Grrl Power #982 – (No longer) Sleeping with the archenemy
This may shock you, but Dabbler’s been around.
Yes, it’s the return of the dumb joke from page 77. (And 92. And 200. I still stand by that Status Quola joke. That makes me laugh to this day.) Started of as a little gag I thought of on the spur of the moment, and now it practically needs to be listed as one of Harem’s legitimate superpowers. This page is also a callback to both 176 and 186. So, yay for planning ahead? Huh, we’ve actually met over half the players on that page now. Might have to come up with another gallery of villains soon. And by soon I mean like… 4 years from now. :/
The boyfriend is holding stadium speakers on the soda can there, Say Anything style. No idea what it’s hooked up to or powered by. I would try amarula flavored soda. Although now that I’m googling for relevant links, I realized I screwed up. Amarula is the liqueur (which is pretty good IMO), Marula is the fruit. Maybe Harem is secretly drinking Amarula flavored beer on the job.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update:
Worked some more on the final fight. I wrote last time about how most fights generally need to be close matchups or else a book can either lack tension or you wind up wondering why the book is following a particular group of characters if they get their asses kicked to within an inch of their lives every time there’s a scuffle.
Right now the fight’s kind of even, but I don’t know if I want a close fight or a slam dunk. I guess we’ll see how it turns out.
September’s vote incentive is up! It’s been over a year since Max was featured in one of these, so I figured it was time to revisit.
If you just popped by to see it right when it went up, you might have missed the update. Her nipples were a touch high in the first version, and if you poke through the comments there, you can see the reference I used, only that model’s boobs were about 3 cup sizes smaller. Anyway, I flew her nipples south for the winter and updated the relevant pics.
Nude version is up at Patreon.
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.
I never stopped to read the soda cans before. . . . Fuck that is some quality humor right there I was missing.
Same here. That’s some detailed humor.
Thirding this. I legit genuinely never noticed the can jokes before.
I appreciate how off-tin they have been tho.
They’re fizz-ical humor
And soda puns begin. No pressure though if any of them fall flat.
our resident anti pun person may shake things up. hopefully she doesn’t foam over.
…
At least Ro cant make puns about this. Ninja hit squads for the rest of you though.
they are saying its going to be a cold winter here.
It’s been a long week resisting the urge to pun. What have I done to deserve this? But our agreement didn’t say anything about encouraging others to pun! Keep them puns coming friends!
link to this agreement pls?
We’re just cola’ing them as we see them, Pandie. ^_^
No need to get in a fizzy, just ask us to tonic down
I feel so betrayed Bharda. You were the chosen one! Bring balance to fhe Force of puns! Not leave it in darkness!
Booo! Hisssss! ESPECIALLY Bharda!
Pretty much every big fight has ended up with Harem foreshadowing it with her soda. But I admit the funniest was “Spit-take cola” back during the bank incident.
I have a store near me that sells all sorts of special sodas with wacky names and imagery. I will take a picture next time I am there for you guys. :)
Please do.
See if you have a Rocket Fizz near you (91 locations across the US/Canada). They carry about 400+ kinds of soda from scores of manufacturers, with a lot of zany names and labels.
That… actually is a store near me. Yes. :)
Her ex-boyfiend is back and everyone is in trouble! Heyla Heyla! He ex-boyfiend is back!
Yeah, she sent him away cryin’;
Now he hopes that we’ll be dyin’!
If I were you id start punning now-how.
Thothogoth might be a bit big to drag through Sydney’s gate. . .
Which may be unhealthy for him.
“And thus Dabbler’s ex boyfriend departed. Or at least, about half of him did.”
Well, Cora talked about some spaceships using those causeways. Syd can probably make it bigger too.
Possible. Although probably not at the first pip, I’d wager.
I could make a dirty joke about that.
She might be able to grab him with a lighthook and just drag him to space the hard way. If the lighthook is strong enough that is.
The lighthook has an upper limit 15-16 tons. It would be like an ant trying to move a rubber tree plant: no matter how high her hopes are, if she tries to load more than 16 tons, she isn’t going to get much.
…. another day older and deeper in debt.
There’s also an orb limit to consider.
Fly ball + Hentorb + Shield = need a hand, and eventually need two more hands as the rebreather can only do so much.
So time for another super-brawl then and Vehemence can actually be of great use.
Yeah I want to see V kill a giant demon.
Nah, it’s much worse than that. It is now time for an AWKWARD CONVERSATION.
My ttrpg group always looks at me like I’m crazy when I insist on double-tapping anything we engage in hostilities with.
This?
This is why.
Heh, I did play a character that would do that. He was pretty paranoid about enemies surviving and then returning for a rematch at the worst possible time.
“Oh no, not again.”
Exactly.
I do not care how minor the kerfuffle is, or with what. If it comes down to violencing, I always, always, ALWAYS made sure that whatever it was got ashed beyond all hope of recovery.
I have used Planar Binding to secure agents in the outer planes, exclusively to prevent the use of resurrection spells.
When offing vampires, I following all the steps: stake it, decapitate it, stuff the head with garlic, burn it, mix the ashes with holy water, bury the sludge on consecrated ground, under a laurel tree, blessed by a priest.
Faeries get iron nails through their feet, hands, and tongues, then tossed into the smelter.
Hags get buried head first in consecrated graves in salted earth.
Yes, I take my ttrpgs way too seriously. ^_^’
Pissed my uncle off something fierce.
Clearly Bharda is invited to be in my survivor group when the zombie apocalypse happens.
As long as you understand that you are most protein & water, and in the worst case scenario, those are resources I need.
I like that can do attitude of ‘I don’t have to be the fastest, just faster than you.’
If Mr. T was summoned by vehement energy, it’s likely that he also feeds off the same juice V-boy does, so the two of them fighting would likely just destroy the planet, or else Vehy would overfeed for his relative power level and pop like a grape, leaving T all yummed up for everyone else to deal with.
Monsters that feed off of violence are definitely the bane of the punch-it-diplomacy branch of the government.
He noticed when Max did her daisy cutter. I think he just needed some large amount of energy hitting the ground near Xuriel. That this happened to be vehement energy was just random. If Max had done another daisy cutter near enough to Xuriel, he’d have come up through that.
Xuriel had also done magic at both sites.
Do note that Kevin’s energy dump was apparently in sigil form…. although Xuriel called it “free ranging the energy”.
If you haven’t tried Amarula, you should, it’s great
And there is a reason why the mascot for the company is an elephant: the fruit is strong enough to make an elephant ‘tipsy’ when fermented
Can you compair it to any other fruit as a baseline?
Nvm goigled it Interesting info on the wiki page about the liquire and the tree
I don’t know why but “goigled” broke me! Thank you!
E’s fershnikit. It must be a sacramental wine.
Clearly you (or maybe your spellchecker) has already sampled the fermented fruit.
As far as i know, elephants are actually bad with alcohol, despite their size.
Most non-human animals are bad with alcohol. Humans evolved an improved enzyme for metabolizing it.
PBS Eons has a great video named “How We Figured Out Fermentation” on YouTube which covers that.
google squirrels getting drunk off Halloween pumpkins
Soooo, another overhelmingly one-sided victory, coming right up? Dabbler might have been better prepared last time, but this time she’s got all these supers (and Halo) with her. The Mighty Halo might even discover what the “dumping points in the centre” thing does along the way eh? Would be nice.
Preparation is a two-way street.
Dabbler’s less prepared, and Thothogoth is MORE prepared. Plus, there’s the matter of collateral damage and similar to consider. Max could atomize a foe if given the chance, but right now she can’t do that safely.
I imagine that between Thothogoth presumably not charging in without preparation + collateral damage + the people present not knowing Thothogoth’s abilities instantly (Dabbler may know his abilities but she needs to spend time telling them to the team), there’s a fair chance the fight drags out for a while.
It’s a given that they win here, but it’s not a given for it to be instant.
A lot of the fights the protagonists get into in the comic follow that trend when you think about it, honestly. The super brawl where Vehemence premiered could have had Max wipe the floor with everyone (Vehemence included) if she went all-out; the attempt to capture Max by the alien bounty hunters with the human supers intervening could also have been resolved much sooner if collateral damage wasn’t a risk factor. (Collateral damage in this case referring mostly to loss of life rather than structural integrity, but to some extent can still apply to structural integrity. It wouldn’t be good for Earth if a super managed to make a big enough boom. Fallout dust/debris, maybe liquefying the ground, you get the idea.)
In order for a fight to NOT end instantly, the conditions need to be pretty much precisely that: the protagonists need to not be prepared, and the antagonists need to have SOME form of preparation.
We saw just now with Halo’s “fight” with Vehemence why; if the protagonists are prepared and the ‘villain’ is not, the fight will instantly end in the protagonists’ favor.
So I imagine Thothogoth is prepared and there’s reasons for the protagonists to not be, meaning fight likely won’t end instantly.
Also, this might not turn into a fight yet. It might be a verbal confrontation, or turn into a kidnapping, etc. Dave might surprise us like that.
I can imagine the kidnapping, “victim” Halo.
They pop out for about 15 minutes, Thothogoth returns with Sydney unharmed, apologises and asks very polite if he’s allowed to leave for the Andromeda Galaxy.
What happens offscreen will stay offscreen.
Would be cute, but I can’t see a villain featured on page 92 (link in the Author’s Notes) being dealt with that quickly and anti-climactically, especially since it’s the same one who had a dedicated foreshadowing page to himself previously (again, link in the Author’s Notes.)
I make this mistake myself sometimes. I’m so confident I remember something I don’t, I don’t do the research. The dedicated page was 176, and then another reference on page 186. That said, I think your point is still valid. It’s still too much of a buildup to deal with him quickly.
Ahem. 177
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-177-intergalactic-baggage/
Wow. Dabbler had Kobold ears in that flashback.
She still does
antagonist =/= villain
I think there’s a slim chance there will be a lover’s spat ensuing shortly
This is why you talk to people in your current life about your past. You never know when stuff like this will come up. Unless you’re Harem. Alternatively, maybe someone should have a talk with her about her drinking choices.
Dabbler wouldn’t have had to tell them *everything* about this guy. But if she gave them a rough overview, maybe without mentioning the scaling factor, her greeting to him could have served as telling them what she knew about his power set. But I get the feeling she’s basically told them nothing about him.
Can they make a soda called winning lottery numbers please?
somebody found that can sadly.
Okay, what is wrong with Hiro’s deformed face in panel one? o_O
deformed? sure you are looking panel 1 of comic and not mirror?
Begone, THOT(ogoth)
Amarula flavour? I wish that was a real soda, Amarula is my favourite tipple when I can get my hands on it.
“Well Kevin, you didn’t want to stop yet, so you get first round against this one.”
Vehemence: “Yes. Yes! YES!!!”
He may need a few rounds spectating to juice up again.
Also, I suspect Dabbles will start volunteering to “help him unwind,” in the future.
“Hey, Big Guy….gettin’ late. Panties gettin’ reeaal low…”
On that note, I am once again advocating for Dabblemence shipping. “Rough Sex.” ^_^
Rough sex for Kevin would probably be something like being run through a woodchipper. I’m sure Dabbler could think of something.
she does have those extra muscles. maybe they can do that.
Doubtless like the spit-take soda in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Doesn’t cause the event, the impending event just causes an overwhelming urge to drink the soda if you have it on hand.
I take it Kevin might be just a little hard to deal with after this upcoming fight?
Maybe, but we’ll see.
Might legitimately be his recruitment…ARC.
…I’ll show myself out.
please stay. I like the jokes.
What happens if two vehemic energy users fight?
They probably have to split the violence pool between them. TANSTAAFL.
…which probably means it’s a rush to see who can use 51% first.
I’d imagine it’s identical to two Succubii having sex, which we have the canonical answer for being diminishing returns. (Don’t remember the exact phrasing used or which comic it was specifically, but basically, it’s not worth it for succubii to have sex with one another as they don’t get the sex energy they need; I imagine a similar rule applies for vehemic energy users fighting one another.)
Found it! In the notes on https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-450-bang-jail/
They go dutch and there might be cuddling after.
I guess 50+ foot tall boyfriend explains why Dabbler already had “that” potion:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-967-after-action-cluck/
A professional succubus prepare for prey of many sizes and shapes.
Well,cr@p.
Vehemence getting rid of all that power just lead the demon lord to the person he most wants to destroy and the person he seeks as his right hand.
This will end poorly for him, then.
Also, I wouldn’t bet on “destroy,” so much as “imprison, humiliate, and enslave.”
Just killing someone outright is way to straightforward & efficient for the average penis, which demands theatrics & displays of dominance with which to gratify itself.
Honestly, I think Thothogoth just wants to kvetch at Xuriel.
She’s like that hot cheerleader who really didn’t like him, she just wanted to steal his boxed set of first-edition action figures to sell on ebay to finance her coke habit, and he’s been trying to track her down to give her a long talking to.
We’ve all been there.
Probably should have apologized to him for her past behavior sooner.
So, anyone else that every, even max, is taken aback by this…except sydney? She literally doesn’t even flinch? Then again, except dabbler, she’s the only one with kaiju experience.
Wow, not sure why so many words are missing there other than I’ve been up all night.
*ahem*
“So, anyone else notice that everyone, even max, is taken aback by this…except Sydney?”
Sydney was expecting something to happen because of Daphne’s soda. She’s also all but incapable of experiencing more than one emotion at a time, and is currently stuck on “I told you so, but I’m not happy to be proven right.”
Sydney is pretty confident in Mr Bubble. Also she’s fought and killed bigger several times now, as mentioned below.
To be fair, she’s deal with larger, while trapped alone on a hell planet. Her flight/fight/freeze instincts are probably shot when it comes to dangers.
Everyone: {shocked}
Halo: “Eh. I’ve killed bigger.”
I’m surprised Kevin didn’t just hold onto all that power to maintain himself over an extended period of time. Or is it not his stored energy that nourishes him, but the vehemic energy created or released by violence? So he couldn’t just save it up, and would need fresh violence?
Anyway, interesting segue. I am certainly curious to see if Thothogoth does have anything to do with Maxima’s powers, as suggested by 176. He looks bigger now too. About 3 times bigger.
I suspect that retaining that energy for too long might have some uncomfortable side effects (esoteric priapism), or may bleed in extremely dangerous ways.
or possibly like dropping a weapon to show hes given up
The only way to keep him locked up is by keeping him depowered. Letting him keep all that stored energy means he could just walk out of prison at any moment he’d like.
He’s playing nice now, but that is partly because there are people more powerful (Maxima) and resourceful (Sydney) who can stop him. They won’t be around to babysit him until he burned through all his excess energy in prison.
Agreed. They’re going to need to find a safe solution for him to power down after training – maybe some kind of vehemic battery, rather than just venting it to atmosphere?
Hmmm, a vehemic battery. That would be an all new kind of hazardous waste. Just pop the top on one of those in a crowd and see what happens.
If we see Harem with a can of Whoop-Ass Soda™, we’ll know what it was bottled from.
A spanking session? That’s what I often think of when I hear the term “Whoop-ass:
I wonder if a vehemic battery would taste a-salt-y
don’t worry, you’ll get it, give it a minute
I’m telling you, it’s all about Dabblemance.
“Rough Sex.”
I mean, c’mon. Remember what what she said?
“Male, I am literally built for this. Now, pull my fucking hair!”
First of all he may not be an ex… So judging relationship status before meeting the person is a little bit rude.
But looking back, every time one of those cans popped open a problem relating to the cover keeps happening. In every single comic… Which isn’t that long for Sydney with her accidentally time leap foward.
So getting paranoid when seeing a trend is perfectly understandable, especially when the universe has failed to prove her wrong so far.
Vehemence is smart enough to know that Archon want him at a low power level. They don’t want him to start a prison riot using his psychic powers.
That was supposed to be a response to ThatOneGuy above.
I mean… it would be kind of hard for him to do so, considering the solitary nature of super confinement. He might be able to aggro aura other prisoners, assuming they’re in the same facility, and maybe guards, but a full-on prison riot? Probably not. That would take the prisoners somehow getting out of their purpose-built containment cells.
This was even mentioned back in the Hench Wench arc.
A New Challenger Appears!
WHY DO THEY EVEN HAVE THAT SODA MACHINE AT ARCHON!?!?!
STOP LETTING HAREM BUY SODA!
No, seriously.
He’s 50 ft in the department that matters to Dabbler …
I did not expect that
…is it wrong of me to for a split second get worried that Vehemence deposited too much energy and won’t be able to survive that lunge? I mean he’s an absolute douche, but is it Stockholm syndrome to think he doesn’t deserve that?
Unless he’s completely out of energy (which he doesn’t seem to be since his form probably follows his energy level) he’ll live. He’ll also go “yay, I get to actually fight!”
V barely dumped any energy. He’s still loaded down with power to spare.
Indeed, he’s still in the orange which is fairly far up his color scale. Plus getting bashed aside actually powers him up, so anything that doesn’t kill him makes him stronger.
What do you mean, he’s douche? He’s quite likeable for a bad guy.
Unlike the actual Douche, who is not likable at all (but knows how to corrupt law-officials… )
Does anyone have a link to the Status Quola page?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-200-something-finally-happens/
Here you go. Mini comic under the notes.
It’s not in a regular comic page. It’s a newspaper strip-sized comic posted way down the Author’s Notes in one of the pages DaveB linked.
I demon THAT big means bad news for Dabbler….!?
She’s f$@&ed bigger, no doubt….
So did kevin lure the demonlord with his power or did he dumped his power into the demonlord?
Supercharged uberdemon incoming
My read is that dumping the energy created a weakpoint in reality, which Thothogoth could (and did) use to punch a portal through.
Can super Hiro just absorb sound, or does his absorbtion abilities cover more energy types? Could be interesting to use V to lvl him up a bit.
Is it actually over half the villains? I only count 3/7 (4/8 including Vale), unless I misread something.
There was some speculation over whether the two shadowy figures in panel 5 were members of Sciona’s gang, but it was never confirmed with Word-of-DaveBeither way. (At the time the suggestion was the two vampires, but the speaker’s teeth may better suggest Dr. Chuckles.
I wouldn’t worry about the name there is Senorial Sangria flavored soda.
Yay! In 4 years my cameo can be in a supervillain lineup!
There is NO way Fate would organize under an “Unlimited”… (That’s what I assume ‘Ultd.’ means)
Future scene:
Sydney: Before we start the mission – what are you drinking, Harem?
Harem: I knew you’d ask! Which is why I bought a can of “Just According to Keikaku (Keikaku Means ‘Plan’) Soda”!
Harem: See! No problems!
Cut to Deus: Yes… All according to plan… *Chugs soda*
At some point, we’re going to find out those sodas are all manufactured by a tinker gnome with a sense of humor.
Would it be funny if he just asked for Dabblers sword back, apologize to everyone else, then leave with sword in hand? I presume that’s not the direction it’s going, but sometimes subverted expectations can be humorous.
*sits back with the extra large cherry Coke & tray of nachos*
“Muahahaha!! All shall fear the Gargantuan Gardener and her Cherry Bombs!!!”
Sorry, you say “Cherry Bombs,” and now I have Hazbin Hotel on the brain.
So is this page the main reason this chapter was set in a pit rather than, say, out in a desert somewhere?
Specifically panel 9 I mean.
I thought that a great burning would be heralding his return. :)
Same here.
Maybe he saw that urologist after all…
We already had the great burning, when Maxi put the world (and the rest of the Galaxy) on notice
I guess. Seems pretty distant to be a heralding though, but yeah. He did say ‘Found you’ in the splash page immediately afterwards. Even though it was 3-4 months ago (at least) in canon Grrlpower universe time from now, his actual return.
omg i can’t believe i missed those other cans names. But, sure as hell, I remember the “soon to be happen really specific can title” power. the first super battle royale was announced by it.
Yep, “Supervillain Blitzkrieg” soda.
There was also the spit take soda, for which she did a spit take immediately after taking a sip because of Brooke being super clueless, and burst soda, right before Brooke exploded her soda.
I totally want a special drink called Radioactive Origin (Orange) where she hands it off before taking some, and it ends up being sipped by a non-super that then turns into a super (hero or villain)