Grrl Power #1458 – Chemical romance
Well of course there’s unknown chemicals, he’s only got 5 test tubes full of “stuff that reacts a certain way when you stick a specific other chemical in it.” There’s probably a shorter name for that. But it’s unlikely that her hypno stuff is just chemicals that have obvious “turns blue when exposed to ethyl-bethyl-jethaline” reactions.
Sciona herself isn’t a chemist. An alchemist probably, but that’s magical nonsense – combining chemistry, botany, a little kind-of-sort-of metallurgy, and mana, and that all gives you very different results than chemistry alone. But she is from a space faring race, so she certainly understands elements and molecules, but she’s never taken the time to analyze the bizarre substances her body can produce.
I’m pleased with Deus’s oxymoronic statement in panel three. My first draft had him saying something far more sensible, but there’s some process in my brain that automatically runs most of the stuff I hear through the humorizer, in some sort of semi-real time movie-but-also-real-life riffing sequencer. So after I write a page and am laying out the panels and word bubbles, I replay and tweak the scene in my head and make edits. Honestly it’s a little surprising there are any serious conversations in the entirety of the comic, but I suppose I have some sort of limiter engaged, even though I’m sure it’s hanging on by its last coupler, rattling in the electrical maelstrom that passes for my consciousness.
Sexy bodymod news lady Gail has a special one-on-one interview with Tournament Quarter finalist Saraviah Nightwing! And if you subscribe to Gail’s Space Patreon, (which, due to the vagaries of Earth and Gal-Net’s DNS servers, happens to be the same as the Grrl Power Patreon, go figure) you can see that same interview in the nude! Well, eventually. The nude part of the interview, as well as the version that includes shading will be coming soon. Of course, you can view the interview in the nude now if you take your own clothes off. You know. Technically. Just put a towel on your chair first.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
NERDS! ;)
Both of ’em. It’s getting like the Addams family only a little more adult and a lot of superpowers of various kinds. Ah, white hot pokers, the wheel of pain… Maybe later, the boss is asleep.
The question is which is more arousing to them; the negotiations / power play earlier or geeking out while figuring out the chemicals. Also whether Deus has some way to protect himself or counteract the “unknown chemicals” such that he’ll even let her touch him at all.
Yes, with zero irony. (maybe a little mercury for aulde times sake)
Deus always was a nerd. There have always been 3 main genre savvy characters in the comic. Sydney (obviously), Max and Deus. Deus just enjoys being the Successful Evil Overlord of the bunch.
I can’t believe that I have to say this, but…
Deus and Sciona, do not have sex on the mass spectrometer.
Indeed, as it would be bad for the calibration. Calibrating a modern mass spec to be able to identify random unknown compounds is way more expensive than the instrument itself, and the result is as close to black magic as we have in reality. They’re awesome pieces of equipment. Most labs only have targeted instruments, designed to only look for a few specific compounds. Much cheaper, but not what Deus would need here.
…Freeze it and map it with an STM? No. Probably not. That’d probably be overkill.
*polymorphs your test samples
calibrate that.
*Calls the chronomancer
Sure
in this case, its a thing that happens to molecules when they build themselves a little different.
as happened to a cure for aids called retonavir. one day, the molecule started building itself differently making it useless as a drug. the different polymorph ‘infected’ the other molecules, causing them to take on the new form. this wiped the drug out in multiple countries less that 2 years after production was started.
the same stuff to the mass spectrometer.
Not the worst place I’ve seen. (we do not speak about any of the reactors (chemical, fission, fusion etc))
Aw, you’re no fun…
No kidding about the arrogant – did he just go trusting the situation to his reflexes, no matter how excellent?
And that her wrist would be safe to grab rather than also coated in the drug?
Or that there’d be a way to detect when she was using her ability at all?
I’ve heard there’s no general anti-superpowers gear in the Grrlpower-verse, so I’m very curious to see the way Deus was planning to survive this exceptionally dangerous encounter that doesn’t rely on things he couldn’t have foreseen, dumb luck, or unreliable solutions made up on the fly in blind trust that any problems that appears will be one he can handle by coming up with a solution after the problem rears its ugly head and won’t move faster than he can solve it and apply the solution.
Maybe he’s actually a solid light hologram here, or at least surrounded by one with heavy duty shielding mounted in subtle alcoves? He has been shopping xenotech after all and these systems have been shown extensively in use on Cora’s ship. And Deus does love to appear completely vulnerable while actually being completely safe with several layers of mitigation of which he only reveals a few.
Sciona is fairly predictable. A true super intellect can run circles around her. The über-golem managed to get the drop on and restrain her, and it’s quite young.
Sciona is, but her body’s powers aren’t necessarily so.
He could absolutely predict that she would try something, especially something using her powers, advanced tech, or blood magic. What specifically she would try is dramatically harder to predict, and the only counters that cover all the likely probabilities are “don’t actually be there”. Even hefty shielding is something he couldn’t know that she wouldn’t be able to circumvent with blood magic or plain old hacking because she understands the shielding tech from the Xevoarchy much better than he does.
Perhaps he is like Darth Sidious, he does indeed have superpowers and can fight in the higher leagues but he prefers to let others do the fighting for him.
This is one of those situations where the smart character displays a bit of seeming omniscience when dealing with a threat.
Another example I can’t remember the exact title of is a guy letting himself be drugged & knocked out because he knew he was skilled enough to escape wherever the criminals would put him. Seemingly never considering that he might have woken up missing his hands and feet.
Does it really count as “seeming omniscience” when you’re dealing with someone like Sciona? She asked about his bodyguard and began to make surreptitious hand movements. The only part that would have required previous investigations (and Deus has the resources for those) is knowing about the chemical stuff and not simply assuming she was going for a knife.
More just the fact that he assumed, as a physically normal person, he could handle the alien blood mage in melee by himself. It turned out well, but also easily could have not depending on the interpretation of her powers.
The Alari are not physically more impressive than a normal human outside of things they can do with their energy wings.
Remember that the only reason she was able to even physically fight with Maxima was AFTER injecting herself with a specially made super-boost cocktail of some kind that she didn’t even want to have to use in the first place. Before that she was doing everything possible to NOT engage directly with Maxima.
Not to mention, she is currently inhabiting the body of a human who does NOT have any direct combat related physical super-abilities. And considering it’s clear that Deus already knew who she REALLY was well before this, you can also bet he knows exactly who the person Sciona is inhabiting was beforehand by now.
Plus, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist for him to catch on that the Senator she is “the assistant” for, is clearly under some kind of control beyond just the usual stuff.
It’s nothing even remotely close to “seeming omniscience” involved. Just being smart, and having the resources to actually investigate and confirm what’s happening without tipping his hand until the proper moment. Something we’ve seen him do on many many occasions before.
I don’t think we’ve seen the physical prowess of generic Alari before, but Sciona tanked getting smashed through a helipad by Vale and through a tree by Maxima, so she at the very least has super durability.
Yes, she didn’t want to fight Maxima, but, well, it’s Maxima. Very few people want to fight Maxima. There’s a lot of room between “no superhuman physique” and being able to take on Maxima.
As far as Sciona in Escorpia’s body goes, she showed super strength in #744 and super speed in #1330.
Also, she could have drugged him with her free hand when he took the sample.
That’s because Valyeur sat and watched the whole coerced shit last time
I think this is just a very quick moment. I don’tt know the specifics of how Escorpia/Sciona chemical powers work but perhaps it takes concentration to produce them at specific spots of her body and she was focusing on her palm. Deus grabbed her and swiped before she had time to react and then the moment was over just as quickly. A risk for Deus but he is in peak physical condition and if he is a super even if his powers are intelligence having above average reaction speed seems plausible. Obviously still a risk but I don’t think he’d get this far if he wasn’t at least mildly capable in a one on one scenario.
She was able to accidentally use Escorpia’s power while attacking the store attendant in Mexico, so she doesn’t need concentration.
I guess the better question is if her power is always on. Is every inch of her skin covered in chemical agents? Does it respond reflexively when she’s defensive? Can she be caught off guard? Sciona interacts with people daily for work and has an ongoing physical relationship with some dude so I think every inch of her skin being covered and thus causing anyone she brushes against or hands something too to at minimum get high by contact would be very inconvenient. Deus is still arrogant and playing his luck here but I think it’s just as likely Sciona is not infallible and using her powers ineffectively in this brief opportunity.
This page seems to imply that the power requires conscious thought to produce the chemicals and they have to be on specific body parts. Nothing on how long they last before decaying.
If she constantly produced them all over and they didn’t decay I could see lots of drawbacks. Which doesn’t really seem to be how powers work in this setting. Sometimes there’s a drawback, but it’s things like the stretchy guy accidentally providing nightmare fuel for onlookers during a fight, rather than some sort of Midas curse.
It’s possible that Escorpia had already produced the chemicals before getting shot. Just in case she was able to get a hand on someone.
Esciona grappled with the guy who shot Escorpia, and it didn’t have an effect. So no, unless he was a super with some sort of immunity, with should have come up.
Deus’ powers allow him to know things he shouldn’t, so it’s not out of the question that he indeed was able to foresee the outcome of this. If he was just mundane, it would have been reckless, but cheating with Thinker powers allows to rely on predictions others couldn’t.
Not cheating so much as preparations. Once he knew who Sciona was it raises questions, such as how did a possessed Latina gangster becomes a senators aid. We know he has a habit of surveilling people (African Warlords and US politicians) so she was most likely observed using he powers, either on the Senator at work, Sydney at the work site, or another victim. Given its fast skin absorption, the only way to get a clean sample would be to catch her mid-use, best done by putting her alone with an irresistible target, Deus himself. and with the size of his ego, he would absolutely love that plan.
No, it absolutely requires cheating. Relying on your reflexes or that she won’t pick an inopportune timing requires knowledge you can’t get the regular way. Without it, it would be reckless: too many things that can go wrong.
My opinion, is there is already motive enough to be surveilling US Senators and staff involved in areas of his interests from Deus perspective, as well as potential different ways of doing so. Not to mention invisible supers, which Deus scoffed at trying to spy on operations he was running. Deus likely has access to a level of infiltration and spying capability, that makes these look like cheap cold war spy tech.
I always thought his super power was being a large Ham? Thinker Powers, are you a fan of Worm by any chance?
I wouldn’t say fan, but I’ve read part of it, and having a category is always useful.
Seriously, blood devil woman?
You really thought he wouldn’t be ready and prepared for anything you might throw at him?
No, she’s cereally asking why he’s stopping the foreplay to science-out, not that he caught her in her inevitable betrayal (or whatever that line was)
No, no, that’s a perfectly Deus thing to say, and also entirely perfect to lure her into thinking she’s got a shot at landing her slap.
The shorter name is reagents.
I would’ve waited until the sex with hypno drug attack.
Also Deus is banking here on the assumption that he’s stronger and faster than another super.
That’s a big assumption unless he had observers during her fight with the Robot.
He’s also spent a fair amount of time around Scionia by this point; long enough that it’s entirely in the realm of plausibility and even to likely that he’s got a good measure on her physical capabilities.
Further, Scionia doesn’t seem the sort to rely on subterfuge, intrigue, and subtlety if she doesn’t *have* to; if she were capable of overpowering an on-guard Deus, she probably would have much earlier than this. Whereas here, she struck at the first opportunity Deus presented her – his bare back; it would have saved her the trouble of having to redress and redo her hair and make up – though, we can’t discount that she might find it appealing to have a completely obedient and enthralled Deus pleasuring her.
They didn’t spend that much time together, and not really in a way that would have her demonstrate the limits of her physical strength.
“she probably would have much earlier than this.”
It’s implied in the first panel that they are alone in private for the first time, without Deus’ bodyguard Vale there. Also, if she tries to overpower him, there’s a risk of him alerting someone or deploying some emergency measure, a clean ambush is simply the better approach.
And ultimately, Sciona would have to be *certain* she can overpower him, which she wouldn’t when suspecting he’s a supee but not knowing his power.
I mean he probably experienced her receiving uncontrollable muscle spasms, but that was in a body that didn’t have the superion gene
Sciona’s Alari body was at the very least super durable (she tanked getting punched through a tree and a helipad) and Deus implied she’d also be strong (“you *might* be a match for Vale after using the epimorph”), so I think she probably just managed to control her body.
“overpowering” here means touching him once, not cutting his heart out.
A solid slap suffices.
Also she doesn’t have to be certain.
If the senator’s ide suddenly dusappears and said senator falls in heavy withdrawal questions will be asked, so her biggest risk is keeping the status quo.
Another super that he would have been more than able to find all the details on given his resources and extensive connections. Especially, once he figured out that it’s actually Sciona in disguise/another body again.
Remember, this is Deus we’re talking about.
God do I love this guy! Dave, you seriously need to make a spin-off comic called, Deus and Friends! GP just doesn’t have enough room to contain how hilarious and awesome he is!
Deus is one of the few on Sydneys level of nerdiness.
I would 100% read that, for sure. I love Deus
That’s Deus, savior of humanity, and friends, you mean.
(all praise Deus, amen)
Deus: Hands down my favorite ☢️GRRLpower villain!
A key characteristic: He is SO intelligent that he is (mostly) able to keep his own megalomaniacal tendencies in check.
Re: this page, Deus has already shown that he can read Sciona like a book. And (IMO), partly for story reasons he has developed his own tech, like any other terribly smart comic book character. But he doesn’t readily admit to it without his own good reasons, such as bragging or flirting, secrecy being valuable. Therefore I think Deus has access to significant undefined surveillance assets, for example such that he already knows what Sciona’s super-body is capable of. As seen here he is after more details: we’ve already been shown how much he loves being surprised or learning something new. I think even Dabbler would have trouble keeping up with him in a conversation. The only character who I think could is the space-time striding Nth tech guy in the sweater.
As I’ve said before, I hate him for his 10-steps-ahead-of-you smugness, which is fully on display here, and love him for his wide-eyed joy in geekery, which is also fully on display here. This is kind of peak Deus.
just to rain onto this love-parade…
I cannot stand Deus. He gets away with every crime, his enemies are always stuck with the idiot ball, his powers have never been explained with anything other than “his name is God”, and I will bet you that if Dave was forced to explain those ever-mysterious powers, we would be able to comb through the comic and find all sorts of instances where things either shouldn’t have worked that way, or where Deus relied on dumb luck.
From the meta perspective, Deus is not a perfect supervillain, he is the perfect Marty Stu.
I love every scene in the comic in which Deus does NOT appear, because those are the scenes where everything is only revolving around him.
Who/what is “Marty Stu”? It doesn’t ring a bell for me.
I do get what you are saying. In my teens I got hooked on one of my Mom’s soap operas because no matter what the villainess did she evaded capture that entire summer. It taught me how soap operas work, but, Lord, was it frustrating!
IMO, Deus’ plot armor is so thick because this is a comedy, he is the major villain, and his story is nowhere near peaking yet. So even if you can’t warm up to Deus, I hope you can appreciate Dave B.’s storytelling.
Good point. If Deus was a serious character he would be a Mary Sue but I see him more as a parody of supervillains and corporatism. He is written to be funny, not to be a well written antagonist.
Marty Stu is Mary Sue for those who (mistakenly) believe that the later is a gendered concept.
(hint: it is not, it is an artifact of bad, overly centralised writing)
I could say the same thing about Sydney.
Shouldn’t that be “fourplay”?
I just love she can’t ever follow anything of what he does, Deus might be a villain but damn, he’s a great one
Deus isnt a villain though. He is the savior of humanity and a good egg.
Stop it, just… stop it
We all know he is the Villain of the piece, and you are but one of his cheerleaders attempting to through the gullible and easily lead off track
i mean, yes, he does have the ambition and means to take over the entire world, become supreme ruler of humanity, yaddi yadda, but we all get job security, education, healthcare and for the more violent of us, deployement across the galaxy on various exotic battlefields, we get it all!
it’s worth losing some so called “freedom” that only the truly rich experience today, isn’t it?
Kind of like Hank Scorpio.
Except Deus is smyg in contrast to Hank who is as genuinely nice as he is evil.
Except that Deus is smug in contrast to Hank who is as genuinely nice as he is evil.
All forms of government promise that and many dictatorships even deliver until the man and black show up for your door.
He does love to play the villain, however. He would *so* be a villain if it were the smart thing to do. Unfortunately for him, his superpower keeps reminding him that it really isn’t.
I’m not sure he realizes that he’s not a villain. I mean, super power him certainly does, because getting everybody to gang up on oneself is just bad logisitcs. But it feels to me like there’s a distinct part of him that is not the super power and that part of him really seems to be something of an idiot.
This is by far the funniest thing Deus has done. A subversion of the sex setup into both of them letting their inner scientist/geek sides show to investigate a unique, chemical reaction.
Love panel 5 with the nod to Wolverine. And Sciona’s shift from blocked attempted mind-control to “What did you find about me?”
Plus the callback to vocalizing an onomatopoeia. I think Deus has done that before? I am pretty sure Sydney has.
Snikt!
It is canon in the Marvel Universe that Dazzler at least tells people that Wolverine just says ‘snikt’
Why are Deus’ cheeks so pink?
He is so nerdy that chemistry gets him excited.
Does Sciona (or I guess Escorpia’s body) not have super strength? I don’t know why but I assumed she did. I was a little caught off guard that Deus could just grab and overpower her that casually. I guess her power is only chemical creation?
There’s never been any indication of super strength in this body, other than the typical “super perfect fitness” which Deus also has.
She wouldn’t need super strength since her chemicals can instantly overpower anyone with super strength, assuming she isn’t caught off-guard like here.
The original Escorpia might not have had super strength, but Sciona in her body was apparently able to break the restraints Escorpia was in, which suggests super strength: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-744-recycling/
Not much of a counterargument, but it occurs to me: when Sciona was breaking that chair, it already had bullet holes in it. Shattering the backrest might have created options for leverage which original Escorpia didn’t have access to.
The original Escorpia might not have had super strength, but Sciona in her body was apparently able to break the restraints Escorpia was in, which suggests super strength. (#744)
It also could have been magic?
She also overpowered the thug, a quite muscular guy, with one hand against both of his.
Sciona’s magic is blood magic, so her most reasonable magical approach would have been magical super strength.
Given that Escorpia was captured by two plain human, and frankly none too bright, thugs, I think it is safe to say she did not have superstrength. Only the ability to very quickly incapacity somebody and quickly addict them through the use of applied chemistry.
This moment has made this pairing of Deus and Sciona start to grow on me. I’m actually coming around to them as a couple or an evil duo. There’s something here in their dynamic that’s better than Deus’ flirtations with Max and pairing the smartest withe the strongest just seems kinda boring.
That last panel especially works. The fact Sciona is evil and a schemer who just tried to pull something on Deus but she also seems genuinely interested in what he’s doing. Deus also seems very amused by her actions and schemes and is perfectly willing to engage and play with her in this way. I’m not saying love or anything but this sort of professional villains with benefits thing they’re flirting with seems really entertaining and fun.
This is turning into Xanatos and Demona!
We went from four swabs in panels 5-6 (“QUAD-SWAB”) to 5 swabs in panel 9.
Noticed that too. But I’m an analyst so any numbers being off is like a foghorn in the room.
4 swabs, five vials. He might have an extra experiment to perform on one of them, or just wants to isolate a sample for later.
I thought of that, but there are actually 5 swabs in the final panel. Three already in vials, two still sticking out of his hand. It is possible he had a “control-swab” in his hand that wasn’t part of the “quad-swab” action.
The fifth one is a control swab.
You always run a known sample when doing experiments if only to see if everything works.
Like with Covid- or pregnancytests, there is always one line (C) that has to appear for the test to be valid.
Lady, this guy has been playing three factions on that ship filled with your people against each other for a while now.
He knows more about superpowers than anyone else on the planet, excluding Dabbler, after he clued her in.
Somehow he got actual demons in his army. So it’s likely he knows about succubi.
You know he has been off-world, which opens a lot of possibilities.
On top of that, he knows you.
And you thought you could surprise him?
“You were never even a player.”
– Azula, Avatar: The Last Airbender – “The Crossroads of Destiny” (Book 2, Finale)
He is Lex Luthor without the jelaousy.
Not wearing gloves/facemask while analyzing super heroin and super cocaine.
Hopefully he has Narcan in his shoes.
Ah! If I had a nickel for every time sex led me to want to research something in depth… Well, make that a dollar… You know what? Let’s just keep the mood going while I write up this grant proposal.
I can’t believe he turned his back on her again. Scions could have just drugged him while he tests the swabs!
She could also have drugged him with her other hand while both were occupied holding her one wrist and taking the sample.
She’s in a human body right now, I’m sure he’s more than a match for her. Scoina has been relying on her super skill to control men and Deus has been dealing with her kind for quite a while, not to mention the time they spent together before she got this body. He’s more than ready to handle her, plus she knows nothing of what her acquired skill actually does and why. I doubt she can do much other than get people addicted to it.
She’s in an undead body animated by blood magic and possessed by another entity that has previously exhibited what appears to be super strength (#774) and super speed (#1330). But she doesn’t need that. Her right hand his free, both of his are occupied.
She could just have touched and then mind controlled him (she was able to mind control Sydney into forgetting about her in #1330.)
P3 reminds me of Glorion from JourneyQuest: “I am far too brave to be merciful, Perf!”
Deus is a character that really manages the Affably Evil in a way that comes off as amusing, even charming, rather than the “I have a such a punchable face” variety.
Foreplay, short for forensics play
The art is good, the script is great, and P4 v P6 shows that if you keep the action going no one notices Deus switched grip from thumb-near-hand to pinky-near-hand.
One suspects the art demanded it; at any rate Deus is a thoroughly competent martial artist with a momentarily boggled opponent-with-benefits, so why be quibbly?
Because quibbling is the love language of nerds.
At the risk of changing the subject…
Galactic newsbabe Gail is the new vote incentive! ♀️
I recently re-read the initial pages and found there what could be Gail’s first appearance in ☢️GRRLpower! Way back on page 8 a blonde reporter is interviewing “The Filmer”. She is at least a human version of the lovely Gail!
(Please DaveB., make it official!)
In the technical sense, what Deus said isn’t and Oxymoron: those are deifned as two directly sequential words that contradict each other “a deafening silence”, a “devout Atheist”. Being “too arrogant to fall for something like that” is a paradox.
All oxymorons are paradoxes but not the other way round.
Unless it’s unique to Sciona her people should have already analysed that substance but since Deus hasn’t encountered it before we can assume that it is.
It’s not unique to Sciona, it’s unique to the random latina gangster she body-snatched after the incident with the portal to her homeworld.
Sciona used “weird powder”! Deus dodged! Deus used “nerd sniping”! It’s super effective!
Sciona is not really a biological Alari right now and has no connection with any of the still technology-able Alari on Earth.
Think folks need to remember that this isn’t the first time Deus has danced with Sciona – including in the Biblical sense. It’ll just be the first time he’s tango’d with her in the body she jacked.
Rather bluntly, he’s already proven he knows how to bone down with her without getting chopped into kibble, and Deus really does not strike me as the type to get burned by a known risk.
Physicist here, not a chemist, but I have TAUGHT chemistry. And there are chemicals, and combinations of chemicals, that allow for a dozen tests in a single sample. (Color changes for example. Just how many colors ARE there? Answer: a LOT!) Still, only five tubes for all the many possible choices: yeah, I would want to do additional testing. (As an aside, there is a machine for analyzing blood samples that can use 2cc of blood and test for roughly 1.2 million possible conditions or contaminants both organic and inorganic. One might think he could come up with more and even better machines like that and just skip the spectrometer.)
Dunno when or where you were teaching chemistry, but that’s not exactly common practice. You can do it, sure, but why? Complex, qualitative visual analysis is difficult and imprecise at the best of times. That’s why we invented the devices we use to analyze compounds in the first place.
Also, citation needed on that machine existing. Because that’s…hard to believe, and I can’t find any evidence of such a device existing. Either that, or it is a mass spec. You might be talking about a DIMS, I.E. a direct infusion mass spectrometer.
Re: blood tests.
William might be thinking of the discredited Theranos blood tests.
Yeah, I was wondering if that might not be the case as well. But I guess technically, if you count every possibility in a given class of compounds detected, you might get totals like that. I.E. if you detect a nitro compound, then you’ve detected one of a massive number of possible organic molecules. You don’t know if it’s nitroglycerin or 2-nitrophenol (unless it explodes, then you know for sure it’s former), but it’s definitely a nitro compound! I could see some advertising division pulling stuff like that to drum up interest in their products.
A few interesting properties of this substance are already quite known.
Can affect one through skin.
Strong peppy effect.
Fast when apllied at head height, implying direct brain effect without first entering the blood stream.
Mind controlling variant exists.
liquid at body temprature
semi-transparent
This should allow for at least some pre-filtering
It’s probably a mixture of compounds. DMSO or some equivalent carrier solvent would produce the first effect. And applying to through the skin is going to have it pass through the blood before it gets to the brain regardless. Because skulls exist.
The term you’re looking for is “indicator”. They tend to be used mostly for assessing pH or the presence of a broad class of compounds (oxidizers and reducing agents, or metallic ions, for example), not one singular compound. Especially not for complex organic compounds that have multiple functional groups, as most narcotics do. They’re mostly used for titrations, due to their heavy limitations in accuracy. Basically, Deus was always going to need to break out the mass spec. Or, more likely, a gas chromatography mass spectrometer, and probably an NMR spectrometer. Maybe an IR spec and some liquid chromatography as well. Identifying unknown compounds is hard and expensive.
I’m still 70% sure they are going to bang plus’s or minus a percent of course.
Nah, he’s already banged her, just because it’s a different body doesn’t count
One would wonder if Deus hadn’t also drenched himself in some sort of advanced barrier cream. You know, just in case.
I’ll say it, i can’t stand Deuss, i want him humbled one day as i find him incredibly obnoxious character
Not many of us, Pander has the everyone else confused and dazed and under Smug-control
I love every scene in the comic in which Deus does NOT appear, because those are the scenes where everything is only revolving around him being perfect in every way.
Same
I gotta say, this one has me laughing like an idiot. That “snikt!” would make Sydney proud.
Two things jump out to me. First, it seems simple to assume his initial swab test is just for specific drug compounds that have the effects he knows she has. (he would 100% have surveilled her and seen what she can do before this)
Second… how certain are we that his super-intellect isn’t also a super *brain* Specifically, do drugs even work on him?
We see him smoking and drinking, but that doesn’t mean much. If he could–for example–control his actual brain chemistry, then any attempt at drugging him would just be pointless.
That would explain why he’s so confident being with her when Vale isn’t around.
Who said she wasn’t around? You believe what SmugD said?
Have you forgotten that other super in his front coin-pocket who made his hit-team invisible when he killed the true King?
Deus strikes me as someone who rarely lies.
Rarely lies about anything anyone else might be able to definitively catch, but he’s outright admitted to strategic use of deliberately misleading omissions and ambiguities.
He said that Vale’s out doing decapitations? Sure, that’s probably true. But he didn’t say anything about Vale being his only bodyguard – and if this is all unfolding according to plan so far, someone invisible might have been told about enough of that plan’s details in advance, and thus still be holding back in case they’re actually needed.
‘Rarely’ doesn’t mean ‘never’, and he’s very good at skirting around the truth
Sci’s only fault was only prepping one hand, when she could have had both and slapped that stupid smug face off of his neck
Guys, Dues planned out this entire scene. He may very well have sex with her, but his main purpose was to get a sample. Because he’s Dues.
Because he’s Desu
Is it just me, or does Deus resemble J. R. “Bob” Dobbs in that last panel? Should I go back through the archives and see if he’s been seen smoking a pipe?
What strikes me here is, Sciona just sort of accepts the loss after Deus catches her and starts doing a science. And seems to actually be at least as curious about the science as he is. This is such a perfectly balanced toxic relationship, and they deserve each other and anybody else they can pull into the fun.
Ambush predators whose ambush has failed tend to retreat, when possible, rather than doubling down and thereby potentially walking face-first into somebody else’s *even better* ambush. A subject surely fresh on Sciona’s mind, given recent interaction with her own rogue superpower-copying construct.
She swabbed me, Jerry!