Grrl Power #1491 – The crush that crushes back
Apparently cutting loose has Max feeling a little sassy.
Max could do what she implied, but at this point, she has enough control over her powers that it shouldn’t really be a problem. That is to say, she can set her power sliders where she wants them and keep them there, even if she’s in the midst of some, let’s say, involuntary spasms.
Which isn’t to say there hasn’t been a learning curve, and a few incidents along the way. The first boy she fooled around with after “The Summer I Turned Pretty Much Gold Plated” and returned to school in her new gilded form. Of course most of the kids were all, “Who’s the golden freak?” or “Ug, so tacky.” “Oh my god, Becky. Look at her butt. She’s just so… gold!” Not that Max showed up in a thong so that Becky’s friend could actually see her butt, but you get what I’m serving.
But then there was the one guy who knew Max from Middle School (As I’m writing this I decided Max’s transformation happened when she was 13, between Middle and High School, but it was in one of those small-ish towns where everyone is an Air Force Brat and every freshman in High School knows everyone else from Middle School, except for the 15% new students that churn every year because of new deployments.) So this one guy sees Max being all introverted and self-conscious and goes up at the lockers and talks to her like nothing’s different. “So my family went and saw the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley over summer break. Did your family go anywhere interesting?” It was an earnest attempt to be a good friend, but it did eventually wind up with him finding out that it’s a bad idea to be mapping out a girl’s G-Spot when she has new super strength that she’s not quite an expert at controlling yet.
So he wound up with a cast that made it look like he was giving the middle finger (which, indeed, he had been giving the middle finger, and, not to be too indelicate, but Max… took his finger. But she also actually almost took took it.) But he wasn’t bitter, because the cast was a laugh-riot to everyone, and he never spilled the beans about how exactly it happened, only saying he was wrestling with unimaginable cosmic forces at the time it happened.
What Galen is implying in panel 5 is that since Max is on a ship, that makes her a sailor, and thusly should acquire a new lover at each port they visit, or just pick from available crew. Re-reading it just before I post, I guess it kind of looks like he’s saying that Max should hook up with him because he hasn’t established a Terran lover yet, and he’s looking to check that box. (Or check out that box, if he wanted to get punched in the mouth.) I suppose it works both ways, but my thought when writing it was he was telling her she should be sowing her oats. According to Space Sailor Law.
Sowing Wild Oats is one of those phrases isn’t quite cromulent for women. Sure, anyone can go out and have sexual adventures, but sowing oats does basically imply “disbursing seed to many fertile fields,” where women are the fields in question. But it seems a bit on the nose to suggest that women “gather many wild oats,” or something, like they’re going around saying, “Hey, farmer. Dissipate your oats unto my field, which is loamy and neatly tilled. >wink wink, nudge nudge<”
Oh, look who it is in the vote incentive. The NSFW version is finally up at Patreon. Plus a bonus pic.
I think she would get in trouble for doing this. She’d mess up the… floor of the waterfall? Is that what it’s called? The receiving pool? No, probably not that. Anyway, she’d churn things up and cause a ton of weird erosion.
Since you might be wondering, Niagara Falls is about 165 feet high, so Babezilla obviously doesn’t have to be full sized. I’d say she’s about 175-180 feet tall here?
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
Wasn’t his name “Gellen” when we met him back on p702? (Then again, the rules for converting an alien name into English are probably a bit wibbly-wobbly…)
His name is listed as Gellen at the top right so that’s his name and Max pronounced it wrong.
And wow she looks good in nano-paint.
Are you only just now noticing that? I’ve been zooming in on her for the entire battle – lol. And, yes, she does. I suppose the effect is even better with her real face visible…
Yeah, as with Sylv, I forgot I originally named him Slyv, and now his name is Sylv Slyv. But I didn’t want to call it out that I did the same thing with Galen/Gellen. I’ll put it down to regional accents or something?
Just pretend “Gellen” is pronounced with unintuitive consonants (like Welsh or Dutch), so most people fall back to a simplified “Galen” – to spare their tongue muscles for other activities.
..like Welsh or.. Dutch?
DUTCH? If you had said any of the Scandinavian languages, I’d have nodded and agreed. But DUTCH??
What, are you having trouble pronouncing a ch, sch or ng?
Possibly the Dutch “g”, which sounds like a throat clearing. Similar to the Scottish “ch”.
https://youtube.com/shorts/N95NEvLv4x0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative
Or maybe the spelling is encrypted.
I reckon if a potential partner used the words “loamy and neatly tilled” to describe themself I would be absolutely won over…
Not even King Arthur could pull me out.
I would have told hem we are not at a port.
I don’t know how far Rowan has gotten with Max but it’s been implied they’ve been somewhat intimate so until further details I’m taking this as a Rowan upscale! Feats don’t lie! Rowan>Gellen!
Intimate enough Rowan knew what Max’s skin felt like.
You can know what someones skin feels like from first base. I had the impression that Rowan had made it to second because of “the thing stuck in another thing” joke would not have been as funny unless they hadn’t gotten to sticking things in things yet.
You can know simply by shaking hands
Death by Snu Snu. I never thought I’d die that way, but I always hoped.
Would Max have become a super even if she hadn’t cracked open that geode and gotten the alien power water in/on her?
maybe a different liquid might have given her different powers? Like, what if Spider-Man had been bitten by a radioactive centipede ?
I believe the running theory is “yes, but neither as powerful nor as gold”.
I do wonder what Max’s inherent set of powers were and what the geode did? Is it just the added gold skin with the weird sort of un-scannable properties? Would she have just been a really fast and strong flying type super like Hiro or Stalwart? Did the geode just enhance her power set and she’d have all her existing powers but at a weaker level? Is her energy blast a geode thing or a her thing? Since both the geode incident and her getting powers likely happened at around the same time we’ll never know for certain.
My personal theory is that she would have been similar to Hiro. Strength, toughness, flight, and maybe speed. Assuming keeping with human biological “norms”, less strong than Hiro but tougher and faster. The presumably Nth tech geode water amped those powers up a few orders of magnitude, added the ability to control them (move “points” around to dial specific abilities up or down), then also added the energy beams and gold skin.
The energy beams earned her brother a burned shoulder when he startled her. That also blew out their living room wall.
I was wondering what would have happened if Max had, after the geode found the orbs, and not Sydney. Think about it: the geode, old prehistoric orbs found near the KT crater.
I think that would either make Max the most powerful being on Earth possibly the galaxy or my theory is because of Max’s weird golden skin being it could actually nerf the orbs. Maybe they can’t even anchor to her and if they do the gold skin could mean she couldn’t activate them. Varia’s powers don’t work on Max because of her skin and she’s apparently not able to be scanned either. There’s a very real chance they would just be useless orbs and I think that’s even the more interesting answer than Max with orbs upscaling her to infinity like giving Goku the chaos emeralds.
The original thought was that the liquid in the geode was what was left of the original owner of the orbs
I’m sure there are plenty of Fan Theories that Max’s superpower is actually to absorb the properties of any unusual substances she comes in contact with, but the exotic Gold Fluid gave her that force-field ability that is preventing her from absorbing anything else. Similar to the Absorbing Man from marvel Comics.
Do you really have a boyfriend if you’re lying to him about everything about yourself?
Yes. Because you don’t want to Mary Jane him.
Or Gwen Stacy him either.
Got to admit, that bit about involuntary muscle spasms is something I’ve been thinking about ever since the whole “man of steel, woman of tissue paper” question came about. Guess Max really works out the kegels in order to have that much control.
A woman with superstrength would be like a hydralic press. I guess Maxima trust her ability to keep her strength down when she is with Rowan.
This feels like a Tumblr thread I vaguely remember…
Woman of Steel, Man of Kleenex?
Or perhaps this SMBC comic?
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2008-12-02
Less dentata, more constricta?
Her superstrength has a power slider, so she can just turn it way down and she’s just slightly tighter than a normal woman.
I guess if there was enough natural lubrication he would squirt out of her like a pea through a straw.
“Do the sex at me?”
Oh, Max, never change.
I see you’ve read !arry Niven’s essay “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex”. As for Becky, she probably made the comment to her friend in the shower after gym class, unless Max was in the Band.
I immediately thought of an old “Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal” strip where Superman and Wonder Woman separately tell a prospective partner that they could be killed during coitus. The woman quietly accepts it… the man being told this by Wonder Woman cuts to a tombstone.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2008-12-02
Literally responded with that to someone else. :)
something something snusnu
Ah, Max. You do realize Harem is going to blab about that to your teammates back home, and now you’re going to have Dabbler pestering you for the details of the detail of the details? Or, worse, trying to figure out who your guy is and possibly visiting him at work? Maybe even disguised as Harper? Granted, her behavior differences would definitely give her away, but I’m assuming Dabbler to be the type of “friend” that thinks friends share everything, especially boyfriends.
You do realize they know she has a boyfriend, and even specifically assisted to make sure she could date, right?
Also Harem values her lives.
Do they, though? If they did, then I’d like to think Dave wouldn’t have referred to him as her “paramour” when she visited him at the fire station. Granted, that ARC-LIGHT would have needed to run background checks (because of course they would), but we know she likes keeping her personal life private, so if she told anyone on the team aside from Anvil, there’s a good chance it would have been slipped to the press. Probably within 24 hours.
Again, Harem values her lives, and that’s something she wouldn’t even tell SmugD
You do know what ‘paramour’ means, right?
Hey DaveB
Saw your rant about Mary-Sues a couple pages back
I didn’t call Maxima a Mary-Sue cause she’s competent, I called her one cause she never gets narrative pushback, she never loses, she’s never wrong, at least not in a way that actually impact the story
She literally just entered an intergalactic tournament, and won with EASE, something that was heavily built up, and she won it with EASE
For your Batman analogy, yes, under a bad writer, he IS in fact a Mary-Sue. As they will just give him some convenient plan or gadget, justify it with “prep time”, and just have him win where he should in fact lose
A Mary-Sue doesn’t have to be a self-insert. The simplest definition of one is; A Character to whom the plots bends so much that it breaks Narrative Immersion
Not sure what you mean by ‘narrative pushback’, but she has come perilously close to losing at least two times and was only saved by others, she is often wrong and called out on it
She hardly won with EASE, if she didn’t have Manny Vore she would be dead right now
Seriously after the first round Max was calling for Dr. Frost. She hurt herself rather seriously and risked being trapped in another dimension. She felt so insecure after that first round she raided Dabbler’s store room for a cheat sword and spent hours training with it. But I guess since she won that makes her a Mary Sue. Even in today’s page Max has clearly learned she needs to actually review and study these fighters.
But do you know what Maxima has never done so far?
LOSE
Even the likes of Superman has lost at times
Did you forget her fight with Kevin? SHE LOST!!! If it wasn’t for Sydney and Dabbles’ hypno-bewbs, she would be DEAD!!!!
Same with Sci’s killbot: if it wasn’t for Hiro’s save, she would be dead, or worse
You mean she’s constantly bailed out?
That’s a Modern-Day Mary-Sue trope
That just proves you have no clue what a Mary-Sue is: first, it’s someone who never loses, and now it’s someone who always loses but gets saved
Being saved by another person is not a Mary Sue trope. If anything, it shows that Maxima realizes she CANT just win every time. That runs directly counter to being a Mary Sue. She even called Vehemence a huge wake-up call to that effect.
Btw, the times she got saved by others or used items to help her, even then, were not Mary Sue-ish. By which I’m assuming you mean Deus Ex Machinae. They werent. They were definitely built up in advance as possible strategies.
It’s not even Mary Sue-adjacent, you fucking moron.
There is no “Modern day definition.” There is the ONE. SINGULAR. DEFINITION.
Which you have been REPEATEDLY informed your own stupid assumption of which is is nowhere close to.
Max has lost, repeatedly. Or at least would have, if not for the intervention of other members of her team. Nor is she universally loved or respected, and plenty of the characters hassle her. She’s made mistakes, which the narrative hasn’t treated as her actually being right. Describing her as a Mary Sue really requires some very selective memory about the events of the comic.
You mean she’s constantly bailed out?
That’s a Modern-Day Mary-Sue trope
You’re going to have to delineate what you would consider “losing”. Do you expect her to die? Villains have gotten away from her. She got a traffic ticket!
But expecting her to lose a fight in this tournament doesn’t make any sense, because Cora, who has knowledge of the class of fighters that typically participate, told her that she would be a “ringer”, that she would easily be able to beat them. Max’s struggles aren’t intended to come from more powerful opponents, much like Superman. Her struggles are in relating to people far less powerful than her.
How did she get ‘bailed out’ in her fights against Hench Wench or Sciona? They both escaped. Sciona escaped TWICE. Both are still at large.
And also, you’re saying bailed out as if the bailouts were deus ex machinae. They were not – she is part of a superhero TEAM intentionally because on her own, while she’s incredibly powerful, she’s NOT unbeatable. Vehemence would have killed her if not for Sydney. The Supermannekiller might have killed her if not for Hiro. Supermassive would have killed her if not for Stalwart. Darude might have killed her if not for Sydney AGAIN. Even the first time she barely beat Darude, she almost died according to HER.
I’m interested in what you mean by “lose” because I think Max has lost a few times but those loses haven’t always been fights. Fighting is kind of her thing at so I wouldn’t expect her to just lose in the one thing we’re constantly shown she’s the best at. She loses in more personal ways like conversations, being manipulated, or the fact that before Rowan she hadn’t been on a date in over a year.
1) The Best doesn’t mean Invincible, even the Best can have a bad day, or be caught off guard, or overwhelmed. Yet Maxima ultimately wins regardless
2) She fought in an intergalactic tournament, it should’ve been a HARD wakeup call where she creamed easily, making her understand just how big and dangerous the galaxy is. Instead she just has a bit of difficulty, then gets a cheat sword, does a couple hours training, and suddenly she’s creaming the best of the best
Again…. Vehemence. Darude. Supermassive. Hench Wench. Sciona. The SuperMannekiller. Each of which have resulted in her either needing to be saved by someone else on her team, or who escaped from Maxima when their goal was to escape.
The whole point of her getting the sword was because, IN ADVANCE, they realized there might be others who could beat her if she was only relying on her normal, extremely powerful superpowerset. That IS the wakeup call, and she was already awake to see that there were some people for whom she can’t just beat and power through. Heck, even with Darude, she needed not only help from Sydney, but also needed a breathing device from Deus beforehand, because she knew he would be able to kill her otherwise.
You called her a Mary Sue because you have no fucking idea what a Mary Sue IS, Titan.
Which you, btw, have been ridiculously, hilariously WRONG about. A Mary Sue is an extremely *specific* definition. Which absolutely fuckall of applies to Maxima.
Oh, and for Sirksome, Dr. Frost is Sydney’s Therapist. You’ve gotten her mixed up with Dr. Chevy, the East Indian gal with the healing powers.
The plot bends to Sydney because she is the main character. Maxima is just a supporting character and she mainly exist to be a foil to Sydney. This is not what defines a Mary-Sue.
Maxima is a co-protagonist
However, Sydney has been made the fool of plenty of times
Maxima has not, along with never losing, never getting pushback for what should be personality flaws, while been near universally adored (except by one or two bad guys)
Almost every time Maxima is in the comics the story is centered around Sydney, because Halo is the only protagonist.
Maxima is constantly challenged, questioned and mocked by both friend and foe. She always need help from her team to win.
You compare light-hearted banter to actual pushback, and the point still stands that she’s never actually lost
Every other character has been beaten or made the fool of at one point or another
But when it comes to Maxima, and her feminist ranting, the story constantly accomadates
No matter how you slice it, it’s bad writing, and the Mary-Sue allegations aren’t unwarrented
Ok, I will give some examples that proves my points then.
At least twice have she got her clothes blown off in public, making her look like a fool to everyone.
She lost against Vehemence and almost got killed.
She rarely even mention her feminist opinions and when she does no one takes her much seriously.
She tries to make everyone act like professionals but fail all the time.
If it’s bad writing is a personal opinion. By general standards she is not a Mary-Sue.
Okay, the clothes been blown off has people advert their eyes in respect, even when she hypocritically checked out an equally nude Hiro
She got bailed out before she could actually lose (A common Modern-Day Mary-Sue trope)
Going on Feminist Rants at the slightest provocation is one of main character traits
She uses her authority to punish them for it (This one is understandable as she’s a Military Commander)
One of the main reasons I accuse her of been a Mary-Sue is lack of consequences, especially in comparison to other characters
Ways to remedy it include:
– Have the others not want to hang out with her due to been a killjoy
– Cause romantic relationships to fail cause boyfriends are sick of constantly overexplaining themselves to her
– Have her lose a fight, no bail outs, no cheats
– Have her Commanders question her abilities and be right about it
– etc
So you want her to be a toxic feminist. Fair enough, but I doubt that is what Dave B want to write so this is probably not a comic that will ever suit your personal opinions.
“– Have her lose a fight, no bail outs, no cheats”
Um…. she would die then. Which would not exactly be good for the narrative.
Would you say that Sydney was ‘bailed out’ after the fight with Concretia because of Cora coming to save her? I don’t think you are using ‘bailed out’ correctly. You’re using it as if she’s saved by deus ex machinae, when she’s actually been saved by stuff which is explained in advance or planned for in advance, such as the people who are actively on her super team.
None of which makes her a Mary Sue, you idiot.
It’s an EXTREMELY. SPECIFIC. DEFINITION. THAT HAS NEVER CHANGED of someone who NEVER HAD TO EARN OR LEARN ANYTHING, HAS NO FLAWS AT ALL AS IN ZERO, AND SUCCEEDS IN ALL ASPECTS OF HER LIFE, NOT JUST ONE OF THEM. Max had to learn how her abilities work and nearly KILLED HER OWN FAMILY, is shown to have a TON of flaws, and Literally had no fucking social or love life until THE ENTIRE TEAM worked together AT HER BIRTHDAY to give her a CHANCE at it. And even then she has to lie to him.
She’s not, nor has she EVER been a Mary Sue. Get it through your tiny fucking brain. You’ve had it explained it to you about 200 times now.
You seem to be ignoring other commentors’ valid points, so I’m piling on.
☢️GrrlPower is a superhero sit-com, rather like The Tick.
Halo and Maxima are members of a very specialized U.S. military unit, like SG-1, which was action-oriented.
Neither of these military-based stories portray the amount of post-battle analyses and evolving training programs that take place in the real life military, especially during peacetime. That’s because the overlying comedy and action genres would lose their storytelling effectiveness with more accuracy.
The story points that would clearly illustrate that General Faulk (and Maxima herself) believed that Maxima had lost a fight and been bailed out by other ARC team members would be in those post-action conferences and skull sessions. Because those pages of this webcomic get minimalized it under-illustrates that the success of ARC as a whole comes from competent military planning. In turn, the under-illustration of humiliating defeats suffered by the most powerful team menbers becomes fuel for the “Mary Sue” accusations of some commentors. I’m saying you all should try looking at the comic from other perspectives.
Afa bad writing may be concerned, (Dave B., correct me if I’m wrong) this webcomic is a solo effort. Any bad writing days are on Dave B., and it’s impossible to satisfy 100% of readers with any author’s story choices. I enjoy the comic most of the time myself, not 100% of the time. But the Mary Sue stuff has just been getting obnoxious lately, and other commentors who know better than I have argued that the term has been defined by now and is being misused. If you wanted to say that the ARC is so successful that it is a Mary Sue, that wouldn’t fit the definition either.
Dave B.: One way to lay the Mary Sue issue to rest would be to introduce a true Mary Sue character to the story.
Perhaps a side story, give it 3 or 4 pages at most, call it “Halo meets Mary Sue” or something. Maybe a dream sequence?
While I’m at it, as a Peter Faulk fan I’d love to see more of General Faulk. P. F. was in some great comedies!
Yeah, we haven’t seen General Faulk in comic for a while right? I’m sure Dave could write something funny with him. Perhaps Him and Maxima whining about how their job is like herding cats.
If by ‘in comic for a while’ you mean ‘right before this Space Punch-up began’ (he was there when Cora came up with this plan)
You got me there.
:)
Easy to forget, it was only maybe one or two pages three years ago :P
Except the Tick had a character flaw that was actually treated as a flaw, namely his stupidity
Maxima’s most likely flaw would be her rampant feminism, but she’s never given consequences for it
Yes, Max is OP as F, but that is exactly how she was introduced. She is this world’s Superman. Without that pesky kryptonite allergy (at least as far as we know – who knows what might happen if she runs into another geode). Super strength, mostly invulnerable, super speed and energy blasts. She is less a main character than a foil for Sydney.
Not only that, but (were it not for Sydney) she would have died during the battle against Vehemence. Which, BTW, is a perfect example of how she is a foil for Sydney.
And the effects of her super speed are (understated? underexamined?) in the actual comic. To Max the entire world is ticking by in slow motion which makes it a lot easier to adapt to unforeseen situations.
In short, Max is not a Mary Sue, she is environment.
Environment, that’s a good way to describe her role in the story. She is part of the superhero group the rookie superhero protagonist Sydney is introduced to. She is just the foil to Sydney and that’s all she have to be to make a entertaining superhero comedy in my opinion.
Thank you for the reply.
Tick reference was only for genre comparison. And I’m no fan of rampant feminism, trust me. Neither am I terribly interested in the precise definition of Mary Sue. There have been plenty of other commentary subjects I find more interesting.
I love The Tick! Seen all of the animated episodes, was gifted the live version with Patrick Warburton on DVD. Saw the first few episodes of the new live version on stream while out visiting friends. Interesting that they chose to make The Terror much less decrepit in that version – it does make him more terrifying! Loved Warburton in the role, it was right up his alley! If Tick was smart, he wouldn’t be so goofy and entertaining!
I’ve got to figure out how to view more of that latter series, they spent much more $$ filming it.
“SPOON!” everybody!
Feminism isn’t a flaw, no matter how much you may not like it. But the other characters do tease her about it.
Because she’s not a Straw Feminist, you dumbass.
Being a Feminist isn’t a flaw. Anymore than wanting equality is. BECAUSE IT’S LITERALLY WHAT IT STANDS FOR. Also gonna point out she’s got more than just that. She’s easily aggravated by her teammates (see Harem, Omar, Dabbler), gets cocky due to her own power level (like when Vehemence broke her nose because she chose to grandstand), and immediately resorts to violence in some cases (like when she kicked Tom’s ass before Dabbler had a chance to explain things).
Fact is, Titan, you have no fucking idea what a Mary Sue is, and you’ve clearly got an INCREDIBLY selective memory for this webcomic when it comes to Maxima. You WANT her to be a strong female character you can bitch about, because you’re an incel who’ll never get laid with having to pay for it.
Unlike some people, who might respond to you with anger (no point in getting angry over a webcomic), I’m just going to use logic and dispute what you said line by line, as is my way. :)
“I called her one cause she never gets narrative pushback,”
She has. Mostly from Sydney, and once from General Faulk, and once from Anvil, and a couple of times from Dabbler, but she has. And a couple of times from Deus as well.
“she never loses,”
She’s lost (or at least ‘nearly lost’) several times actually.
1) Vehemence
2) The Super Mannekiller
3) Super Massive
4) Darude
5) Opal would have teleported everyone away had it not been for Vehemence knocking her out.
She’s also been unable to BEAT people before, sometimes multiple times, where it was a stalemate or they escaped successfully, or where she backed down from the fight challenge.
1) Sciona (escaped twice and still at large)
2) Lapha and Garamm (escaped once, and only got captured with help)
3) Hench Wench (escaped once and still at large)
4) Vale (backed down from a possible fight)
5) The Squidward (that Sydney killed on her own later)
6) Dabbler (who has canonically fought her to a draw by Maxima’s own admission)
7) Sydney (technically, since she has not been able to get through her shield EVER, so far, even before any points have been spent on it)
And others have managed to hurt her, such as in the first round of the fights, and notably Vehemence.
“she’s never wrong,”
She has been wrong multiple times, and only one time she was wrong where she did ‘get away with it’ (which I had pointed out repeatedly, when she wound up destroying a bridge while pursuing Sciona). But she IS wrong mulitple times, including being called out for it by her superiors (o’ destroyer of mosques).
“at least not in a way that actually impact the story”
The story has a long way to go.
“She literally just entered an intergalactic tournament, and won with EASE,”
Actually she almost lost against the faery with one second to spare. And that huge dinosaur creature did hurt her when it stomped her, according to Maxima herself. So I wouldnt call the first round ‘winning with ease’ by a longshot.
The second round she won mostly because she was lucky enough to be able to use Eat Chicken against the one opponent who she would NOT have been able to beat with brute force, that living explosion guy. That isnt ‘ease’ – that’s strategic and jumping on an opportunity. If anything I think it was a very good strategy against someone for which her normal powerset would be useless. And she would have lost against the dark elf guy had it not been for the sword, which was not HERS, that was because of Cora lending it to her. Again, not a Mary Sue there. That was foreshadowed of her being prepared.
“something that was heavily built up, and she won it with EASE”
1) Again, it wasn’t with ease.
2) The fight is still not over.
3) It would be really weird for her NOT to win though after all this build-up.
“For your Batman analogy, yes, under a bad writer, he IS in fact a Mary-Sue.”
As I wrote in a rather large post, I disagree with both you and DaveB on this – Batman is in no way a Mary Sue definitionally. Although I guess your caveat of ‘under a bad writer’ does mean he COULD be a Mary Sue. But generally he has not been one, period.
“As they will just give him some convenient plan or gadget, justify it with “prep time”, and just have him win where he should in fact lose”
Batman REGULARLY loses. Then learns from his mistakes, comes up with a strategy, and THEN can win. Or has allies to help him.
“A Mary-Sue doesn’t have to be a self-insert.”
I agree with this. Mary Sues CAN be inserts, but it’s not one of the requirements for a Mary Sue.
“The simplest definition of one is; A Character to whom the plots bends so much that it breaks Narrative Immersion”
Yeah, if you want to simplify it that much, your definition is accurate. But again… Maxima has not broken Narrative immersion. So even by that simplified definition, she is not a Mary Sue.
Wow. At 2 pages per week I had forgotten some of this. You must have been researching. I don’t even remember a “Squidward” or a “Mannekiller”, what pages do I look up for them?
One thing that struck me reading your post is that Maxima’s most difficult fights have been against other supers, or super-equivalent characters appearing on Earth. That fits in with the current ringer storyline and Max’s relatively easy 2nd round. I’m looking forward to the final round because Dave B. is ramping up the awesomeness factor of the competitors.
Now, if Max has less trouble winning the UCBA than she has vs. other supers, that generally makes the average Earth super look more powerful compared to alien threats than they did before this storyline. I think Dave B. has said as much in his comments, but your list of encounters helps highlight the point that the galaxy has no clue yet just how powerful the ☢️GrrlPower Earth has become.
Hmmm, doesn’t that make the Earth sound like “Planet Mary Sue”?
Since it’s a comic about earthling supers that is written by a earthling for a earthling audience it will be rather Earth centric, but I don’t think that makes it very sueish.
The Squidwards were the planet killers Sydney had to fight on the Alari homeworld before Cora was sent to rescue her.
The Mannekillers were the blood-fueled golems sent by Sciona to attack the meeting for the various non-human races on Earth. She uses them as mooks later on as well when ARC-SWAT hits her base and causes the portal that sent her, them and Sydney to the Alari Homeworld.
The Squidwards was the nickname given both in comic (by Sydney) and in the chats for the giant aliens that destroyed Sciona’s home planet of Alar, of whom Sydney killed one (possibly two since she blew up the head of another one).
Here is the comic where Sydney first refers to one as a Squidward:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-657-grind-smarter-not-harder/
The Mannekillers were the mannequin assassin killers that were sent by Sciona to kill the Council, and there was one in particular who was a ‘special mannekiller’ who people started referring to in chat as the SuperMannekiller (real name has not been given yet) who was able to fight Sydney, Anvil, Pixel, and then Maxima to either a standstill or was beating them, and was ABOUT to beat Maxima since it was able to mesmerize her (possible vampire power). Maxima was barely able to resist because there was a crack in its optic sensor but she wasn’t able to break free of the mesmerization. Hiro wound up getting behind it and ripping off part of it which caused it to self-destruct. It still survived though because a part of it had been chopped off by Pixel and tossed away by Sydney, and apparently it can reform from any part of it. It then later attacked Sciona and started its own criminal enterprise and is still at large (and Maxima doesnt even know it is). It’s also been referred to as a Super Husk.
Here is the a couple of the pages for it:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-509-pink-streak/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-519-mesmurprise/
And while Maxima did have a LOT less trouble with the second round than she did in the first, it’s partially because she intelligently used one competitor against the other, and and that one against a third. She would have had a LOT of trouble with the Kaboom-guy otherwise if Eat Chicken had not shown up, and she might have had some trouble with the mountain guy if Eat Chicken could not be used as the denta-cord stuff. That was more opportunistic strategy than anything.
I’m looking forward to the finale as well, and yeah, so far her biggest challenges, other than Dabbler, have been a few other Supers (Vehemence, Hench Wench, Darude, and Supermassive), although she’s also had trouble with certain aliens or been unable to get better than a standstill (Dabbler, Sciona, Supermannekiller/superhusk).
The rest of the universe is definitely seeing that GrrlpowerEarth might be a problem in the future though, based on how they repelled and defeated a Fel ship with just a handful of earth soldiers (most of whom were supers).
I wouldn’t call Earth a Mary Sue though. None of it was based on Deus ex Machinae – it was all foreshadowed stuff, some of the villains were FROM Earth already, etc. It’s more a ‘human bias narrative’ if anything, since the readers are human. Just like how on Earth, the multiverse is centered around Earth (Earth Prime, etc) to the point where, while other sectors have 1 green lantern per sector, Sector 2814 has 7 and growing, and in Marvel, Earth is basically the most important planet in the galaxy (cosmic egg and whatnot).
This quoting game sounds fun, I’ll give it a go. No puns this time, I promise.
“The story still have a long way to go (to have Maximas failiures impact the story).”
Maxima’s and the other characters actions don’t have to impact the story much in the long run. If it was a big epic and long story written by Tolkien it should have but this is a sitcom in a superhero setting. As such the things that happens in a subplot like for example this tournament don’t have to have much long time consequences.
“3. It would be really weird for her NOT to win after all this buildup.”
Superheroes always win in the long run, often against the odds. The interesting part of the story is exactly how they do it. In my opinion Dave B do a good job as a writer here.
“Batman is in no way a Mary-Sue definitionally.”
I have always thought Batman was at least a bit Mary-Sueish but you do have some good counter arguments.
I thank you for not using puns. :) And yeah, like DaveB has said on more than one occasion, the webcomic is more of a ‘slice of life’ story than some epic cinematic sprawl. It’s one of the reasons I love this comic.
Another reason are the puns :P
No. Those are just a ninja employment revenue stream.
None of what you described is a Mary Sue. A Sue is not defined by power, but by narrative importance. They have to be the center of attention at all times, “whenever Poochie’s not on screen, all the other characters to ask, where’s Poochie?” The morality of other characters hinges on their relationship to the Sue, they’re good if they like her, and they’re bad if they don’t. They are the center of everything at all times, and the importance of everything is determined by their relationship to her. A great example is Steve Urkel. Characters were literally removed from Family Matters because they had no real way to make everything they do center on Steve, their relationship to him became the only thing that really existed, if they had no connection to him, they didn’t exist.
And Steve Urkel wasn’t even a Mary Sue, he had tons of flaws, and there were plenty of people who disliked him. Hell, HE disliked his alter ego.
A Mary Sue would have no flaws, not hate themselves.
That is possibly the BEST reason why Steve Urkel, while a Wesley in some respects, was definitely not a Mary Sue. :)
Although I will mention again that a Mary Sue can have flaws – just not consequential flaws that can actually bite them in the butt afterwards, and not flaws which wind up helping them :)
IF characters were removed from FM because of Steve, it would most likely be because of actor tensions, just like how the original ‘Aunt Viv’ on FPoBA was replaced (Willie didn’t like the actress, so he had her ‘removed’, probably a lot more to it than that, but that was the basics)
So let me get this straight…
Max is top secret to the point almost nobody knew of her existence before the reveal press release…
But she has ex-flings, some of which were injured… from her teenage years…
But her real identity is still secret?
Look, all I’m saying is either she kept to herself as a teenager or everybody on the internet now knows her true identity and that she was a cryptid in her town growing up.
No, Maxi isn’t top secret, the full-extent of her powers is
And prior to the press release no supers were publicly known (because the US government believed the top super population to be in triple digits, maybe low quads)
Well, her appearance may not be much of a secret; we first see her in plain clothes at the bank. Her full power set and capabilities, on the other hand, were a secret very much. To a bystander who knows nothing about her, ok she has a unique look, and she looks fairly strong. That’s it. It’s impossible to infer the rest of her power set from her looks. Also, her missions were top secret, so unless someone was actually there, there’s no reason a bystander would know where she has been working.
Remember that the Veil kinda-sorta applied to Supers before Arc-Swat’s founding press conference. People who were more than one KevinBacon degree of separation from her would have found it easy to forget unusual details.
Max was used as an example of the veil partially covering supers.
Supers have been partially covered by the same spell that covers supernatural types.
It’s pretty much a SEP field (Someone Else’s Problem). Most people who discover supers think “Oh My God!” Then they’re a little bit distracted and suddenly they either forget it happened or think it’s no big thing and not worth mentioning to anyone else. And certainly not worth investigating further.
Unless you’re one of the very few the Veil doesn’t affect that much. Then you think it’s the biggest thing ever, try to publicize it, and get treated as a nut. Mulder, but worse.
I’m wondering how much the public announcement has to fight against this. There was some attention paid to that during the Council meeting, but not much since. I suppose it’s going to come up again eventually, depending on how funny it can be made.
Isn’t one of the entire points of Arc, that no one has a secret identity? In fact, Max gave her full name during the interview in page 150.
At one point in the comic, it was mentioned that one of the reasons her activities did not garner more attention during her teenage years was likely because of the Veil somehow ‘partially’ covering it. Specifically, when Ingsol said: “Compounding the issue, Supers’ atypical attributes meant they were at least partially concealed by the veil. A sort of catch-all clause written into the base enchantment. I suspect this is why the general populace paid them so little heed until quite recently. People being unusually skeptical of super powered construction workers, or vy (why) one town knows aboutthe local golden track star, yet somehow that knowledge never spread like the wildfire it was.”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-459-throw-pas/
Someone needs to inform Gellen that that (Space) Sailor Law only applies to crew, not passengers
I am thinking that today’s panel 6 is another step toward Maxima ‘letting her hair down’ and becoming more comfortable with Cora’s crew. After they return to Earth I expect Dabbler to say something like: “Max, we’re friends. You can be creepy around me!”, with a cute pouty face.
For the Steel/Tissue-Paper file:
There was a single-panel comic, setting Superman and Lois Lane behind a waist-high brick wall. The wall appeared to have had a number of holes shot all the way through it. Superman had like 1 hand on his hip & the other somewhere lower, a stern expression and Lois looks dismayed. Caption: “There, Lois. THAT’S why not!”
I’ve managed to break three different fingers, one of them twice, and one crushed, and never got a cast, all I ever got was a plastic or aluminum brace :( The cast I had on my arm when my wrist was scrwed up but not obviously broken was a nuisance…until I took a hammer to the oversized strip going around the thumb and then I could use it again, I was a drummer in a pipe band at the time and even that was easy once the cast got ‘modified’.
My inevitable Whateley Academy two cents: one of the entries in the series is “Sara’s Little Purple Book”, which is a sex manual for the super-powered written by Carmilla (a human/Deep One/Great Old One hybrid who decided to forget the whole ‘destroy/enslave humanity’ thing and got a student gig as a Lust Goddess in training) and passed around the school in secret by the students.
She references “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” frequently in her discussions on Exemplars (someone who becomes their idealized self, usually including super-strength, super-intelligence, and a smokin’ hot bod) and other types of Bricks (the common term for those who combine super-strength and invulnerability).
Mind you, she also covers things such as avoiding hurting a partner when you have flame or electricity powers, the legal consequences of mind control, why ‘being struck down by an enraged wizard’ fantasies should be restricted to bedroom roleplay and not aggro’ing an actual mage, proper grooming etiquette when dating a catgirl, and why you should never agree to field test a Devisor’s newly invented sex toys.
(Actually, you should probably avoid testing newly sex toys from a Gadgeteer, too, but those are a lot less likely to do something truly disturbing to you since they are only bending the laws of reality rather than snapping them like a twig.)
Digit fails at making underwear. I’d hate to figure out what her idea of a sex toy is. May be she’ll get over her harpoon phase. “For Science Reasons”
“Sowing Wild Oats is one of those phrases isn’t quite cromulent for women.”
Depends on the species.
Remember how Charles Tucker III was probably the first human male in Star Trek to become pregnant? I think the crew should be very aware of those issues.
I’d argue that Tucker was more “infected by an alien parasite” than preggers.
except it was an alien embryo, and literally existing as symbiosis. And he LIKED the woman he had the kid with.
So, yeah, he was pregnant. It was accidental, because they thought it couldn’t happen, but it did.
The only reason embryos are not classified as parasites, is that they are of the same species as the host. They check every other box.
It is the same as calssifying Pluto as a dwarf planet. We literally made up a requirement to have a more convenient grouping.
Embryos do not check almost any box as parasites. In adition to being the same species as the host, embryos also share genetic interests, and advance evolutionary fitness, rather than causing one-sided harm (what a parasite does).
Parasites: Lives, feeds, and reproduces at the host’s expense INDEFINITELY or until the host clears the INFECTION. Embryos are not an infection, so birth is not ‘clearing an infection,’ embryos do not reproduce in utero. They are not even capable of reproducing until they have been born and lived for many years OUTSIDE the mother. Embryos follow a natural, time-limited developmental program to transition into an independent organism. Parasites do NOT, by definition, do this. Parasitic relationships rely on evasion and exploitation without a natural cooperative endpoint. Maternal-fetal interactions use specialized, integrated structures like the placenta and evolved immune tolerances that reflect mutual biological adaptation. Parasites decrease teh host’s fitness for their own standalone benefit. An ambryo represents the mother’s own reproductive output, directly passing on her genes and contributing to the overall evolutionary success, unlike a parasite with a host.
In fact, the ONLY thing at all similar is that an embryo relies on a mother for nutrients but that’s where the similarities end. Any actual comparison is biologically ignorant and vacuous.
As for ‘infected by alien parasites,’ it would depend on if it met those requirements that I listed above in order to define the organism as an embryo (ie, like baby Spock in a human mother’s womb or that alien that was born to Deanna Troi in TNG) or as a parasite (ie, like the chestbursters from Alien/Aliens)
“Do the sex.” You kids today and your phrasing…
I don’t care for you enough to use restraint, so it’s probably not a good idea for us to have sex. With extra descriptiveness! Yup Max has definitely picked a fun rejection method.
Talk about “One and done” (Sorry, not Sorry)
Fun fact! There’s a movie where this actually happened. It’s called Barbarian Queen, starring Lana Clarkson.
It also happened in “The Boyz”
*smuggles Dr. Rowan a case of accommodation potions*
I – I mean, I HOPE it works both ways…
2nd to last panel, Max is channeling ‘Henchwench.’
Hey Dave, while going through the archives yesterday/today, I’ve run into this a couple of times:
Your access to this site has been limited by the site owner
Your access to this service has been limited. (HTTP response code 503)
If you think you have been blocked in error, contact the owner of this site for assistance.
If you are a WordPress user with administrative privileges on this site, please enter your email address in the box below and click “Send”. You will then receive an email that helps you regain access.
Block Technical Data
Block Reason: Exceeded the maximum number of page not found errors per minute for humans.
Time: Tue, 1 Sep 2026 16:59:37 GMT
About Wordfence
Wordfence is a security plugin installed on over 5 million WordPress sites. The owner of this site is using Wordfence to manage access to their site.
You can also read the documentation to learn about Wordfence’s blocking tools, or visit wordfence.com to learn more about Wordfence.
There’s some function that prevents people from paging through the archive really fast, I think it’s to partially mitigate DDOS attacks? But its sensitivity seems to get reset every so often. I’ll take a look.
Which might explain the occasional 403’s
okay, wasn’t sure if it was just that, or there was something else in the background at issue, since the error does say “page not found errors per minute”. I thought maybe the page has something missing that was causing that.
I’ve had the same thing happen to me a few times. Usually when I was trying to post links to past pages for references.
I surmise with a relative degree of accuracy that I can speak for many a straight, single, healthy and red-blooded male (myself included) that when Max brought up the toothpaste and truck wheel analogy, the words that went through Galen’s mind were “worth it”.
in a way, it’s also like she has a permanent chastity belt she can turn off at will. Given she can actually put her stats into NEGATIVE Armor to be more sensitive, as well as lower her strength to a level she can safely be with a guy, like Rowan.
Just… don’t try to get in her pants WITHOUT her permission if you want to live. And well, still have your Johnson. XD
So, another iteration of “I’d be scared to get a hand job from her. Not so scared that I wouldn’t do it…”
So I’m gonna be honest, lost a lot of respect for Galen here. You can have your own polyamorous relationships all you want, but when your response to a proposition is “I’m in a monogamous relationship” is “Well people in your situation cheat all the time so you should sleep with me anyways” it’s a really bad look.
Like this is quite literally the standard complaint/stereotype a lot of people have about poly relationships.
Idea for any British person to put out there.
Build a large Movie/TV/music studio on the Isle of Man so all the people who have to live there for tax purposes can have a place to work during the months they have to live there so the British tax man dosn’t eat all their money.
You can also buy up all the land around the studio and build a large apartment building that can have nice 1-4 bedroom apartments that you can rent/lease to all the workers as well as an attached indoor mall as it is cold there a large part of the year.
I know you are thinking that’s a lot of money but there a lot of millionaires and a few billionaires who live on the Isle of Man and they might love a place to work while they hide from the TAX MAN .
It occurs to me that the anecdote recounted in DaveB’s comments might be the reason Max was pissed (well, more so than usual when Dabbler uncorks a sexual innuendo) about Dabbler’s “take one (finger) before you can take two” comment (p461).