Grrl Power #1375 – Lordosis locomotion
That is not a US government issue space suit, in case you were wondering. Cora supplied it. Actually, Gellen probably did.
Maxima doesn’t need a space suit to survive hard vacuum. She does need to breathe, though as I’ve mentioned before, she can hold her breath for quite a long time. Basically her body can break the carbon from the dioxide and she can re-breathe it, though she has to sort of turn her energy blast power inward… Well that’s not really what she’s doing, but it does require her to expend energy, and it’s not 100% efficient, so she needs to breath eventually. She still needs air to talk though, and as one might imagine, Cora’s spaceship has a few spacesuits laying around for obvious reasons.
I can’t look at panel two without hearing Sydney clucking in my head. I almost put “Bok bwawk” in a little word bubble in that panel, but she really is trying to do a “arch my back and jut my boobs out cause I’m a sexy bee-otch” sort of strut, not a chicken march.
I went back and looked at Frix and the rest of Cora’s crew’s first appearances, and I did not get their scale right. They’re all supposed to be huge guys that tower over Cora and out-mass her by 3-5 times, but this page where Cora is introducing them to Sydney, they just look basically like normally heighted guys. (Also Altus’s head is huge in that picture and he just kind of looks like a 6’3″ midget. I really want to go back to old pages and take the liquify tool to them and fix a bunch of that stuff. Ah, if only I had Harem’s powers. And boobs. No, wait, that would be too distracting. I’d actually lose time if I had her powers and her bodies. Well, certainly for the first week at least.)
The vote incentive is finally done!
The update to the TWC image is pretty minor, but the Patreon version has the bonus comic as well as nude versions. I will strive to make the next one more timely.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
Ooh, shes gone Iron-Man
Superman in an Iron Man suit.
At least she didn’t go Ironheart…
She could have gone for Iron Hide. I have seen a cosplay suit that transforms from a standing robot form to a moving vehicle mode, using an electric motor in each hand to facilitate movement. The wearer/operator must tighten their abs while in vehicle mode.
I guess she could have gone for Iron Giant.
Ironheart would be better and more appropriate though.
This way, the suit doesn’t need all sorts of propulsion; Max provides all that.
Going from Golden Goddess to Iron Maiden seems like a downgrade, to me.
Unlikely it’s Iron. Probably RCC. Reinforced Carbon-Carbon. Which is what the leading edges of the space shuttle used to dissipate heat. With life support systems from Gellen installed and nano-manufacturing it to a custom fit space suit this thing can take the heat and dish it out without much thought. She is now the second hottest (thermally) person on the team.
Just took Iron Man to its logical conclusion – Fe Male
Oh gods below that’s terrible!
I’m stealing it! :D
Well, we know Dabbles hasn’t been at them, they’re not translucent around the chest/torso area.
No concerns over the crazy space tech measuring her u other exotic effects.
Question mark.
If so, they were probably discussed off-screen. Honestly, it’s likely that any measurements the suit could manage to record have already been done by Dabbler, so it’s not really a security concern. It may also be part of their plan to disguise her, and she’s just taking it for a test flight before arranging the match.
have to agree. The idea Dabbler would NOT have full body scans of Maxima simply did not occur to me.
like Buford with those full size body molds
In point of fact, it was explicitly called out in #769:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-769-incoming-eventually/
The measures I was thinking where more in the sense of power, speed, resilience or how she generates, channels and uses energy.
I don’t see Max letting Dabbler scan her given her proclivities xD
Maybe something surface level with her cybernetic eye but nothing in depth.
Yeah, that pussy has been unveiled long ago… see the link to 769…
I wonder if Maxima can project her force field outside the suit, to protect it? That would make even a nomal space suit a usable combat option.
Since her skin and body can survive the vacuum without issues, she would likely only need the helmets breathing function. But the full suit could allow for branding and might deceive enemies into thinking she needs it to survive.
She can – her force field protects her clothes, but it’s not as effective as for her own skin. High damage (large or concentrated point blank explosions can destroy her clothes)
My understanding is that the force field is just as effective for her clothing as it is for her body, but her body is itself already extremely durable, so even if her shields are completely down she’s still very difficult to injure. If the suit is particularly thick the forcefield may wind up more spread out and less able to protect it than normal clothing, but this looks fairly form-fitting and may well be rather thin. It’s clearly a counterpressure design*, which have to be form-fitting to work (at least for the inner layer), and at the level of advancement the greater galaxy is at, I’d imagine you can make such fairly resilient without a lot of material.
*There are two general ways to deal with vacuum. Currently, we use inflated suits, where the suit basically has its own atmosphere. Counterpressure instead has the suit itself constrict on the body, applying pressure equal to that of being in Earth’s atmosphere (1 atm). The latter is superior to the former, as it leaves the occupant able to maneuver more naturally and also means any punctures are localized (rather than risk deflating the entire suit), but is a lot harder to pull off. Durable smart materials that can conform to body shape would work wonders here, and I’d imagine that’s how Cora &co’s spacesuits are constructed (well, Cora can just rely on her hardlight projections… although in her place I’d probably want a passive layer of protection as well, just in case the hardlight projectors get disabled; I’d say in her shoes, but without the magic legs afforded by her hardlight, she ain’t got no legs).
That is why the space suit is very tight. Yep, no other reason for sure.
It is tight because that is the only kind of suit Cora would have on her ship. The default setting in the auto adjustment software is “yoga pants”
It’s skin tight because it’s a counterpressure suit, using mechanical pressure rather than air pressure. Counterpressure suits are less prone to failure; a tiny puncture or tear won’t noticeably impact their effectiveness.
They also don’t need active cooling, because you can cool yourself by perspiration. Neat technology, the catch is that they have to be almost a perfect fit to work.
In space nobody can shout you are committing a fowl!
Also probably a good idea to test things first and have the chaotic good member of your party get dragged off on short notice aboard the transport your using.
“That chicken is crazy!
“Crazy, I say!
“Lock it up!”
I can’t help but wonder what happens to that suit if Max starts using her ‘beams from her hands’ powers.
After all, if her medium setting (assuming that she wasn’t going all out for ‘something she always wanted to try’) could cook a Alien Badguy warship (the Fel?), it isn’t something you’d want to do from inside a space suit.
Haven’t we seen Maxima wearing gloves before? I seem to recall her wearing a pair of fingerless gloves at some point? If I am recalling that correctly, then her “hand beams” didn’t obliterate those.
Maybe she can direct the beams from her fingertips? If that’s the case, then this would still result in her melting down her gloves, since they aren’t fingerless.
Now, this raises other questions–if she can focus through her fingers, can she do eye-beams, ala cyclops? Could she do a long-range kick by shooting out from her toes? Can she do boob-blasts? Sydney needs to speculate about this.
Page 767, when she takes down the Fel carrier, probably gives us our best look at Maxima’s beams. In that, her giant Wave Motion Gun beam actually originates in front of her hands. So she should be able to use her beams without damaging the suit, unless it’s only shipkiller-scale beams that can start there (we don’t normally see that nifty little focus-adjustment orb she used to narrow it down to punch through the shields, but it may just be that with normal blasts it’s so small as to be imperceptible).
> Ah, if only I had Harem’s powers. And boobs.
Either this is normal cis male “hur dur boobs fun,” or I’m about to find yet another of my favorite webcomic artists is going to have some major personal revelations about themself.
I don’t personally know the artist, but based on reading years of his comics I’m pretty sure this is a “hur dur boobs fun” comment. A classic “what if a [gender] was in a [opposite gender’s] body for a day” idle thought. Insert image of a cute baby elephant swinging his trunk in a circle to represent what girls would do, and insert image of a closed bedroom door to represent where boys would be.
Not gender dysphoria, just straight curiosity. Everyone on the planet has thought about what it would be like to be a [opposite gender] at some point or another.
And… the first thing they would do is ‘explore’ all the new bits… for SCIENCE!
Go read early El Goonish Shive for when “hur dur boobs fun” turned out to not just be that ;p
Also, apparently *NOT* everyone thinks about what it would be like to be the opposite gender.
A truly surprising number of webcomic artists turn out to be trans. A number of those (As the Crow Flies, Nimona) you could see coming, but some (Dresden Codak, Goblins, Real Life) came out of left field
El Goonish Shive and Misfile are obvious in hindsight. Bodysuit 23 is somewhere between that and “no shit sherlock”
K6BD wouldn’t surprise me either way. (KoS 9-123 still makes me smile (That’s the one where 10 Vigilant Gaze says “TRANS RIGHTS!” in pink and blue fire))
K6BD’s author is definitely not trans himself; he has a wife and at least one child (I remember a substantial comic delay due to complications from the birth). But he’s probably supportive of others who are trans. Which is fine.
Hey, Maelyn Dean has a wife and at least one child. Funny about that.
That is not in and of itself a reason that he couldn’t be trans, really. Plenty of married with children people turn out to be trans later in life. Though it’s a little bit iffy to suggest random people are unaware of their being trans, if you ask me.
Dan of El Goonish Shive has stated their gender as *noncommital shrug* as far as I remember.
I was definitely surprised about Goblins back when it first happened, since I did read along with the forum threads at the time and there was nothing that led up to the announcement. I never really followed Dresden or Real Life though in order to be surprised.
“Where are you right now?”
“I’m in Frix’s medbay.”
“>sigh< How did you injure yourself this time?"
"…you do realize Frix is my boyfriend, yes? I hang out with him a lot."
Maybe true, but she is also known to be somewhat accident-prone. Having a medic as a boyfriend is an advantage for her there.
Sydney should’ve added, “Also, Peggy is with me, because Frix wanted to check her…um…new appendage!”
I’d say that it’s most likely work hours and Sydney isn’t supposed to hang out with her boyfriend. And while it’s probably not a big deal it isn’t exactly the best thing to just blurt out who she accompanied to a medical examination and why. Though I guess Peggy would clear that right up.
I can already imagine Maxima’s first reaction to seeing that suit with the boob plate…
Maxima: “But of course Cora would have space suits with boobplates. Well it could have been worse, I have seen Dabbler’s space suit designs.””
Over in NORAD:
Sir, I have a new MEO contact. It’s about 6 feet long and fairly narrow. It might be an ejected rocket body. Did anybody launch something up there today?
Ah, so that is Archon by high-altitude reconnaissance this morning.
Even without the suit, I expect Maxima will show up quite well on primary radar.
I wouldn’t put it past Cora to have radar-absorbing/Space Stealth suits in her job as a bounty hunter.
Nice seeing Frix compliment Sydney like that. Especially since she’s had a few doubts about her own appearance when comparing herself to a base full of supers. The time she mentioned feeling both skinny and fat at the same time comes to mind.
What is Frix doing in the second to last panel?? Stop bouncing
Portable scanner, he’s making sure that she didn’t fracture a finger. Given Sydney’s history of flailing around, he may have done this before.
Looks like he’s getting some salve or ointment from a jar to put on Sydney’s boo-boo.
“Ah, if only I had Harem’s powers. And boobs.”
— Dave, from his commentary
“What, all ten of them???”
— my immediate reaction…
I really kind of feel sorry for Sydney. She got drafted, and she keeps getting yelled at for not following a military protocol, when Max seems to be completely working in that mindset, only unbending a little bit. Even Peggy unbends more. Sydney strikes me as someone who’d get cashiered for “unsuitable for military discipline”, except here that would then force the feds to stick her in a prison wearing eternal ovenmitts or something.
It’s flippantly disrespecting a superior and treating her as a joke. The military and any organization run on MUTUAL respect. Sidney has a habit of dismissing it out of hand, and has to be reined back in frequently.
Point of clarification, Sydney absolutely was not “drafted” (forcibly conscripted into military service). She had the right to refuse, but instead voluntarily chose to sign the enlistment forms. Because she wanted to be a superhero. Plus the massive pay rate and benefits.
After her interview, they discuss extending an offer. They negotiate a contract, even allowing her time off to attend to the comic shop.
Here is where she signs.
Agreed. Her options were limited, but she had them, and she made her decision based on her own logic and desires. She even negotiated extra time off so she could keep her day job.
She’s not built for military hierarchy, it wouldn’t be anyone’s first pick for her, but that’s the path she needs to take for the career she wants. And she does do well in it, she just had difficulty parsing friend mode from coworker mode. Maxima tried to make it clear by addressing her by her rank, but Sydney didn’t pick up in that until Max did it with more emphasis.
Part of the comedy in this comic is training people who are defenitely not soldier material to work in a military unit.
“She got drafted,”
No actually she enlisted, has a choice, and gets paid extremely well. She was literally told that “Before you do sign this Sydney, it’s important that you understand a few things. One, this is a military police force, and Maxima will be your commanding officer. You will not only have to actually obey her orders, you can get in serious trouble if you don’t.”
Although unlike normal enlisted, she had a rather large amount of leeway in her military/civilian life so that she could keep running her comic book store and have time to do so regularly.
“when Max seems to be completely working in that mindset, only unbending a little bit.”
I think Maxima is actually gives Sydney a lot more leeway than most of the others, especially considering that Sydney ‘does not know how to military.’ The only two others who seem to get this sort of leeway are Anvil and Peggy. Although Dabbler gets a LOT of leeway too – albeit mostly because Dabbler is not actually enlisted military, she’s technically a ‘civilian consultant.’ And overall, Maxima is a lot more lax on the rules than a real military officer would be because of how valuable the members of ARCHON are.
“Even Peggy unbends more.”
Peggy is also a normal human (albeit exceptionally skilled), so can likely relate more to Sydney, and has seen Sydney break down during training, so she knows that Sydney needs a different method of getting her into the military mindset than a normal recruit would get.
“Sydney strikes me as someone who’d get cashiered for “unsuitable for military discipline”, ”
Sydney has a unique set of skills that they can’t exactly get from anyone else. Special skills do give special leeway, in the same way that General Faulk likely gives Maxima a wide berth for the same reason. He’s also told Maxima “You do remember that I’m your commanding officer right?’
Cora doesn’t have arms or legs. That’s a sufficiently substantial part of a human’s weight that I think they do look like they probably outmass her by about 3-5 times.
Just saying, so you know.
To be clear, I get what you were saying: Frix isn’t supposed to be an unusually tall member of her crew. I think you did other pictures where it was more clear they were on Frix’ scale rather than as short as they appeared in that first intro.
Technically, Dave, you just could have gone with an armored rebreather. She doesn’t need the whole suit.
The whole suit is for protecting her identity, not protecting her in space. She’s going to do some pit-fighting for fun and profit, and it would be a really, REALLY bad idea for her to do that while appearing as the golden goddess who took down a Fel Carrier with one finger for a myriad of reasons.
Z… And in a space suit. “Section Z” vibes.
X-65, Y+15, Z+200?
Alright, what’s with the suit, Rescue? I can only assume that she’s testing it for use.
More likely it’s going to be her disguise while fighting in the super-death-match battles to come.
Can we take a moment to acknowledge the cleverness of the Marvel filmmakers who came up with a way to get a close up of Robert Downey Jr.’s face while still keeping him in the Iron Man suit? Movie heroes tend to take off their masks with unreasonable frequency so filmmakers can get their money’s worth. This technique allows them to do that and keep the mask on, and I’m happy others are picking up the idea.
She’s about 200 miles north of Puerto Rico, at the edge of the Bermuda Triangle. Oh, and her elevation is “High”.
That’s a bold estimate, given the steep angle we see Earth at. My best guess would be that she’s a lot further south…
I was wondering why, as a disguise for Sydney, there were two extra limbs to at least for the disguise, but also to see if the orbs work as they would be neural linked. Also, it has never been addressed what the point does in the green orb does.
Was Sidney demoted? I thought she was promoted to corporal. Now we see Max, her CO, call her private.
Sidney is a corporal in comic #4. She’s not a corporal yet, since everything from #5 onwards is a flashback.
Question – if Maxima’s body can break the carbon from the dioxide, so that she can breathe the O2, what happens to the carbon? Just wondering because you wouldn’t want the carbon to bond with the blood and since her body is breaking down CO2 into C and O2, the C has to go somewhere.
Probably a waste product, just like a normal human body. It would be ‘broken apart’ in the bloodstream (on the way to the lungs), filtered out by the kidneys, sent into the large intestine, excreted like everyone else. However, the amount of carbon from normal breathing is VERY small compared to that from something like, say, eating or drinking.
Or, it would be treated like a lung infection or dust (if broken apart in the lungs), accumulating in the mucus, going up the throat, and then swallowed down into the esophagus and into the digestive system for removal.
Basically, it would depend on where it is popped apart and recycled at. Carbon dioxide is a waste product of cellular activity that produces energy, but energy she has plenty of. Her production of carbon dioxide might well be very, very small, as she simply doesn’t NEED biological energy like a normal person does, so her oxygen demand is probably pretty low to begin with.