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!
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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.
I still love how nonchalant Achilles is about people abusing his body for fun or for demonstration purposes. Kids, take note: ONLY try this on the invulnerable superhero, most other people this is REALLY bad.
I hope that Dabbler has her consulting pay docked for a completely unnecessary destruction of government property. That lounge chair wasn’t doing anyone any harm, and destroying it wasn’t necessary to demonstrate how sharp her sword is.
I’m positive she can repair it.
They’re all multi-millionaires, a staff member will just bring out a new chair and put it on her tab.
Yep, and that chair is going to cost Dabbler $1M.
Itemized bill:
One (1) pool side lounge chair – $750.00
Staff time to remove destroyed pool side lounge chair and replace with undamaged pool side lounge chair – $999,250.00
The fines for misconduct need to actually have a noticeable impact, or they become meaningless. Professional football teams figured this out, but the US government seems to be too stupid to learn this rather obvious lesson.
Have you considered the possibility that the government is not actually interested in punishing the behavior they’re fining, but that the fines may be just for appearances to appease the public?
Yes, I have considered the fact that this possibility is actually a sad reality.
Like the millionaire that bought a house that was an historical landmark and therefor protected by law against destruction because he wanted the land to build a nice pretty mansion on. He promptly destroyed it and built his mansion because the fine for destroying it meant nothing to him.
Indeed. Or like any number of corporations who are fined a pittance for law breaking. Only when they are caught. By the government agencies who have had their funding slashed and so have a hard time catching them. And then have a fine applied which is far less than the cost to bring their operations into compliance with the law.
Yes, exactly.
The dude blocks swords with his eyeball for fun. Let’s face it, if you were indestructible you’d have a hard time not randomly abusing your body, his friends just help out…that being said, let’s hope he never goes up against someone who can negate his powers. He is very likely to get stabbed with the way he fights.
lets face it, woooo.
Likely? In such a case, he’s GUARANTEED to get stabbed… the question is whether or not it’s serious.
And whether or not the ‘rule of funny’ gets invoked… e.g. his power gets negated; 43 should-be-lethal attacks hit; all are grazing shots to the nose or ass… attackers are so stunned they forget to continue power negation, and then they get their asses whipped…
I doubt Achilles will ever have his power negated, as the whole point of his power is that it’s “invulnerability, no exceptions”. Also because DaveB doesn’t like power negation, since it feels like a cop-out. Besides, you don’t need to negate his power, as he’s not exactly hard to defeat. He can’t be injured, but he can be kited; he has no intrinsic mobility or ways to escape confinement. Any equipment he wears to offset this (say, a jetpack) does not share his invulnerability.
That, and tossing him into orbit’ll remove him as a problem. Or encasing him in Concrete, or any number of other things.
He’s just invulnerable, and peak human strength.
Punt him off into the sun, and he’ll be out of combat… until somebody punts him back down, that is.
I suppose counter is a better word for what I mean. Just because he hasn’t been able to be stabbed by anything that people have tried to stab him with doesn’t mean that there’s nothing out there that can stab him, just means it’s rare enough that he hasn’t been stabbed by it yet. I doubt he’d stand in the way of the Skybreaker but I wouldn’t be surprised if something that can cut a hole in time and space could do him damage.
But yes, unless he’s invulnerable to suffocation shooting him into orbit, encasing him in concrete or dropping him a box to the bottom of the ocean would probably take him out.
He is invulnerable, to asphyxiation.
Yeah … I think that Ragna Blade would also hurt him, considering it can cut through dimensional barrier and kill gods.
yeah it is hard to imagine his invulnerability will extend to eldritch powers and especially not against reality breaking powers.
for those that don’t know the Ragna Blade calls upon the power of the Lord of Nightmares (an omni-being, she who sleeps like a golden jewel at the center of the sea of chaos, who is the sea of chaos, from which the four universes of the Slayers series were made from her body and whose capriciousness keeps a balance going for creation and destruction as she created the gods of the gods for both sides as she can’t decide if she wants to keep creation or destroy it all and return to her original form…
so yeah, a “energy” sword made from the essence of creation/destruction from outside the boundary of reality…that should do the trick.
add to that list things like the Light Hawk Wings from Tenchi Muyo, and maybe the Hakai from Dragon ball Super…I’m not convinced even Zeno is the ultimate being *especially as multiples exist in different timelines* and we’ve seen Goku and Freiza resist the energy of destruction so it might not be on the same scale of destruction as the Light Hawk Wings or Ragna Blade which call upon the powers of beings beyond their reality’s limitations.
That reminds me of the defunct Beatrix Farmer comic. She was just a normal anthropomorphic rabbit until caught in a drive-by shooting and being fatally shot, until hyper-dimensional aliens saved her and put her into a pink suit that provided her with complete invulnerability. She had a frictionless force field that she had to learn how to walk and pick things up properly, no need for anything not even sleep and also no senses but hearing and sight AND she was invulnerable to going crazy. When she asked about being able to turn it off the next time that she saw them they pointed out she’d not really be invulnerable if she could turn it off.
Why would Dabbler claim that Achilles isn’t a good fighter? His power set gives him the ability to train without injury, and to train without fatigue since that is a form of injury. He’d need to be a really lazy person to have spent the past 30 or so years relying on his invulnerability alone to get him through a fight. Being constantly embarrassed by anyone with any real amount of martial training should be incentive enough for him to put in the time and effort, and again it should take him much less time and effort due to his invulnerability, to be able to resist being thrown around like an impossible to harm rag doll.
“Why would Dabbler claim that Achilles isn’t a good fighter?”
Because he just knows some basic wrestling grapple moves, and for most of his career, according to DaveB, he didnt even think to do that. Maxima’s the one who convinced him to start using his invulnerability in a more offensive way by learning some basic grappling moves.
Achilles does seem to be exactly that amount of lazy. The sort who goes “Eh, that’s good enough” whenever he’s asked to make an effort at anything. In fact, his invulnerability probably only strengthened that personality trait when he learned nothing could hurt him. Not to mention he doesn’t seem to take a lot of things very seriously, including being embarrassed by someone more skilled than himself. He just doesn’t care enough to let it get to him.
He does things like underwater welding, and skydiving into volcanoes. Welding isn’t a casual skill, and underwater welding even more so, I imagine. Dropping into a volcano might seem like just a lark for an invulnerable man, but you need at least a few jumps to pick up the skills to get even close to your intended landing spot.
No, I don’t buy it. Many of the things Achilles does require skill to do right. Skill that requires time and practice to acquire. So I don’t really accept the laziness of Achilles as being a real thing supported by canon.
I would happily accept it as being just another writing failure, however. A “told and not shown” discrepancy the author inadvertently set up out of laziness and a failure to do even a little amount of thinking about the implications of the things he has said about Achilles. That at least bears out under the twin criteria of history and example.
To me he seems a bit like YD Teacher (Anime) He only does what he really wants to do, but exells at those stuff.
It is not really global lazyness, but just a lack of interest in this specific area. Loving extreme sports and training in that field doesnt mean you also put effort into marterial arts.
Yeah it’s not lazy in a “sit around doing nothing” way, if he was he wouldn’t have been a vigilante. It’s more the he’ll put in work if he’s interested and can directly see the results but isn’t going to do the grinding work that martial arts training would require.
I don’t remeber Achilles being canonicaly lazy, just don’t care about learning how to fight and, before Arcaon, he didn’t need to fight.
Potentially much stronger than a “normal” man with the same muscle mass.
He can’t get stronger but can’t damage a muscle by pulling up too much weight or break a wrist/leg wirth a wrong landing.
I think it’s not that he’s MUCH stronger than a normal human, but rather his muscles and tendons will never tear so it makes him able to do about 150% what a normal human could do (I think that’s what DaveB described for Achilles).
DaveB’s description: Also he is about 50% stronger than a normal human since he doesn’t have to worry about tearing muscles or breaking bones by straining too hard.
One may be amazed at just how strong a regular human body is when being broken isn’t an issue.
even putting aside not being able to break bones or muscles *so he could technically wrap his legs around a concrete block and grab an small plane’s wheel axils and hold it down as nothing would break like his arms so he really works well as a small craft anchor.(
putting aside things like that even for a mundane human if you put on armored gauntlets/gloves with padding inside you could find your self doing things you couldn’t before like punching through some concrete, door frames, ect…unlike a video game this didn’t add any strength to you, instead it removed the durability obstacles. Such as protecting the overly fragile skin that humans have and the padding absorbing the shock to prevent bruising and broken bones.
its like putting someone inside a bomb suit and them being able to go all Kool Aid Man on a wall.
you were ALWAYS that strong, but your body wasn’t made to take the impacts or resist being cut. Take away the risks and you could pass yourself off as moderately super strong.
“He does things like underwater welding, and skydiving into volcanoes. Welding isn’t a casual skill, and underwater welding even more so, I imagine.”
Yes, because he gets bored, not because he has an aversion to laziness. He seems far more like the type of person who would rather just chill out than do something difficult. He also seems like the type of person who got into vigilanteism because his friends, Heatwave and Amorphous, did, and he figured it was just ‘something to do that might be interesting.’
“Many of the things Achilles does require skill to do right.”
Such as what? The only thing that we’ve seen so far that requires more skill than just ‘being there’ is the grappling, which is something he only recently decided to start doing at Maxima’s suggestion, according to DaveB.
He really does seem to be someone who would much rather just lounge around in the pool or eating a good steak.
Most of his crimefighting, pre-grappling’ was just ‘be in the area to be a distraction/shield for other people’ or maybe ‘be a projectile for his teammates to throw at other people really hard since it wouldn’t hurt him anyway.’
He always seems to be okay with this even, because what does it matter to him? He was okay with Sydney using him as a trap de-fuser in Sciona’s lair. He was okay with being thrown around by Maxima at other people during the Restaurant Rumble. He was okay with Sydney bashing him with the lighthook because he insists on saying mouth feel instead of texture like some hipster doofus (Sydney’s words). He’s just VERY chill about all this stuff because none of it is in any way a danger to him. For all we know, he’s functionally immortal and it might even be a coping mechanism for that. He can’t change physically, so he might as well be emotionally fluid instead and just let things flow.
Such as the examples I provided you with in the very post you are responding to and quoting from.
You were doing so well, and then you dropped back into “I can’t read” mode. Why do you do such absolutely stupid shit like this? How can you expect us to believe that you’re capable of winning a case as a lawyer when you can’t manage to retain the information presented to you in three short paragraphs when you are replying?
Judge, summing up: And this is why I may rule against you. Do you have any response which might change my mind?
Pander: But, why male models?
Here’s the exact description by DaveB about Achilles’ combat ability pre-grappling:
“As such, his tactic in a fight is to simply taunt his opponents until he can get his hands on them. He has limited combat utility on his own since he can’t fly or move particularly fast, and he’s not much threat to a smart opponent”
He was mainly a good distraction in a fight. The grappling made him a little more useful since most grappling is about restraining your opponent, which makes endurance and his natural invulnerability a lot more important than his strength.
ie, he would never be able to do what he did to Detla to someone who has any level of partial invulnerability or the ability to not have to breathe, or has more superstrength than that of someone 50% stronger than a normal human. Case in point, him vs Sciona. She was able to remove his arm from her throat, although she was frustrated that his bones were not breaking. But he wasnt able to do the same thing to her that he could later do to Detla, who does not have superstrength, probably doesnt have invulnerability (despite her boobs not getting road rash), and apparently does need to breathe.
Everyone forgets that at one point in the past of this comic he was thrown at an enemy by a teammate while crossing his arms and smiling slightly
You are assuming he gets embarrassed by anything
What incentive is there for him to learn how to fight, when he can’t be harmed by anything?
Physical training does him no good: his body is impervious to change, even the ‘good’ change from physical exercise and training
Until he (was forced to) join Archon, he had no reason to learn how to utilize his invulnerability offensively (other than passive offense, ie being offensive simply because he can’t be hurt)
I think Achilles is probably immune to embarrassment.
Ah, but you’re making one vital, flawed assumption. You’re assuming Achilles gives a shit. He doesn’t.
You can’t be hurt emotionally if you don’t care.
…Is this part of his actual superpower, or maybe a reaction/coping mechanism for it?
I am trying to imagine him as a bad guy, but failing to come up with a motive for him to be a bad guy. Then again, I am also unsure why he joined the team. He strikes me as unambitious. (I could be wrong, and we’ll find out when it’s plot-relevant that his ambitions are… that goal! Or maybe we won’t because maybe it won’t matter to the story at hand.
We know he eats, so… can he be starved? Can he get fat? Does he need to breathe? How far does his invulnerability work? Hmm…
He seems to enjoy showing off to the ladies and remember that Super Powered Women push the top end of the sexy scale. Motivation to join Archon is simple “T&A in your face. All. Day. Long. Also more than looking is potentially
available with wrestling and martial bouts.” Not to say seeing is getting but sometimes as an available male that the ladies in question do not have to worry about hurting with unlimited play time till they drop since he will out last them. Yeah, motivation – horn dog with unique assets on offer.
Not dying from snu snu must be nice in this universe.
He joined the team, because he is besties with Morph, who, along with Heatwave, decided to become Vigilantes, they got caught, they were offered the choice: Prison or Archon?
“You’re assuming Achilles gives a shit. He doesn’t.” …and you know this, HOW?
HAH! Totally called it on Sydney wanting to go again! :D
Really?
How hard was THAT to guess? :p
Do you want the answer that relies on algebra or the answer that relies on calculus?
Both, please.
I would prefer an answer that relies on non-Newtonian hyperspace physics, thank you very much.
Well, ok. But remember that you asked for this!
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn
Dabbler notices Sydney’s orbs’ skill tree and shifts her attention to that…!
Hopefully she is smart enough to divert Delta’s attention from it, or if not her then Maxima should. There is classified information in that display and they should not let someone who is technically under arrest examine it in detail.
As I have been saying!
Classified info about Nth tech+ Alien merc = BAD!!!!!
Pray that Delta don’t start eyeballing Sydney’s orbs and getting ambitious ideas…!
Alien tech + casual star travel + Deus = “We already, know thanks.” “Securitys a lovely aboriginal custom, dear.”
Camera can’t see it so I suppose her weird mask can’t either
IF… The lenses are totally camera inputs to screens on the inside, sure… BUT… If they are A.R. Glasses kinda like the Google Glass, then they probably will be seen by Detla with her own eyes, but she’ll just not be able to take a “screen shot” of it… she may THINK she got one but when she gets to a place where she can go over the image in private, she’ll find out that all she took was a picture of Sydney standing there, maybe pointing to something that’s not in frame, as the actual skill tree won’t be visible.
It doesn’t help that Earth’s supers seem a bit higher up the power weight scale in terms of specific powers than the demons and mages Detla’s used to fighting. Quality over quantity, at the expense of mostly being one-trick ponies. Except Dabbler, of course, who’s more like what Detla’s used to, but at a higher than average level.
and Dabbler’s over confidence nearly lost her another arm via Detla during the Time Square fight. Dabbler seems to have the monologuing issue when she fights. Nearly lost an arm to Detla and got knocked out of that fight for a moment by an opponent she shouldn’t have had that much trouble with (Henchwench), considering she apparently fought Maxima to a stand still.
what made that worse is Dabbler had just prior been remarking to Lapha that her mercs had no idea how to deal with supers as if Dabbler’s experience has made her better at it…and then when the fight switched up a super floors her because she was busy looking away from her opponent and talking.
Nasty rock, hurting Sydney’s bum again!
I think that janitor needs to spend less time wiping footprints off the ceiling and more time dealing with basic debris on the ground!
nah, the rock is there thanks to a trans-dimensional prankster, Irritato, who causes small annoyances, especially for super heroes.
And/or the orbs’ AI, who is offended that Halo would hurl herself to the ground when she could be flying everywhere.
is this Irritato also posting in the comments section under a different alias?
Sometimes.
Coyote, Raven, or Rabbit!?
yes
although I suspect Coyote has been having fun messing with a place called Skinwalker Ranch.
Nah, he’s busy in Gunnercrigg Court (spelt the name of the court wrong :( )
No no no, you didn’t mess up the size of the sword! See, she just cast a spell with the invisible hands behind the glamour to shrink it as she summoned it from “Dabblerspace”, to make it easier to make her demonstration without having to use two hands (or three or four). It’s never a mistake, it’s just that the reason it’s correct isn’t always obvious! ;)
So, it seems like Dabbler is working that whole ‘hands on her hips’ pose today. Two pages, like, a half-dozen panels, & she’s in more or less the same pose in every single one.
No a complaint or a critique. Just an amusing observation.
The term, for that is AKIMBO! (hands on hip)s!
I read “Mlem” in a Yoshi voice…
^ This ^
Achilles might be more effective with a gun to make him at least appear moderately threatening at a distance. He’d be useful to the team as a magnet for ranged weapons so give him a ridiculously huge BMF with a visible-laser sight and a siren that blares “Hey Over Here!!!”.
Achilles is the optimal ammunition for a fastball special.
I’m actually looking forward to hearing how they explain (if they explain) the phenomenon of ‘super powers’ to Detla.
Starting from zero, what’s she going to understand at first, and what will all the follow-ons like ‘automatically perfect physique’ etc mean to her?
Because we tend to forget how bizarre all of this is.
One problem with that: doubt that they can explain ‘super powers’ to themselves
Like, namely, how (and why) do some people get them and others don’t? And why is there seemingly a huge upswing in Supers in the last couple months?
Who knows? Maybe the company that makes Vitameatavegamin recently* had an increase in market share so their sales figures are up?
* (recently): being a relative term that implies that the company has been around for at least the last 30-ish years (due to the apparent ages of the Supers we’ve seen so far)… the ‘Historical” supers like the ones that started Archon probably had their version of the same active ingredients and got their super powers from things like stuff that “snake-oil salesmen” used to sell, and maybe even “Gran-moms Special Secret Recipe” type things way back then… and it wasn’t until mass-production / distribution came around that initiated this increase in numbers.
Is it terrible of me that I think Delta might be reconsidering the whole ‘will Achilles be a good mate’ thing, if there’s a chance of children of said union to inherit some form of superpower? Maybe stick around for some different “grappling” lessons off panel.
That is called “Shipping” and it is a long and honored tradition on these the Great Internet.
But be careful, wars have been fought in dark and filthy trenches of forum sections. Lives have been lost and servers have been burned……… might be a slight exaggeration, but only slight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tc7MH5ZXbg
Was not ready for that song, Hahahaha. Actually made me do a spit take there man.
Exactly the song (and AMV) I was expecting. :)
I bet Detla feels real bad about pledging herself to Achilles’ service now. Given her culture’s emphasis on backstabbing, she may try to…aggressively renegotiate the contract, but her only other option is going to super-jail, or at least getting deported.
A thought occurred to me… what if Sydney fills in the center spot… and suddenly gains an entirely new ORB?
This had never occurred to me, but I can’t think of any reason it couldn’t happen – the skill grid could easily morph to an 8th orb. Given the versatility of the existing 7 though, and the number of unfilled nodes on the current tree, what would the 8th orb even do?
I doubt it’s the case, but it’s amusing to think that the orbs are just a discarded toy, and that the owner was so disappointed with each one that they kept spending their points on new orbs, rather than investing in the ones they had.