold, he might not have to submit, but also can’t do anything, so he’d have to avoid that too.
I have to assume that Achilles has lost in fights against Math, since everyone has except for Maxima and Dabbler. And Dabbler cheated by using some sort if magic that she called ‘sticky air.’
Maxima said he (Math) has beaten everyone except her in a straight fight without magic being used. That would include Achilles.
*nods* Although I think a ‘win’ against Achilles is necessarily a limited one. You can’t choke him out, and he has no reason to tap out, so I presume Math would’ve won on a technical judgement after getting him in some sort of inescapable lock.
Dang, now I have the concept of nuke enema stuck in my head. For instance, how far would he fly with the yield of a small nuke squirting out of his butt. I guess it would depend at least in part on the contents of his colon. Being effectively contained I would expect a somewhat higher percentage of the fissionable materials would be converted. It seems like a few kilograms of fissionable material would be sufficient reaction mass to propel him to a pretty respectable speed once it was converted to plasma. It would probably set the record for the world’s loudest fart.
Jet-propelled squirts, kinda like Powdered-Toast Man :P
Then there’s the question of how to get the warhead up his butt given its size and the fact that you can’t damage him.
…World’s loudest fart which also lingers the longest, because it’s measured by the radioactive half-life…
“I’d think that’s the problem. Most people have to worry about being shanked, skewered, sliced or broken in some way. Skill is almost entirely about footwork and positioning to get yourself in a position where you can hurt the enemy and the enemy can’t hurt you.
Taking training from a guy who only needs to worry about half of the equation because they could give him a nuke enema and he’d be fine is probably not very effective.”
As a medieval re-enactor doing both buhurt and blossfechten… one builds on the other.. The armour makes it possible to deflect/absorb stuff with your body you *definitely* will want to dodge when not wearing it, even if it makes you less agile. The techniques needed to do this effectively are still the same though, and *definitely* require some serious training.
I can imagine Achilles, being part of a paramilitary organisation, very much has been required to train several martial arts. Simply because his invulnerability makes it possible to use all the techniques normal people will have to start to wear body armour for, plus some additional nasties that simply don’t work on him.
Perfect “Volunteer” for people to practice those “illegal moves” on….. ;) Even if he doesn’t have real need for martial arts themselves, he most certainly would have needed to learn them to be a good sparring partner/teaching dummy..
Not worrying about the many ways to die definitely changes the way to interact with other people – fighting style in particular would change. And as noted, having a sparring partner you couldn’t possibly hurt would be a very valuable opportunity for other fighters. Detla could surely benefit from that if nothing else.
Really I’d like to see a lot more of the entire team cross training, even if it’s just an occasional montage in the background. Fingers crossed that this new arc includes some of that, since it’s starting off with some discussions on training.
Problem with that is: how do you know when you fucked up a move and went ‘too far’?
Would rather have a sparring partner who can come back from the dead than someone who can’t be hurt ie Wolverine over Les
I was just talking last night about the similar issue with the Hulk; he is a horrible fighter! Banner is a science geek who never learned to fight at all, so Hulk’s entire fighting style is “Hulk SMASH”, which is fine for puny gods like Loki, but when faced with an experienced fighter of similar strength, he’s toast.
Of course, in Hulk’s case even if you are an experienced fighter of similar strength to him under normal circumstances there’s the fact that Hulk’s anger ramps up his strength and invulnerability with effectively no upper limit the angrier and more frustrated he gets, and classic Hulk gets angry and frustrated _easily_! So you fight him, hand him his ass and suddenly he’s twice as strong and hard to hurt, and just gets progressively more so the longer you prevent him from using his “HULK SMASH!” technique effectively.
It’s hard to beat a guy whose capability to cause serious injury & destruction increases on an algorithmic scale…
The longer a fight goes on with the Hulk, the more likely that you’ll lose. There has been no one, including cosmic-level entities that can last long enough to find out IF Hulk has any upper limit to his strength. They have to find a different way to beat him that doesn’t require a straight-up physical fight.
Heck, I’ve got a decades-old special edition issue that DC & Marvel corroborated with (a team-up between Superman & Spider-Man vs. Parasite & Dr. Doom) & in that story, even Superman has his doubts on winning a fight against the Hulk…
But superman has stillwon every fight against the hulk. They’ve fought 3 times, two were decisive victories for superman, the other was a superman victory but superman then stopped the thing that was making hulk want to fight in the first place.
To be fair btw, Superman is not neatly as good a fighter as other in or near his strength range(ie, wonder woman, supergirl, barda, maxima), although he’s a better fighter then others (martian manhunter, icon, captain marvel, darkseid, lobo). Ie, he has some fight training but tends to rely more on his powers.
A fight against the Hulk probably depends on just using the most powerful blow you have to take Banner (or initial transformation Hulk) out before he has time to get angry enough to ignore the hit.
I. e. instead of doing the usual gentlemanly “I hit you, you hit me, eventually we reveal ultimate moves if we are evenly matched”, you’d probably just try to disintegrate his head step 1 and have an escape plan for when that isn’t enough because wearing him down just ain’t happening.
He have been a super since the eighties. I think he have probably learned quite a few more skills than wrestling.
Why? What would give you any indication of that?
He’s learned casual insouciance and an appreciation for mouth feel, but other than that why would he feel the need to evolve his skills? If he hasn’t been on a save-the-world team, he would have no need to except perhaps a curiosity that he does not show.
That’s hardly fair. He’s a mid tier super. He’s very skilled and good at what he does, you’re just comparing him to higher tier supers.
No, he’s a top tier super, just a low-tier fighter
Don’t get sucked into the Cyclopes mindset of flashy supers being high-tier supers
Yeah. Achilles is a top tier super when it comes to invulnerability and nothing else. His invulnerability is even beyond Maxima’s. I doubt that Vehemence would be able to break Achilles nose.:)
Some things are immutable, Sydney will always fall on that rock no matter where she falls on the roof.
If only she hadn’t hidden her keys under that rock.
I mean, it actually seems like he did outgrapple her fair and square, not really using his invulnerability. Only after he already got her locked up in a chokehold he relied on it against her sword, but he had a hand free the entire time which he could otherwise have used to try to control her swordarm or disarm her.
Ms. “Second-best-at-swording” might a bit too harsh on him here.
Aquilles has an advantage at grapling. You cant force him to change position relative to himself.
You can lift him up, if you are strong enough, but you cant open his hand.
Yes, you can, by overwhelming the strength of his muscles. Getting forced to move doesn’t count as damage to his power. Sciona demonstrated overpoweriing him in a grapple, although she used super strength for it.
It’s kind of a required feature, otherwise he would be totally immovable and it would be very distinctive when he starts slipping around on concrete while barefoot because his feet won’t deform to meet the concrete.
I don’t know if Dave has confirmed, but I would expect his body has a ‘normal’ rate of elasticity until it reaches a limit, and then becomes infinite, which would make his day to day interactions fairly normal.
Honestly, I think it must work similar to Darwin, reacting to anything life threatening or significantly harmful, except instead of evolving to whatever would survive, he simply becomes invulnerable in whatever way is necessary to resist the damage
Probably SOME form of secondary powers for Achilles so he has to still deal with stuff like friction/etc. His feet can still deform when walking on the ground – they just can’t be pierced.
I’m assuming Achilles FEELS normal to the touch until you try to actually pierce his skin or whatever, at which point there is no longer any give. ie, he doesnt feel like a statue.
PS – my favorite thing about Darwin was during World War Hulk, where he went up against the Hulk and his powers kicked in – not to make him invulnerable, or make him stronger than the Hulk, but instead to just teleport him away from where the Hulk could attack him. :) Since his powers are not to ‘resist the damage’ as you said, but to ‘survive any attack.’
With a World War Hulk-level Hulk, the best way to survive an attack is apparently to be somewhere else entirely.
“I’ll give you any power you need, but I refuse to be styupid about it.”
Another in the long list of reasons why the X-Men movies annoyed the crap out of me. They did my man Darwin wrong.
….it is. Entirely possibly that Achilles’ cellar structure contains some sort of hype-non-Newtonian fluid…
That’s what SHE said! (Ambassasdor Delenn of the Minbari). “BE SOMEWHERE ELSE!”
Anyone else expect Detla to casually make some profound comment about Sydney’s orbs sometime in the next couple of comics?
She knows it’s rude to comment on a woman’s orbs unprompted. :P
Even if she doesn’t comment, I BET Archon Security WILL.
Max may be a bit open minded about some things (Sydney!), but she IS still a member of an armed force, answerable to a military hierarchy. Security is something that will not change even in a world of super heroes. Actually, now that I think about it? being a security specialist in a world of super heroes might be ALMOST as much fun as being an Air Traffic Controller in said world.
Therapy. LOTS of therapy.
Max may super-speed her to the supply room for some “trainee” coveralls
before she sees too much of the secret skill tree.
Kentucky Center (ATC): Cactus 1891, be aware there is a high-speed biological in your area, hopefully below you, but we are not getting a transponder return. Flying towards you on a heading of 110 at 600 knots.
Cactus 1891: Understood. We will keep an eye out.
Halo: This is Archon 4 to Kentucky Center, flying at heading 112 at 600 knots ground-speed at 12000 feet, according to my GPS. I can see that Cactus 737 way up there above me. Hi guys!
Kentucky Center: Roger Archon 4. Radar contact established. Do not exceed the speed of sound! Maintain altitude.
She is showing up at the command of her superior office (Anvil). Any lecture about a security breach should be directed at Anvil.
Achilles.
He’s the one who brought the civie inside the wire.
I’d think the responsibility would either fall on the head of whoever brought Detla straight to Achilles with out informing Archon first. As far as Achilles is concerned, he went through all the proper procedures and got her a visitor’s pass. He’s in the clear, especially since he can site precedent in the form of Jabberwocky, another known criminal brought in less than a day after attacking the team.
Technicaly its the um….
what on earth does Archon call its regular non officer/nco ranks? I know I cant call her Airman/seaman for example, and Superman would be silly to call any not actualy super in the ranks.
but yes the NCO who brought her up to the pool deck
Troop, maybe?
A soldier came to get Achilles in the pool and took him down to where Detla was, outside the building. Achilles took her to security, who gave her a badge. We don’t know what actions security took, only that Max was not informed that Detla was coming on base. That’s it.
There is that.
But…
1) Alien
2) Mercenary
3) Technology unknown to (most of) Earth
I can only IMAGINE the headaches that the security people endure with Dabbler. Adding a unknown into the mix would be bad enough, but letting said unknown see Sydney’s upgrade menu is a MAJOR security breach. Yes, a bunch of reporters probably saw it at the press conference/PR show/show of extreme force by Maxima. THEY likely had no idea what they were seeing and it is entirely possible that their recording tech didn’t pick it up at all. The orbs themselves defy most scans according to Dabbler and Cora.
But who is to say Detla is not going to be able to see the menu or understand it? If she DOES, she is a mercenary. Will she keep quiet or try to sell the information to whoever pays her the most?
From all of what Cora said, Nth tech will cause all KIND of problems. Do we REALLY want an alien merc to add more?
Security professionals will only be interesting to a tiny sliver of the readership.
More than you might think.
Yes, it is far less cool than ‘Pow!’, ‘Bam!’ and ‘Ke-runch!’ but it is also grounded in reality
Some of my favorite superhero stories have little snippets about life for regular people in the world of supers battling it out. Because to me? Supers get old fast. Real people dealing with such things make for much better stories in my opinion. Making supers seem like real people is hard which is one reason I like this comic.
it would be a common writer’s convenience for sci-fi.
oh hello new alien, what’s that? you recognize the previously unidentified mysterious McGuffin artifact even our other alien experts couldn’t, or at least have seen symbols of on your travels and can point us to a planet or location where we might learn more?
to nip this:
yes it makes sense that one character wouldn’t know everything and been everywhere and for another to have been, seen, or noticed something they didn’t. The convenience part is when they just happen upon such a character with clues to an important story element, as opposed to the group looking for them.
More likely, Detla will not see the skill tree at all, and maybe not even the orbs. Just like Dabbler’s artificial eye.
if her mask is mechanical like a Yuatja mask with camera like filters and feed, yeah it won’t see the skill tree…but it will still see the orbs themselves. They are *empty* to magic scans, but cameras can still see them.
it is one of those curiosities regarding the orbs that the orbs themselves seem to have every effort made to be visible to everything mundane and come across that way, but are hidden from magic specifically.
while the skill tree is still visible to living beings yet can’t be seen by cameras.
Weird question, but since DabXurielbler so often takes on the guise of a woman of colour from Terra, is she the Demon equivalent of a WOC or does something like that even exist on her world
Considering what kind of population that the “Nether Realms” have, there’s quite a wide diversity of colors involved. Even amongst other succubi, Dabbler’s coloration differs only in that her skin is purple with light green “tiger’ stripes, but the configuration of colors is pretty much the same. Even those particular colors might be a little “off” in accordance to most other succubi, but Dabbler does have some alien & other genetics in her.
We have seen at least one other succubus, back when Max & Sydney were visiting the Supernatural Council, but even with that one other example, Dabbler looked pretty much the same with only different coloration. Dabbler probably picks a WOC as her Glamour Disguise probably because it makes her more “exotic” to most humans around her. Dabbler’s concept to look human but still stand out even among a crowd is precisely why she has the Glamour in the first place.
We have seen two other succubi other than Dabbler and both have dark skin – although one of them was a cameo to be fair. It’s [i]possible[/i] Decolette is just very tanned, but Tamatha is definitely a person of colour.
There was also Tamatha, the young succubus they met at Decollete’s club.
And her unique coloration may be inherited from her extraterrestrial heritage, the same as her extra arms.
Humans (at least of the Baseline variety) are limited by physiology to the palette of ‘haemoglobin under collagen moderated by melanin’. Succubi, with their Glamour, have no such restriction. I suspect it’s not the case that Succubi are deliberately portraying ‘women of colour’ in the sense that Tijay means, more that they are naturally and by choice ‘women of many colours’. Most of which happen not to fall within the range we associate with ancestry of predominantly North European extraction (i.e. with the melanin component of the skin pigment mix relatively low).
Which leads on to a tangent that I’m probably going to regret asking.
The term ‘Person of Colour’ is obviously derived from a culture of said predominantly North European extraction, where most minority skin tones will have more melanin giving ‘more colour’. In other regions where the predominant skin tone is darker, minority skin tones may be darker or lighter, and in some regions all the minorities will be lighter. So do those other regions have separate equivalent terms for the darker and lighter groups, or just the one? (Or are they generally more interested in real-world problems than on finding the right polite-verging-on-condescending-verging-on-racist term for different variations on ‘your ancestors weren’t from around here’?)
American Indians, are technically “People of Color”!
Is that why Asians are now ‘People of Colour’?
You do realise that black is the absence of colour, right?
That last part especially – I’m sure such advanced species have moved beyond such things and regard it like “Wow. Your species still gives a rat’s ass about something so inconsequential as differences in skin tone?” Of course, they’ve probably moved onto much more advanced and subtle forms of prejudice and bigotry. XD
“Did you see that Planauchtrian? His aura of moral turpitude was only within .002 milliangstroms of the acceptable norm.”
“I know, how positively ghastly.”
“The nerve of some people. I’m going to see to it that he’s #spacecancelled from #spacetwitter.”
I like how every one here is automatically thinking that it would be negative if aliens have “people of colour”
Having a variety of skin tones? Not an issue. Descriptive differentiation between skin tones? Not an issue. Discrimination on the basis of skin tone? Issue.
Descriptive terms, however general or precise, do not of themselves create discrimination. That comes when the person making a decision starts with a preconceived idea about what the outcome should look like, and allows matching that prejudice to affect their decision. Note that this cuts all ways: it’s equally discriminatory whether the prejudice is based on ‘we want someone with this skin tone’, or ‘we want someone who went to the right school’, or ‘we already have too many of [this trait] in the team compared to the census’.
Descriptive terms may, however, be questionable for other reasons. The immediate example, ‘People of Colour’ effectively lumps together everyone not of North European tone, from Ainu to Mohicans to Zulus, as if they were a single coherent bloc to be balanced against those of North European extraction. It’s barely even semantically removed from the ‘Whites’ and ‘Coloured’ of Apartheid South Africa. If there’s such little difference between all those different ‘coloured’ groups that they can be mashed in together under the one heading, who not go the final step and admit that the remaining ‘whites’ can be also?
Typo: should read “why not go the final step” in the last sentence.
Ignoring the racial baggage history for a moment, darker skin would be an advantage.
What are the statistics for skin cancer sorted by skin color?
I’m so white when I close my eyelids it doesn’t get dark.
Unfortunately, the primary color-associated statistic I’m familiar with is ‘any person of color is less likely to get diagnosed in time for the diagnosis to matter’, with many of them not getting diagnosed before they die, at which point it’s not necessarily considered relevant enough to bother recording, if anybody even does a diagnosis then.
This makes any real numbers comparison difficult.
From what I recall, while India may have a minority of light skinned people, it’s my understanding that they’re the ruling class (and it’s possible that they’re light skinned because they’ve been able to stay indoors the vast majority of the time for enough generations to have selected for it.) As such, their medicine also focuses more on treating issues the light skinned have.
I’m not familiar with how it works in other countries, but I wouldn’t be too surprised to find that other minority light skinned regions followed a similar path to India in that regard.
In Mexico, the “light-skinned-upper class” is because you have both Spanish and French ruling classes interposed on top of the preexisting indigenous structure about 4 to 1 centuries ago. Same goes for most of South and Central America, except the French part. No evolution need apply.
There is some self selection acting as well. Working in the fields will get a person a tan, so pale skin is was seen as a sign of wealth, so the rich and powerful married people with pale skin and had rich, powerful, pale offspring.
Jughead Jones was whiter, then. he could see normally with his eyes closed.
Blonde with a deep tan does not equal “Woman of color”. Growing up near Santa Cruz, I’ve known several such white girls.
She looks mixed to me, as someone who has mixed cousins, and even cousins fully African but with a lighter skin tone than mine. Hell I was born white skinned and until I lived in Africa I was closer to Xuriel than Kenya before I lived in Africa for 2 years as a yung’n
to quote Joyrock from the Slayers movie.
“form is meaningless to my people”.
… What? When has Dabbles appeared to be a ‘Person of Colour’?
Or is this like how Asian people are now ‘People of Colour’?
As Dal said: blonde with deep tan does not equate to ‘Person of Colour’
She looks mixed to me, as someone who has mixed cousins, and even cousins fully African but with a lighter skin tone than mine. Hell I was born white skinned and until I lived in Africa I was closer to Xuriel than Kenya before I lived in Africa for 2 years as a yung’n
“I did mess up that last panel a bit though. Dabbler’s sword is has at least a four foot blade with a two foot handle (as it is a 4 handed sword.) It looks about 2/3 the size it ought to be there.”
Excuse you. But Surly Dabler has a mass reconfiguration set for the sword of up and down 30% original mass.
??¿¿
Sometimes is better to go with the flow of an error than to try and errase it.
Pardon my english.
I just assumed she summoned a generic sword, because this wasn’t a real fight. I mean, even somebody with a Soul Reaver is going to have some regular swords on tap, if they’ve got that teleport gizmo.
I mean, sooner or later you’re going to run into a foe who’s got a specific immunity to magical weapons, but can be cut by cold steel just fine. Or just want to spar without any risk of accidentally destroying somebody’s soul, or whatever.
She could probably control it’s size as she’s pulling it out of that mini portal to what I presume is hell judging by the fire/brimstone/lava. That or she just used a weak, maybe cantrip, shrink item spell. Every adventurer needs a size adjustment spell or two, otherwise that random +3 breastplate you found off of a corpse in the forest just wouldn’t quite fit you.
Magic items inherently resize to the user unless enchanted not to do so in most magical systems I’ve encountered.
Which is fine, until you meet a GM who likes playing tricks with cursed items. First it resizes to the user. Then it tries to resize the user.
I once created a cursed item with the GM’s help. The Dwarven Shield Of Hurling. it was designed to be thrown as a weapon, with a serrated blade on the edge, but was cursed to not leave the thrower’s hand. Thereby taking them along for the ride, after which they had to make a saving throw due to all that spinning.
Was this the one where the name referred as much to what happens to the dwarf, as to what the dwarf could do with it?
“Roll for spellcasting. On a success, the item resizes to you, on a failure, you resize to the item.”
Well, I haven’t done that one yet… My players would probably run some crazy shenanigans with that one. Thanks for the idea! Now to build the cursed pike for roll20…
cursed pike: on a roll of 1 it turns into a fish
But it’s Dabbler’s for a long time. It should have adjusted it’s size to her long before we saw it the first time.
She likes swords and has hammer space.
And being Dabbler, that sentence can be taken in many ways.
Maybe Delta can seek lessons from Math
He won’t be much good as a teacher if she is dressed like that.
well.. many teachers comment that they learn from the students as much as the students learn from them. so, I might set it up just to try and get Math out of this rut.
Maybe, regarding the size of the sword, it’s a grower and not a shower?
Still love that callback page for the mental image of that being how Sydney flies while carrying Max instead of the other way around.
As for this page, always fun to see Achilles block things in unusual ways.
It is an odd block for someone so concerned with “mouthfeel “
He’s just stopping it though, not eating it. And maybe he likes something with a sharp taste.
Clearly she got it from the same team that designed the iron spider suit mask that Tony Stark gave Peter Parker in the MCU.
Come to think if it, if the iron spider suit was so expressive, why was the iron man suit so expressionless? Tony’s weird.
… I’m more interested in how that mask works now. Never seen a mask do bug eyes and crow’s feet before. What other expressions is it capable of?
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExpressiveMask
Never watched a Blatman cartoon then?
Not since I was a kid actually. American cartoons hardly keep to standards besides the absurd anyway.
Achilles power does grant him a lot of leeway as while he does know grapples… It is a coin toss between how much his skill is pure skill vs his power protecting him that lets him get away with certain moves.
Probably still best pick since the other best “fighters” are Math who may not get along with our new blue alien due to personality… And our other fighters lean more on the super power angle instead of regular fighting ability…
So its still a coin toss, but lets still face it. If she can not hit a ball without breaking it then that is still a bit of a problem due to her possibly hitting a human too hard. That is a very important detail since not all “supers” have inhuman durability.
I don’t think Achilles’ power helps him a lot with applying a grapple, beyond protecting him from counterstrikes – the advantage would come in in the defensive, because he can’t be choked out, submitted or get his limbs broken.
But I don’t think he can apply a hold where someone without his power couldn’t.
Achilles could absolutely apply a hold to something too hot for a normal person to survive touching, so long as it’s of suitable size and form for him to apply a hold to it. Covered in contact poison would also not be an obstacle to him.
That said, yeah, his invulnerability does not let him apply grappling holds to people who are too strong for someone of his strength to be able to apply a grappling hold.
On the gripping hand, the target’s strength doesn’t really matter until they start resisting the hold. There are a number of grappling holds that allow you to greatly increase your leverage in being able to retain the hold once you’ve established it, and this is one place where Achilles’ invulnerability really helps. It’s still not perfect, though. Just because you’ve managed to apply a hold where you’re struggling against your opponent’s strength times sin(0.1) doesn’t mean they can’t possibly be strong enough to break free. A normal person applying one of those holds would have a structural integrity failure issue before the person broke the hold, as their body would be struggling against the person’s strength times cos(0.1), but Achilles could simply be overpowered. (To be clear, I think most of those structural integrity issues would be sufficient pain they had to release the hold, rather than actually having their hands ripped off.)
I’m not following why invulnerability matters that much in that situation – it’s still just strength times leverage against strength times leverage. Inability to feel pain is good I suppose, as would be infinite stamina (can Achilles get tired?), but not a paradigm shift.
Also, in your opponent is strong enough to get out of a proper hold, they’re likely strong enough to resist getting put in a hold to begin with.
I was actually referring not to his power in aid of grappling, but by how he may be a little less cautious in protecting himself during a fight because he knows how to tank most attacks that come at him. I know it is a minor detail, but it is one of those things.
Sort of like how Dabbler is good at taunting, flirting, and teasing… But was ironically weak against it. Or how Sidney does not have a fear of heights or tall places so long as she has Flight Orb in her hand.
Still lots of grappling is good for fighting.
Just a question for what the alien girl is looking for… Because she can learn grapple attacks, and how to work as a team, but not how to tank attacks like the super hero can.
Les may be good at applying a grapple-hold, not so good at getting the opponent into a position where he can apply it ie he ain’t too good at actual fighting, if he opponent to evade his moves, he’s useless in a fight (he’s defensive, not offensive, unless you talk to him :P )
Achilles has been underutilized so far.
Underrated post.
||||| Dave Barrack: I did mess up that last panel a bit though. Dabbler’s sword is has at least a four foot blade with a two foot handle (as it is a 4 handed sword.) It looks about 2/3 the size it ought to be there.
Who’s to say it’s the exact same sword? Dabbler has a vast wealth of experience, spells & weaponry to choose from. Maybe this is a smaller sword with a somewhat-similar look, but maybe it has much different properties?
“Who’s to say it’s the exact same sword?”
Well…. DaveB is to say it’s the exact same sword. :)
Touche. I was simply suggesting that he could have another option for the explanation beyond simply ‘I done f*cked up the scale of her sword.’
I sort of like that DaveB is holding himself to that higher standard honestly :) It shows how much he cares about the quality of the work that he puts out for the audience.
But yeah, I get what you’re saying. There can usually be an in world reason for an out-of-world art error .:)
Would it be nice if you could pull something out of your personal hammerspace at different sizes? Say, with (in this case) a density that is increased by 1/3?
At least that was my thought while reading that part.
Tweaking the size/density on something would be a power in itself. One could build some amazing nanotech from macro scale tools, or turn a toy tank into a full-size one, or just gold-plate some lead ingots and adjust them to the proper density/weight before exchanging them for cryptocurrency and disappearing.
> Please ignore that the layout of headquarters has dramatically changed since that picture. Sydney didn’t return to an alternate version of Earth from her space adventure, or anything.
Eh, it’s the headquarters of a superhero organisation. For obvious reasons, they tend to get rebuilt regularly.
Rule of Funny for panel 4.
Anvil should have caught her.
…maybe Anvil absorbed a little of that energy so Halo didn’t bump her head on the concrete?
…a bump on the head while the Skill Tree is open might highlight the Healing menu?
Or chose not to?
Even the kindest sergeant I have ever met had fairly strict limits to his patience.
Even speedsters have trouble reacting to Sydney’s unpredictable behavior (despite this act actually being a repeat).
To be fair, Anvil wasn’t there for the first time to know that Sydney would do that again. :)
But I bet Max got a smirk out of seeing it coming this time. >_<
Re: Soul Reaver is not to proper scale.
To quote Harry Freakin’ Dresden: “Magic!”
“Please ignore that the layout of headquarters has dramatically changed since that picture. Sydney didn’t return to an alternate version of Earth from her space adventure, or anything.”
Maybe the super phenomenon also causes buildings to spontaneously rearrange themselves without anyone noticing? Or maybe there’s a Building Rearrangement Man somewhere who likes pulling pranks on high-level government agencies?
53 days is long enough for someone in upper management to decide they wanted to change the layout and then hire some supers to do the work. I mean, I have the feeling Archon could find some *somewhere*.
Is it confirmed that superpowers are a genetic thing in Grrlpower, ala mutants in Marvel?
No.
I think that’s been specifically ruled out, actually.
there is no definite answer, maxima got her power from a geode, sydney from her orb most of the rest are mysterious… the only thing we can tell for sure is that there is no “mystical” origin, since we saw the veil of the mystical being don’t cover super…
Max, had a natural power, before the geode (possible Symbiote).
What natural power did she have? o_O
Hand laser if I’m recalling right. I *think* her brother woke her up on a couch and she instinctively lasered at him. Could be wrong. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of her abilities were ‘natural’ and then her symbiote just enhanced them.
If I remember correctly, Maxima’s nearly blasting her brother happened after her exposure to the geode, while it was still integrating with her. (I can’t remember clearly enough when the on-page flashback happened, to look out the archive link, sorry.)
Maxima was clearly gold with purple hair in this particular flashback, so indeed, after geode exposure.
That’s the one I was thinking of, thanks.
DaveB hinted at several possibilities in the author blurb below page #415, but I’m not aware of him ever making a definitive proclamation on the matter.
Had forgotten that note, thanks. The key takeaway:
Dave doesn’t say what her base power(s) are / would have been there, or anywhere else I’ve seen.
Dabbler said that Superpowers were Uniquely Terran. Yet other species have abilities as well. I guess it is the difference from being an ability common within a species, as common as singing or dancing are to humans, versus rare and varying abilities that are not tied to the species as a whole yet only seem to occur within this species, Humans/Terrans.
Any of the alien species we have e seen so far have a shared nature that doesn’t vary except maybe in levels like some are more talented than others.
Humans/Terrans break the norms. It’s like the universe is using Earth as a dumping ground for powerful artifacts, or is messing around with something in the environment that messes around with the people there.
Like nuclear testing sites creating kaiju monsters, or much of the intergalactic scrap drifts to Earth including some powerful stuff that messes with the whole ecosystem.
Nth level civilization using Earth as a play test for different body types, abilities, and limitations for future avatars and game pieces perhaps.
More evidence that we’re all just a simulation. Scott Bieser did a nice arc on that in the “Assimulation” storyline of his Quantum Vibe comic.
Thanks, been binging that today, up to strip 195 right now, taking a break.
Interesting to see others exploring some of the same concepts. One idea I also like to run with is the advanced alien civilizations who discover deep space travel to either be too dangerous or has too little reward for the cost but happen to instead find a way to break into and explore other realities, colonizing, trading with and yes conquering various versions of Earth. Including non-human sapient species that evolved on those Earths exploring other realities and the hurdles there of.
Oh, you should read ‘Forge of the Elders” by L. Neil Smith then. It’s basically about just that. Some political commentary regarding the ups and downs of communism versus capitalism tho.
Also sounds a similar concept to the Long Earth series by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter.
Gawd damnit i was thinking of the rock landing joke when i saw her fall and boom sydney callback… god my love for this comic is too great for word…
Indeed – I’ve been waiting for that brick to come back down for years now, and Dave landed it smoothly. The art may occasionally wander, but the callbacks are consistently well executed.
I liked how Dabbler made a distinction between Humans and Terrans. For example, Cora is a kind of human, but she isn’t a Terran. So, Terrans are a subset of Humans born on the planet Earth.
At least that is what she seems to be implying there.
Cora made that distinction explicit at one point, if I recall correctly.
Or, maybe, Dirticans are the base hyu-mon, and everyone else are subsets?
“Dabbler’s sword […] looks about 2/3 the size it ought to be there.” – DaveB
The original Soul Reaver is a large two-handed broadsword, even when split into its two components, so it’s a bit unwieldy for closer-range melée work. It makes sense that Dabbler would have a smaller sword for the occasions where the extra length would simply be obstructive, similar to the (reputed) pairing of the katana and the wakizashi in feudal Japan. And of course the set will be designed to match!
DaveB, you didn’t screw up the sword! The obvious answer is that THAT isn’t Soul Reaver – it’s Dab’s backup sword. Her off-hand weapon (because OF COURSE a four-armed fighter is going to take Two-Weapon Fighting, AT LEAST), a wakizashi to Soul Reaver’s katana.
And yes, I remember that Soul Reaver separates into two swords – but she has FOUR arms. Sometimes you just want a third weapon.
and a fourth, and a fifth… And that axe looks yummy… and… you *know* you can never have enough daggers… and.. ;)
It’s really hard to choose just the right weapon.
(Also, if you’ve never seen Court Jester, it’s fantastic – watch the whole clip at least.)
The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!
The vassal with the passel hides the true that is blue,
The braggin’ with the dragon holds the trollop with the polyp
The kessel with the parsel has the merkin with the falcon
But the bugle in the fugle is the drum with the rum!
A FOUR-handed sword eh? Cool!
“Forewarned is forearmed” – and Dabbler is always fourwarned!
Also fourward.
I’ll show myself out…
Because Detla is blue-ish instead of pink-ish, I suppose that she is lightly pigmented and has hemocyanin rather than hemoglobin as an oxygen transport molecule.
If so, then copper is as important in her diet as iron is in ours. But I can’t think of any part of human cuisine that has a significant copper content. Although we do use copper-bottomed pans sometimes, so I suppose that would be relevant.
So what does she need to eat? Will she be teaching people how to make new dishes that haven’t been around before? Or will she just take copper supplement pills?
Assuming her biology is even slightly similar to something from Terra.
In any event, I’d likely think what she needs to eat would include imported alien food, supplied to the planet as part of making it an attractive place for all that anonymous alien sex tourism you’re supposed to not be forgetting.
Lobster, presumably? Given that they have the copper-based blood.
Except for certain mollusks copper tends to have a strong antimicrobial factor to the point where a copper nail can be driven through the bark and kill a tree. I doubt there are many good sources of food to exploit outside of filter feeders. One could easily argue that it would be far more efficient to produce a copper or other mineral supplement to accommodate unique biological requirements.
Copper is an essential nutrient for humans. It is in a lot of food you eat.
It may also be that Detla’s surprise is due to possibly recognizing the sword used and THAT SWORD did not cut him. I’m sure there’s materials out there her sword can’t cut through, so she might have made an assumption.
About Sword I’ve had done some Longsword H.E.M.A , the longsword used by me (1,88m or 6’2″ tall ) was 125 cm long (4’1″) with a 102 cm blade length ( about 40 inches) for 1.502 kg ( 3 lbs 5 ounces ) it’s a rather long and heavy model …
A longsword is a basic medieval two handed sword ( 14 th to 16th century)
I’ve seen German 16th century Greatswords of 6’2″ and about 3.5 kg (7.716 lbs) and it’s a combat Greatsword not a bearing sword.
Size of the handle OK but you could safely add a feet to the blade after all Dabdler is about 10 centimeters smaller than me and if I remember corectly had superhuman strength
Sorry I can’t edit I’m french and 1,88 m in French is translated as 1.88 m in English.
For a french a decimal point is a coma and a point is a thousands separator
I know that it was specifically mentioned in the comic that Achilles’s invulnerability is absolute. But it would sure be a bummer if they ever did discover his Kryptonite and he just was suddenly decapitated.
Imagine if Grrlpower was a TV show, and Achilles didn’t renew his contract with the show. That’s how I would write him out of the show.
“Quick, Achilles, come carry the energy tester over to that purple glowing orb we just found”
*Achilles melts into a puddle*
“Oops, I guess his one weakness is purple rays! Now we know. He will be missed”
From the afterlife, Tasha Yar agrees.
But if Yar had not died in the stupidest way imaginable, just when she was starting to act like a competent security officer, “Yesterday’s Enterprise” would never have existed, and the world would be a poorer place.
Of course, followed by a season of a blonde Romulan that afaik added nothing worthwhile to the universe, so it all evens out.
Well, that’s a good point. “Yesterday’s Enterprise” is one of the best episodes because it’s one where the crew’s choices have real consequences that last beyond the puzzle-of-the-week, and because it gives Yar the heroic death she deserved.
In my headcanon, “Skin Of Evil” was just a holodeck training exercise where Yar rolled a critical save failure and for unrelated reasons transferred to a different ship shortly thereafter. As John Scalzi wrote so vastly well in “Redshirts”, heroes accept the chance of death because heroism is their thing, they just don’t want pointless, meaningless deaths. Good writers respect that.
Some one should introduce her to Math. That should be interesting.
Alternate possibility, Dabbler has more than one sword, and used a smaller blade for this demonstration.
I mean really, does it make sense that Dabs has only a single version of *anything* in her arsenal?
I’m still really curious to know why the characters are so convinced he’s invulnerable. Out of character we know because the author says so, but in character they’d only know what he’s actually been subjected to and I don’t imagine that they would drop a nuclear bomb on him just to see if he’s able to tank it.
What’s the worst thing he’s been subjected to then that he’s survived? Did he fall in a volcano at some point and survived? Did he use to be a soldier and survived an IED? Wouldn’t they only know that he can survive at least one of these things and be very hesitant to put him in new kinds of harms way on the off chance that something is sufficient to overcome or circumvent his extreme durability? Or just make him as good as dead for the purposes of the other characters, like if he somehow gets alzheimers and no longer remembers any of them and can only be used as a soruce of invulnerable hair and skin cells.
Some of the most dangerous ones would obviously be things like permanent stasis fields (he’s still alive, but he wont’ get out of it until shortly after the heat death of the universe while experiencing only a single instant), portalcuts, black holes (even if he can take the pressures from a singularity, he’s not getting back out), black hole weapons (he may not be able to handle being sucked into even a small one), permanent transformations, straight up magic, mind control, superpowered but mundane persuasion(Deeuuuus!), time *acceleration* (invulnerable cancer! He might be immune to aging or getting cancer but the characters don’t know that for certain), corruption (Fel badness?) teleportation to somewhere irretrievable (wormholes, alternate dimensions?), or straight up any threat that is in excess of anything he does not yet have an in-story feat of resisting where all they can do is hold their thumbs and hope his durability is up to this task as well.
Like if he hasn’t survived a nuke, they’d probably be really nervous the first time he’s left in the epicenter of one.
I seem to recall ‘headbutting a cruise missile’ and ‘swallowing a vial of super-ebola’ as past incidents to which he’s referred on-page. And to quote the cast page:
[blockquote]He’s often off site doing something insanely dangerous – movie stunts, deep sea welding, collecting samples from an active volcano, but he prefers hanging out with the team, citing “You can only drive a car off a plane into an ammo dump so many times before it gets boring.”[/blockquote]
Those are some nutty things to get up to before you knew they wouldn’t kill you. Though of all those activities I think headbutting a cruise missile would be the most extreme one – why would they even try that when they did?
I don’t see a wcenario where a cruise missile gets into headbutt range without being aimed to hit specifically him given that they generally travel faster than bullets.
Chances are somebody threw him at the cruise missile. Maxima threw him at some people during the parking lot brawl, though she could probably take a cruise missile out safely herself. Maybe Hiro?
Well, I did like the reference from early episodes
Well, someone is stuck on Earth.
I would like to request that Detla be a (semi)regular presence in the comic.
Detla, is in the who’s who!
Well, yeah, why not? Lapha and Raymos are in there as well
Slapping/smacking someone in the face has to be incredibly disrespectful and annoying especially if it’s just to prove a point to someone else.
Okay, so I was discussing this with my brother, gonna mention it here.
Can Achilles gain muscle mass? Since muscles are built through the tearing and repairing of muscle fibers, his power would technically not allow him to, well… Do that.
technically speaking he shouldn’t be able to gain new memories either, digest food properly, and his body’s cellular life spans must be frozen in time or else function in a totally alien manner as breaking down and reshaping is a requirement.
he has to be more alien to human anatomy than any alien they could meet just by virtue or eschewing cellular biology.
It’s assumed not since the cast page specifically mentions that he can no longer break bones or tear muscle fibers so he’s permanently stuck at the strength level that he was at when he first developed invulnerability. On the other hand, he can make better use of that strength than a normal human being since he doesn’t have to worry about broken bones or damaged muscles. And he must be incredibly irritating when helping someone move, since he never has to worry about hernias or slipped disks.
The good thing is that as a super he gets ‘perfect physique’ for free, and therefore can be decently strong without training.
achilles answered my own question on the previous panel comments about how a spar or fight between Achilles and Brit who is also impervious to everything and can actually hit hard while being a black special ops type, would go. lol one is trained to take down the opponent as quick as possible, then there’s achilles
Brit of Invincible series that is