Grrl Power #969 – Gravity assisted motivation
You know your job is weird when your boss kicking you from an eighty foot cliff is not grounds for a HR complaint.
Ren, for those of you who don’t recall, has “Super Adrenaline.” He’s trying to avoid the Supranym “The Black Hulk” because, well, he doesn’t turn into a giant bulky guy, doesn’t want to get sued, and also has an issue with being labeled by race. It would be like if Lewis Seinstien turned into “The Jewish Hulk” which of course now that I’ve typed that can only imagine he’s Hasidic with the beard and the corkscrew sideburn things. I can’t decide if he’d wear a yamaka or one of those flat brimmed hoiche hats.
Damn, what was I talking about? Oh, right. Ren still doesn’t have a supranym. His power is supercharged adrenaline that, as referenced on this page, puts him at a level where he can at least make Max notice. Someone once suggested calling him “Red Bull” which immediately led to “Black Bull” and both of those were shot down on the spot.
He knows he needs to come up with something eventually, or he’s going to get the Arianna special, which just means something legally safe, marketable and cool, in that order.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update:
Went back and did some editing to the penultimate chapter, but that’s probably a misnomer now, because I’m really leaning toward adding a chapter or two so that I can end the book on a fight. Also spent part of the weekend working on a potential cover for the book. Didn’t get a lot of work done on it because I restarted halfway through and went browsing through a bunch of Frank Frazetta art, but as iconic as his stuff is, 1) I can’t realistically emulate it, 2) It doesn’t match the mood of the book or the previous cover. Still, I was getting frustrated with my art process and was wanting to try something a little more painterly. If all else fails I can use that picture of Xerxa, but I’ll keep noodling on it when I have free time. Hah hah, that’s not a thing.
August’s vote incentive is up! I know, that thumbnail isn’t so enticing, but I promise, the rest of the picture is worth it.
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how about Nos or Nitro for a supranym
Those are good, but it would have to be Nitro since NOS is trademarked. Only other problem is that those feel more like speeder names than strength.
He does have speed and a name that makes people miss that he’s more than just speed could be handy.
Torque or some variant.
How about Rush or Surge
Or Jolt?
Charge? :D
No no no, the obvious answer is clearly his supranym should be Nomu!
No one will get it, and those who do will either be terrified, or confused, and then he gets to dress up in a bird suit for Halloween :P
Nomu also technically works because it’s japanese for drink, not just japanese for reference to a thing. And even though “drink” is stupid as a supranym, if in the right connotations, since everyone is fine with him essentially being mountain dew energy drink, he could be *drink*ing in the power :P
No? Okay.
Just for the reference is fine then.
Well, he is a tall drink of something.
Stim?
I don’t think that would work for HR because of the phrase ‘stim package’.
I must be naive because I have no idea what ‘stim package’ means.
I’m assuming something dirty though from the context of your response. :)
‘Stim package’ is an incentive paid before the start of a project, a sign on bonus, or a bribe to facilitate rapid completion of the work.
‘Stim’s package’ would be the presentation of his genitals in a tight supersuit.
Rush was my first thought as well. Though I suspect that Dave already has a name in mind.
Hype might be another possible option.
Insert TFS’s Vegeta: “I AM THE HYPE”
“Why do they keep hitting me in the balls!?”
Thought up an interesting way for Sydney to fighy aomeonr like vehemence. Flight and Shield orbs. Fly above him at some distwnce, trap him in shield, short bursts at maximum speed while constantly changing directions and just pinball him around. Pretty sure the high speed collisions would do more damage than the violence he’d absorb from it.
Vehemence is ludicrously fast, and Sydney is not technically a super. She is an ordinary person with access/linked to potent alien tech. Anything she traps inside of her shield can seriously or fatally wound her with ease.
The only reason she was able to contain him last time is because he didn’t want to hurt anyone, and especially not a smaller and relatively fragile woman who likewise wasn’t trying to hurt him. Kevin has been portrayed as a very nice guy for a supervillain. It is just that he requires vehiemic energy to survive, and gains strength the more of it is around him.
Oh he wanted to hurt people (namely Maxima whom he intended to kill at that time). It was the distraction of a succubae’s hypnotic sisters that mainly contained him. That and his gloaty nature with an added Maximum handicap on the side.
Also he didnt feel like hurting Sydney in particular. He definitely wanted to hurt Maxima. As in kill Maxima. Which he was doing.
She could use her shield as a bettering ram then. Mach+ impacts are nothing to sneeze at.
For not getting hit by him as he bounces thats just tracking his path and swerving enough to not get hit, also you wouldnt need to just swing back and forth, sharp angles would keep his path from crossing centerpoint.
He wasnt shown to be particularly fast. Granted he wanted to fight the team, his focus was on Max, but the rest of the team was able to keep up easily enough. I literally just went through the fight to determine if he had any real feats of speed, which he didnt.
In https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-252-a-mighty-blow-to-the-ego/ he’s shown to be quite fast, certainly for Sydney, and in https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-270-options-dwindling/ Maxima notes he’s gotten even faster.
And he doesn’t need to be a speedster, he just needs to be fast enough to keep up with Sydney to counter her course changes.
Two things. One sydney can go escape velocity. So mach 23. Second she could make the shield seceral hindred feet so thered be plenty of space to vounce him around without him getting close enough to her to attack.
Except she still can’t exclude herself from the shield, so it’d be more like putting herself in a drink shaker.
The flight orb gives localized gravity, so Sydney won’t feel any of the effects of sudden acceleration.
Doesn’t do anything about other objects in the shield with her though, so she’d be crushed (deliberately or not) by Kevin as he was shaken around in the same space.
Good point.
No, his violence power boost outdoes the damage he takes in the case of blunt force (unless you immediately kill him. The scene with Maxima whaling on him until he got strong enough to fight back proves that.
We’re also not sure how maneuverable the flight+shield combo is, and whether it could keep him off balance from the inside. This also applies to the battering ram idea.
Choking him out with the Lighthook or decapitating him with the PPO seems like a much better option.
Depends if she can choke him before he gets too powerful. The only reason Sydney was able to choke Vehemence last time is she did so RIGHT after Maxima punched him in the throat with FULL strength, crushing is trachea, so that the lighthook was preventing him from being able to heal the damage done to him.
The PPO decapitation is probably a better option for a lethal takedown. :) Or using the lighthook to fling him up into the air, since he usually isnt able to do that ‘unable to be budged’ thing barring a 30 super pile-up happening first.
> Depends if she can choke him before he gets too powerful.
Yes, but that applies to everything with him, so it goes without saying.
If he’s at the point where he’s regenerating, he’s way beyond anything Sydney can do to him alone except maybe the PPO. As long as the Lighthook is strong enough to hold him, he doesn’t even need to be aired – he can just wear himself out struggling against being restrained by it.
Choking him, unlike blunt force, seems to wear him out instead of making him stronger, which is why it works for taking him out. The crushed throat doesn’t make a fundamental difference – in either case he can’t breathe until he dislodges the lighthook.
What I mean is that Sydney wasn’t actually choking him per se. She was preventing him from being able to heal his crushed trachea which Maxima caused, which is… I’m not sure what that is really, but I don’t think that’s technically choking.
Yeah, but not being able to breathe is not being able to breathe, also restricting the blood flow to his brain, and he should need to quite ramped up already to resist that.
Pretty sure he was able to breathe at the time anyway. Which is also why Sydney’s plan involved violently drowning him at the same time. If he couldnt breathe, there would have been not that much point in drowning him also (which is what Sydney had explained about why the violently drowning part was used, in order to force him to burn vehemic energy in place of breathing), except maybe for the psychological element and limiting his field of vision.
No, Sydney seems to agree choking him out serves the same purpose as drowning him. Her reasons for drowning him too were
– doubling down for safety
– invoking a panic response
– limiting his vision and hearing
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-291-and-heres-the-wind-down/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-286-aaaand-scene/ “Lift his head out of the water so he can see and hear again”
The “violently drowning” is actually a disadvantage, because it gets him more power, therefore allowing him to hold out longer – that’s Sydney explaining why he’s taking so long to go out.
Until he’s strong enough to resist, cutting off his airways is cutting off his airways, and garroting is easier than holding him down to drown him.
Good points! :)
Being punched vs being in something like a jetplane crashing repeatedly. The first is more direct violence.
If the plane is being shaken by and angry giant, I wouldn’t say so.
We’re certainly talking direct application of a power to hurt him. It’s no less violent than grabbing a guy and smashing him into things like Hulk did Loki.
Jabberwokky needs to take cursing lessons from Sydney.
Who doesn’t?
No one but Donald Duck.
Just a heads up, it’s spelled “yarmulke”.
Transliteration is fun, but I agree. Just because of how we transliterate the languages into English, “yamaka” sounds like some sort of Japanese term. Also the resh and lamed are included in the Yiddish even if when pronounced they tend to become very subtle in some dialects.
Eh, I’m going to go out on a limb and say Dave here, renowned for his 20 years of drawing smut on the internet, and 10 years of drawing comics, is not a Jew or a Jewish scholar like you, me and that third guy.
Either he didn’t bother to look it up, or was spelling it funny on purpose. Even if he did look it up he probably just left it spelled funny because he’s not exactly ultra-pc.
In other news, I too love pronouncing things correctly in their native tongue! Yarmulke, yarmulke, yarmulke!
*Dreidel starts playing* AHHHH!
Just call Ren a Night Train and be over with it.
to close to Soul Train. he might not take it.
I wonder if he’d object to Coal Train?
Honestly, though, just Train could be kinda cool? Or maybe Engine?
“Hold on, let me REV UP!”
(Ooh, marketable!)
Why is Maxima’s foot drawn back in the last panel? When I kick something (nope, no explanations), I immediately put that foot firmly on the ground to restore my balance. That pose looks like it should be before the kick…
It’s also the other foot
She’s leaning forward to shout at Ren; it’s a counterweight; Which, granted, Max doesn’t need
Yeah, but she switches feet: THOMPs with the left, then stands on the left
It almost looks like she’s floating and she didn’t pull her foot back so much as rotate on her axis after the kick.
Could call him Boost.
+1
Wait, did Maxi hop from one foot to another after punting Adeline off of the cliff? o_O
Adrena-Ren
Ren’s name probably shouldn’t give away how his power works.
Yeah, this should apply to all supers. So many of them fail this guideline. Spiderman comes to mind early on that list. His whole costume and persona gives away how his powers work.
I know, like how he can summon and control spiders! And has a venomous bite!
You know, spiderman may be obvious to you and me because we know the benefits bestowed upon the humble spider, but in a world without spiderman?
I don’t think it’s inherently obvious that a spider-themed man would be above averagely strong, or have ultra fast reflexes. The wall climbing I would kinda instantly guess at, but it’s not actually a feature unique to spiders, it’s a feature of all insects on account of they’re small enough they can take advantage of tiny pieces of wall sticking out. They can’t climb glass, that’s geckos.
As the other commenter pointed out, he doesn’t have a venemous bite(usually), or a mouth on his mask(usually), and he doesn’t summon or control spiders (usually), but if it weren’t for the fact that he *makes* his spider silk in the comics, he wouldn’t even have *that* which would be the first thing I think of when I hear spider. Webs.
So, I think spiderman is safe because we are too genre savvy to exist in a superhero world where spiderman is new. Everyone else doesn’t know what his powers are.
https://xkcd.com/
I also remember a strip I can’t find anymore, where he calls the police to describe his powers: “You shoot webs? From your body?” “No, from webshooters I built.” “Sounds like you’ve been bitten by a great engineer.”
Why did it cut my link? Trying again:
https://xkcd.com/1415/
Ah yes, the well known powers of the humble spider, like precognition, superstrength, and acrobatic agility. :)
(and yes I know… proportional strength of a spider but still…. when you think spiders, you normally don’t think ‘can lift a car over their head.)
Also I think that’s actually ants and beetles that can lift huge things, not spiders. Otherwise Australians would all be dead by now. Have you seen how big Goliath spiders or Hunstman spiders are? :)
Insects are so strong relative to their weight because they’re so small. Force scales with the cross section, and therefore the square of size, whereas weight scales with the cube.
A human sized ant simply would be a much less impressive lifter.
I’m pretty certain that is an often asked question, but how often would a super get to pick their own nickname? Certainly the author would probably have a name picked out well in advance but I would expect that someone starting out as an anonymous vigilante would probably get labeled by the media. Most supers wouldn’t have a media savvy Arianna to promote or veto a name choice. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that she has an algorithm for generating potential super names. At least the supers at Archon have some input into their super names. Unless the super was into leaving calling cards or shouting some tagline as they leapt over the city some reporter would probably throw out a name that happened to stick.
What do you mean The Periwinkle Butt Sniffer didn’t choose that name for himself?
Probably depends on their methods. If they can get their claim in early enough – be that through calling cards, graffiti tags, or the letters pages of the relevant newspapers – they could probably get in before a reporter’s name had a chance to stick. Or decide that the reporter picked a better one, and adopt it through the same semi-public means.
…who the heck is Lewis Seinstien?
…also, that is NOT how you spell “yarmulke.”
Thank you for asking that, saves me from asking :D
Lewis Seinstien = Hypothetical Man
He’s got the superpower of existing in whatever imaginary state is useful for a discussion.
And his arch nemesis, Lewis Counterseinstien.
The bane of relativistic physicists everywhere.
Rush. A decent supernym would be rush.
I really like that name. It shows that he is fast but doesn’t give away why. if they wanted to imply he is slow they could call him Rush Hour, and let villains think he has a time limit whe hopefully he doesn’t.
A neat party trick for him would be to pour a glass of water on the floor and then catch it back into he glass before it reached there.
If he became a bartender then he could have lots of fun mixing drinks without spilling any.
Before someone complains about that, he obviously has some sort of personal field hat he interacts with, otherwise calling him the flash would have a totally different meaning.
And Rush beats out the other name I thought of…
Dope (Because he’s doping Adrenaline, but it doesn’t work for obvious reasons.)
In his alter ego, he is a 90s/2000s radio talk show host.
The sidelocks are called payos or payot, counting in who’s saying it and haw they pronounce the last Hebrew letter. The fur hat is a striemel, the long black coat looking thing is a bekisha. Both are worn by Chasidim.
If you have any questions, I’m more than happy to answer them for you.
As a total aside, have you ever thought about publishing a graphic novel like Phil Foglio does with Girl Genius? If so, I can get you in touch with ComicMix or others.
Finally, as someone with the a.d.d. superpower, I really appreciate the comic.
To be fair, I too, have often considered rather jumping off a cliff in the morning before work than a coffee…
I’d giggle if a possible Arianna Special for him was “Billable Hours” due to relative time difference.
Jabber: Rassa frassin’ frippin’…
Sydney: Sonova bagel-molester! “Yosemite Sham” cursing? NOT IN MY ARC-SWAT!! *flies to Jabber’s side* Come, my young Padawan, you have SO MUCH to learn from me…
Cue the head-to-head curse-off!
How about Bull Rush
And his sidekick, Pussy Willow!
Was not expecting riparian humor here today, you never cattail what people will come up with.
…algae myself out.
I just canna stop
so… superhero names that did not got trademarked by a filler character that showed up twice since the 60´s on marvel/dc or something that got bought by them.
okay “nitro” is a mutant with explotion powers so that is out.
adrenaline powers… How about “BULLET TIME”? is the name of the effect of “seing quick action at a low speed”, and works well for His perspective, AND he WAS/IS being trained in the use of GUNS.
does that work?
Daddy long-stroke. why does a supranym have to have anything to do with your power? Also Dave I love the vote incentive. Math needed that and the girls look well satisfied.
So Kevin’s lines went blue (not glowing)->purple (glowing)->green->yellow, which I think takes us to what was seen in the restaurant fight
@daveB
I have one minor issue with the incentive. Math’s shoulder looks like its wedged into Jab’s cleavage. If that’s the case, then the arm would have to go up or down or through her chest. But instead it goes under her, under Xuriel’s legs and out the other side. The middle of the upper arm just doesn’t bend that way.
Are you mistaking Jab’s underboob for Math’s triceps? Math’s arm is completely underneath Jab’s armpit and then under Dab’s thighs.
The elbow is probably sinking a bit into that plush bed they are on, given the shortened length of the arm and angle of the hand, but that’s about it.
Who needs coffee, when you got terminal velocity!
If I might put in my suggestion: “Thrillseeker”
“Come on, Arianna—Adrenoguy?!”
“You’re right, that’s insensitive. It should be Adrenoperson.”
For some reason I read that like a Scandinavian surname – Ren Adrenoperson, son of Andrenoper Larson.
To everyone but other speedsters, he seems really fast.
To himself (and other speedsters), it’s the rest of us that seem so slow.
So his codename: Chill.
He seems like kind of a relaxed guy anyway; not his fault the rest of us can’t see it.
He doesn’t necessarily need a supranym. If he chooses one it shouldn’t be required to be descriptive of his power. Personally, if I were him, I’d chose a misspelling or shortening of adrenaline. Ader, Drenal, Adrali, Ralin, Nerd, Ine, Eni,…Ren. The first two are actually kinda descriptive, though. Drenal is my favorite (think adrenal gland).
Ahh, I see. Max practices Thai Kwan Leap.
no, Math does.
a completely unrelated random fact- I am wearing a helmet.
How about Spike for a name related to adrenaline spikes?
If his power is super adrenaline, then he probably starts off like just a fit athlete and ramps up as he gets more adrenaline, yeah? Maybe something like “Olympian”- hints of both him being technically just sort of peak-human athlete levels a lot of the time when he’s only got a bit of adrenaline going, but also the “Godlike” uper range of his abilities if he can spar with Max? Totally didn’t come to me just because we see him here getting kicked off a mountain.
Ooh, I like that one. Get that lightning bolt motif in there.
Ooo, nice. Olympian. By far my favorite I’ve seen.
He said it started at about ten times beyond what real adrenaline* can do.
*I just now realized “Ren” is in “adrenaline”, so his name, even his full name, is quite descriptive.
::slow claps while rolling on the floor laughing::
Not one for slapstick, but this was awesome!
Rampage, Rampant Rager, or ironically Reluctant Rage. Use of color in a nom de guerre is so limiting. I mean, look how green arrow becoming just arrow allowed a greater flexibility in costume. If Britt Reid showed up in a grey overcoat and mask no one would have pegged him as the Green Hornet, so there is some use to making the public associate the hero with a color, but otherwise disadvantages outweigh. Also, how many heroes have a race related name (outside the 70s bumbling attempt to be more inclusive)? I can only think of Black Goliath from that era. (Black Panther is a breed in the leopard/jaguar family, although having the backstory origin in Africa implies racial connotations, its clear that any worthy descendant of rulers of Wakanda could take that role.)
**Character suggestion: I’d love to see a Bollywood dancer/singer hero [male or female doesnt matter either would be fun]- could have sonic or hypnotic powers. **
call him Tiny, C3
(Calm Cool and Collected)
Matt
Tetanic Force- Looked it up on Wikipedia while looking up Hysterical strenght- I.E. Ren’s shtick. though you could probably alter it for Titanic Force. I dunno
The corkscrew sideburn things are called “peyas”, for reference.
On the comic: it is worth noting that, with Vehemence at maximum overcharge, Maxima literally face-tanked a haymaker with nothing but a broken nose and half-step backwards resulting. Vehemence is NOT NEARLY at maximum overcharge now, given that there is way less fighting in the area than last time and he was also at an energy defecit coming in. Ren might just twist V into a pretzel accidentally.
Ren should absolutely be called Jittercrash
With respect to your Frazetta comment in the Tamer comment section, have you looked at Boris? He has a very painterly style you might be able to emulate.
Boris likes the chrome though
I like the idea of Overdrive as a name for Ren
It’s probably too on-the-nose, but what about just calling him Adrenaline?
“THIS IS SPARTAN MOTIVATION!”
Minor thing DaveB.
It’s yarmulke, not yamaka. :)