Grrl Power #975 – Cheap kick
Vehemence must be really bored in prison to stop in a middle of a fight and play ball with Maxima here. Without at least a trickle of violence, he starts getting full body restless leg syndrome, and that’s just for starters. Just like a succubus can’t self-pleasure to gain tantric energy (like there’s not any other reasons to do it) Vehemence can’t punch himself in the face to power up. Now, if he smashes his head through a wall, and that causes sizeable collateral damage, then he can start building power from that, but if he’s not already powered up quite a bit, he can’t do enough damage for a net gain. Just like tantric magic, vehemic magic is much more effective the more people are involved.
For her part, Maxima takes pride in being a flying brick who actually knows a little bit about fighting, but she also likes to cut loose when she gets a chance.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update:
Spent most of the weekend working on the next vote incentive/nudie thing, but I think I’ve figured out the Eye-Q powers of everyone involved for the final fight… unless the final fight is against dinosaurs. No spoilers?
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.
Nude version is up at Patreon.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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“Can we fight for real now?”
“OK, but I’m only going to use my feet.”
That’s some frieza shit right there.
What’s up with Harem’s face in the 4th panel? That’s some Uncanny Valley shit right there!
In that panel she looks like she was cribbed from Veronica Lodge on an old Archie Comics cover.
Yeah, she use to have a cute nose, not an upturned piggy-nose :(
Not to mention Sidney’s face in the 4th panel.
I confess the artist slides back and forth between very good and trash on a regular basis.I guess its the price of playing with different styles in an effort to improve.
I doubt your best effort has surpassed his worst
Youd be extremely surprised then =D.Also that is literally the weakest argument thats ever used in defence of someones work thats ever hit the internet and a lot of lazy defenders use it all the time.
In this case its mostly because Daves trying for some different angles which can be a little trickier which is aggrivated by mixing toony artstyles for a character with more earthed styles on the same page(To translate,Characters who in style look relatively close to human albeit a lil stylised and then switching to a character that looks more recognisably like a cartoon character).
Overall Daves a really good artist but he blatantly experiments all the time with styles and perpectives.I salute his effort to improve but sometimes it creates some really uncanny valley views that he just rolls with rather than erasing and trying again.
it’s called angles, jackass.
Even the most gorgeous person will still have an angle that looks weird in a photo. Or when drawn.
Angles is part of it for sure but Harems eyes and face have a very Five Nights At Freddys look to them too.As a general rule if youre looking at someone at an angle where you can see up their nostrils theyre bound to look less pretty =).
She’s talking with her mouth full like a savage. :)
The Cheshire Cat is wearing human skin.
I wonder if the healing is automatic or if he can control it. Specifically, can he repress it in order to conserve energy and build up a head of steam. No point headbutting a wall if your body immediately spends the points on healing, but if he can hold off healing and channel it into bigger hits, then he might be trouble.
He wasn’t healing his injuries at the rumble until his arm got blown off – bruises, missing teeth, one damaged eye. He probably tought they weren’t critical and wanted to keep his healing a secret.
Harem kicked him so hard, she lost her hairband.
I mean *MAXIMA* kicked him so hard.
Geez, I didn’t know you could get drunk on honey-glazed buns.
The hair band is just past the ends of her hair. Its the little black squiggle in the red rock striation.
Oh, I see it now.
Still, that’s a hell of a kick to drag air from behind her strong enough to pull her ponytail out.
“Hey, Maxima? I asked for punching, not kicking.”
She did punch… with her foot
She can also bite… with her fists.
Typo in the first panel: “versus”.
I guess I misunderstood something, but wasn’t Vehemence supposed to gain power from regenerating? “I can regenerate… AND WHEN I DO, IT MAKES ME STRONGER”
I think in that particular fight, he had energy to burn by the time Max obliterated his arm. He used extra energy to not only regenerate his missing arm/tooth/eye, but also augment them.
Since the rules of this sparring match were set to no funky ‘make it up as you go’ powers allowed, he was only able to regenerate, not hyper-regenerate. Plus, he wasn’t at the uber-high level that would’ve let him do that in the first place.
Also, he didn’t lose any limbs to replace, he just had a few broken or dislocated bones to reset. Not sure if his hyper-regenerate power would even work the same way in that case, as he literally used it in the diner fight to replace missing body parts, not upgrade any existing body parts the same way.
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Yes that’s one of my points of confusion as well about the strategy being used.
i think this part of his powering up is more specifically how repaired parts are tougher than they were pre-destruction, so it’s not really a “healing add to my power bar” kind of thing, he use his power bar to heal, but usually the violence that hurt him added more to his power bar than what he use to heal the damages
so overall having to heal is still a bonus for him, just, not in a straight up way
He looks like a fusion between Thanos and Lex Luthor.
My Genius is inevitable, Superman.
Destroying Superman, just as it should be.
I like how Harem can agree with herself….
I’m amused by the presumption that Kevin has a “power meter” which allows him to make these precise assessments about how he’s at “a small net loss” and exactly how much power it took to heal each separate injury.
This is something that people just don’t have. Just because you’re a superhero/villain that doesn’t change. Unless they had done it before you couldn’t ask an Olympic runner to tell you exactly how many times they could run a 100 yard sprint with a two minute rest in between each one. And I’m willing to bet that the number would be slightly different from day to day, and that the runner couldn’t tell you the exact number on any given day before beginning the exercise.
Maxima is the only one we’re seen with a power meter of any kind, and even that one isn’t graduated. She puts “more” into strength, and “less” into flight, but not specific amounts. And yet she asks these questions as if she knows Kevin has this specific kind of meter. And he answers also as if he and everyone else can just make these kinds of super specific assessments of their powers at any time.
And on a different topic, Kevin also apparently very honestly answers someone on incredibly minute details of his powers who he is well aware is one of the few people on the planet who could pose a serious threat to him. A better answer (and a far more realistic answer as per my critique above) would be something like this: “Fixing the knee was harder than fixing the nose. I still think I could do this all day.” Even Sydney had the forethought to not reveal every detail about her power set, and that was as a hedge against the far less likely “Dark Maxima” scenario she was imagining. Kevin may be a cooperating prisoner, but he’s still a prisoner. Some amount of privacy and cautiousness is not only expected from a prisoner, in his case it is potentially a matter of survival.
We know that Vehemence can feel vehemic energy coming in, and if he can feel it, he can feel how much is inside him.
And note that he has not given any numbers: His “small net loss” is basically equivalent to “I feel slightly weaker.”
> This is something that people just don’t have. Just because you’re a superhero/villain that doesn’t change.
Citation needed. To operate a superpower you might need special control or feedback mechanisms. Similar with magic. Sydney, for example, has extra senses for the orbs, allowing her to move them as naturally as her own body.
> Kevin also apparently very honestly answers someone on incredibly minute details of his powers
That’s assuming he was telling the truth. For all we know he actually gained from the exchange and is lying to give Maxima a false sense of security.
It’s also possible that he believes Dabbler might have a way to measure vehemic energy, so it wouldn’t make sense to try lying.
Presumptuous of you. We know he can feel vehemic energy coming in, sure. But that doesn’t automatically mean he can measure it. I know I’ve had water coming in if I drink from a water fountain for a while, but I’d be hard pressed to tell you exactly how many ounces it was that I had drank.
“This is something that people just don’t have.”
You assume that Vehemence works anything like a human. His immense powers are very inhuman. It’s possible that he never was human.
Yes, I assume that the characters don’t have new idiot powers unless they are specifically called out as having these new idiot powers. There’s been no call out on anyone having this kind of far-fetched, immersion destroying exact measuring capability on their power set. So there’s no reason to assume that Kevin has it, either.
I mean, Harem or Hiro might not get anything like that from their powers, but, Kevin literally has that, complete with his tattoos changing colour every time he goes up a full “level” of power. Maxima has the ability to “redistribute” her powers between stats, and Sydney literally gains EXP and perk-point to spend on upgrades and new abilities.
It’s not “Just because [he’s] a superhero/villain”, it’s part of the specifics of his superpower.
“… and Sydney literally gains EXP and perk-point to spend on upgrades and new abilities.”
Not sure Sydney is a good example of *anything* other than the what becomes possible when technology starts to look like magic. Either her subconscious exerts incredible influence on the operation of the orbs, or the orbs possess some kind of expert system or AI willing to parse information in a way she can grasp. Either way, its weird and wonderous with a side of miraculous tossed in for flavor. She is indeed a special little butterfly.
Your assumption doesn’t track. If it was an innate ability like hire or anyone else that’s something but Kevin here is a magic user. The whole point of magic fighting is to know how much your actions cost and to spend those magics very very carefully. This would be covered in magic 101. So he doesn’t burn himself out. Granted most users don’t gain their power from the action of if veronica slapped jug head upside his head. Technically he’d be a really good indicator. Set up a giant spell like the veil and when someone gets violent he feels and snaps at attention to point it out. Then again he has the best jon right now. Training heroes gives him just the right amount of violence to keep going they pay for him for life. If I was a masochist vehimic user id certainly do that.
Decades of editing work compels me to mention that it should be “versus” rather than “verses” in that first panel. The first is for comparisons, the second is for poetry and lyrics. :)
It is indeed amazing Vehemence can make these statements as if he had a digital power meter stuck in his head and is able to weigh the energy gained vs the energy used to recover from each strike. I agree with the sentiment that most people can’t be precise like this but as I have no idea how his power actually works so I’m willing to take his statement at face value. Besides Maxima did something similar when she told Sydney how many tons her light hook could lift by how much pressure she had to counter it with. I can’t do that but apparently Maxima can.
Its actually more surprising to me he can break down the energy gained vs the energy used from two different strikes happening in rapid succession. I’d have thought the broken nose followed by a boot to the knee would have been just a whole lot of pain but the world looks different to Kevin. Can’t say its unreasonable, just different than how it looks to me.
Most people can tell if they are full or not, same thing with Kev: he can tell if the energy he gained from getting slapped around outweighed the energy used to heal himself
And he’s only giving general over-all answer, not a specific amount for each attack
See it as tiredness and sleep.
After sleep you feel rested. Some things are more tiring than others.
I suspect it’s the same for him except that his “rest” is wayy more fragmented than our sleep and thus reportable.
A little bit like getting either a caffeïne or an alcohol infuse.
One makes you feel “awake” the other “sleepy”
In all those cases, it’s most likely just skill and familiarity with their power. If you do something enough times, you get a feel for it, an ability to make finer distinctions. When Peggy shoots Vehemence in the eye, basically nobody complains that it’s unrealistic. Even when she does it a second time. Everyone just accepts that it’s fiction, and an exceptional level of skill that no real person may ever achieve. How is this any different, other than it’s skill with something we’re completely unfamiliar with, being that the ability is fictional? It should be given even more leeway, not less.
“Can we fight for real now? Quit being such a kick-tease.”
And the running gag with Harem’s on-demand popcorn continues.