Grrl Power #250 – It’s only overconfidence if he loses
Sydney will explain “Inverse ninja” on the next page, but this is one of those cases where I probably need to scoop her so those of you unfamiliar with the trope are up to speed. Basically it says the more bad guys the heroes face, the less of a threat they are. In other words, 100 Stormtroopers? No sweat. One Darth Vader? Big problem. Weirdly, the way the trope works, 100 Darth Vaders are exactly the same threat as 100 Stormtroopers. It’s only when you get down to the last one that he becomes a threat. It’s like, conservation of action. Normally there’s no way the hero could beat 100 Darth Vaders, and that’s why it makes a good cliffhanger to end on, but when the next episode starts, the hero gets a lucky shot and hits the gravity suck death vortex thingy that 99 of the Vaders were clustering around, but that last one? No way he’s going down in one lucky shot.
Two hundred and fifty pages. Part of me wants to pat myself on the back and part of me wants to kick myself for doing a 50 page fight. I really didn’t intend it to last that long which is especially ridiculous considering how much I cut (ahem, saved for later I mean), and as you can probably guess from this page it’s not quite over yet, but I promise I will make the remainder as concise and entertaining as I know how.
I don’t know why I’m so bad about remembering little details panel to panel, other than there just being a lot of details to remember. But I bring it up because I want to point out that Vehemence’s coat didn’t repair itself in the last panel, I just forgot to draw it all torn up somehow. It’s a fairly minor art repair, I just didn’t have time to fix it as I’m scheduling this post at 1 am.
Remember the Who’s Who is just people with dialog, otherwise it’d be taller than the comic.
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I love it when someone enjoys his work as much as Vehemence obviously does.
Okay, Max – time to see if you’re not
allmostly talk in this fight.Possibly. But really, given that all we’ve seen are strength and durability, it’s probably worth starting with Anvil. (Again.) She can handle super strength in her sleep, and if he has anything else she’s going to draw it out so the rest can be ready for it.
Anvil’s going to get beat up a lot on this team, but she’s an ideal first-line: Her powerset is best used as a surprise, and counters much of what they’ll face. She can’t handle everything (and I’d make sure she trained with Math as much as possible), but she can take a hit, and she requires her opponent to have something unusual to handle her.
Aw, Vehemence is simply going to fight. I hoped for something slightly more classy, I guess.
Anyways, will be interesting to see if there will be any inverse ninja display to be had.
Yeah. I was hoping for something like an independent contractor that was looking to do a little head hunting among the Archon team members, or maybe Stalwart’s mercenary brother looking to cash in a bounty.
So I’m not the only one who’s been thinking that Stalwart and Vehemence have more than just a passing resemblance to each other?
Are we sure it’s not just the hair? I know it’s been a criticism leveled at bothboth manga and western comics the faces of multiple characters are often very similar, and the distinctive cotton-candy colored hair and costumes, respectively, are mostly so you can tell apart otherwise identical bodies at a glance.
I’m still wondering, myself. Thought balloons rarely lie and he hoped Sydney didn’t get herself killed, for whatever reason. So he’s clearly no monster, even if he’s a bad guy.
He seems to have a warrior attitude to challenges and the like. It could be he likes Sydney’s style and wants to fight her when she isn’t so green. (that’s how he likes people in his warrior world? XP )
Eh, the double-crossing and striking from behind does not exactly support the “warrior” theory.
“Warriors” fight to win. “Knight” and “Paladin” fight fair. Watch your back!
Oops, I meant from me….:P
True it pushes him more into the mercenary with a personal code area (which is more guidelines than an actual rules). Even by Klingon standards, who consider assassination honorable under the right conditions (show your face and close combat ), he failed a bit with Opal cause he completely blindsided her. Unless he never intended to kill her but just knock her out (even if he has great control that hit was very dangerous ).
A mercenary warrior type probably has a lot of grey areas so basically he WANTS to handle things a certain way but he’s learned to not take too many chances with mission objectives if he wants to earn his pay. Sort of like the way the Enterprise crew REALLY wants to bend the Prime Directive like all the time and if they think they can get away with it they often do bend it as far as they can but still proudly tell everyone about the huge importance of it etc… in as righteous a voice as they can muster. Humans are… complicated (‘cept not really… )
There are old mercenaries and bold mercenaries, but there are no old bold mercenaries.
Was that a reference to A Song of Ice and Fire? I’m re-reading the books and I saw that same line, though with sellswords instead of mercenaries, a few chapters ago.
I don’t know if it existed before already and if it was just adapted for the book though.
That has been around for ages, the “there are old ‘X’ and bold ‘X’, but there are no old bold ‘X'” thing, believe heard it first in reference to vikings
Observer, another angle to consider.
He’s a superpowered version of Math.
He wants a good challenge. A group that hasn’t worked together or stretched out properly is not really a challenge.
Dead foes can never be a challenge again.
Yup, similar to what I was saying but I hadn’t thought of the Math similarity. If only Math would wake up maybe we would have an interesting fight for him now that an top rank supervillain with no boobs showed up!
We all know that Math would seriously love a fight like that. He’d probably be drooling nonstop the entire time.
Fighting can be plenty classy. LOOK AT THAT HAT!
Max, he’s all yours.
*WARNING*
*WARNING*
*WARNING*
BOSS HAS APPEARED!!
(SQUEAL!!)
Danger, Will Robinson?
No danger, Doctor Smith is not in the area :P
i love the fact people still get that reference.. i can hardly get anyone to remember the Lucy I’m home! oooh ricky
as Capt. America said… “I GET that reference!!” and i’ll bet that she’s got some Splainin’ to do too?
WAAAAAAHHHHHH!
That’s from the Scarlett Johansson film, right? =OP
OUCH. That punch looks and sounds like a ton of hurt.
Í hope for Vektor he has some spare ribs.
Also I like Vehemence. Hes somehow so delightfully over the top although totally calm and collected.
Although I’m starting get this “I am the most powerful there is, the prince of all Sayans” feeling, which I like a lot less.
As last meals go, spare ribs aren’t bad. I hope he had them before showing up to the battle too, since I have doubts as to whether or not he could’ve survived that fall.
If the punch didn’t kill Chia-pet, then he might simply drown. It takes surprisingly little water in the lungs to do the trick.
Except his head is clearly in the grass
A punch like that, he might have some blood in his lungs, which would do the trick.
“Spare ribs” Hahahahahaha!
Maybe it’s because I’m hungry, but I just couldn’t get food out of my mind reading that. :)
Wait… what is food doing in your mind in the first place? Sounds like severe medical trauma going on there.
It’s a long story; I’ve already apologized to him, vehemently and repeatedly. It was a carrot. I don’t know how the hell it got there, but I have apologized.
Yeah, my first thought on looking at that was “I hope Vekter is still alive.” Vehemence went a little easier on Opal, so I hope he is gauging his attacks to the resilience of the subject.
“Í hope for Vektor he has some spare ribs.”
I’ll bet that when/if he wakes up, his stomach wouldn’t be feeling well enough to handle digesting a plateful of spare ribs. Vehemence certainly has a way to induce appetite suppression.
This would have been a great place to get some spare ribs, except they blew up the restaurant.
Hex: That was an accident, well mostly. You see there was this squirrel…
Judge: You can give the details later. For now, do you please guilty or not guilty?
They had to blow up the restaurant, to save the restaurant.
What??! Green Hair doesn’t know “Telekinese the ball bearings in my pocket up and back to roll with punch” ?
That is standard fare. I guess a speech is a free action but everyone knows a “denial statement” gives +1 to all damage dice involved right…?
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConservationOfNinjutsu is more my thinking on what inverse ninja means…
I was thinking of that too, but also thought that she might jave been referring to the fact that he is no longer skulking around in the shadows.
That page links straight to the Inverse Law of Ninja Strength. Right to it.
That’s simply another name for it.
There’s a Ranma 1/2, Sailor Moon fanfic which ‘explains’ this: the army of ninja are high school students given just enough training not to hurt themselves. The lone ninja is a highly trained expert.
One doesn’t need to hide to be invisible.
I mean, in an office, who would notice a guy in a business suit walking down the hall with a stack of papers in his arms? Who would notice a guy out working digging ditches? Who would notice someone dressed as a ninja at an anime convention.
Hiding is as much about not being seen as not being recognized or noticed.
Scarily enough, I’ve had to develop the latter over the years.
What you just described is the way Ninja actually infiltrate places. They look & act as if they *belong* there, thus escaping closer scrutiny. It’s actually the core technique & practice of the Ninja Art of Invisibility.
Midnight, I was just ‘clarifying’ an example of how being “invisible” is not JUST actually being invisible, but how one blends in with their environment.
There of course is also the traditional actually not being seen. “Social Invisibility” only goes so far. Hiding in shadows, being silent, etc, etc, is what a lot of people think of when “stealth” or ninjas are concerned.
This also reminds me a game that talked about powered suits and Stealth. Sounds like a contradiction, but this was the quote for the skill.
“Moving Silently is about knowing how to make sure that the sounds you make blend in with your background. Nobody will notice a clank if there are a lot of clank sounds going on, so long as that clank fits the flow of the area.”
what’s so scary about being a ninja at an anime convention? :D
Scan … one word.
Fangirls
Maybe, maybe not. I wouldn’t expect to attract a lot of ninja-fangirls if I dressed up like a Ninja Pig from the Wizard 101 game…Even though I have the body for it.
I once decided to prove to a friend of mine that the secret of getting away with something, anything, is how your carry yourself. Turned around, walked into a bookstore, picked up an iced coffee by the cafe, a book off the shelf, and walked right out. They never stopped me. (If you’re wondering, yes, I went back in and paid for the stuff, I was just proving a point.)
I did that one time, but it Wasn’t on purpose. Local convenience store. I was a regular there. I arrive, cop talking with the clerk. I walk over, get my usual soda, and then walk out like its perfectly normal. I’m halfway home before I realized I forgot to pay.
So “inverse ninja” is totally unrelated to “reverse cowgirl”?
Fairly sure Dabbles is proficient in both positions ;)
At the same time.
Since there are five of Harem, wouldn’t this apply to her as well?
Who do you think Dabbles was performing with? ;)
So, is that Duke Nukem I see, or is one of the team being cheeky and dressing like him for weird giggles?
Call sign / nickname Goose. He ain’t happy about the coincidence of looks and I’m sure the jokes have all been told. And he doesn’t chew bubblegum.
Of course he doesn’t chew gum, he’s all out!
actually he always has a pack in his pocket, he just doesn’t like the sugar.
You can get sugar-free gum
and he’s ready to kick ass!
Go back a couple pages and read his “Whos Who” entry
I hope Shawn’s car insurance covers vehement acts of telekinesis.
I understand the grenades but why is he driving a cadillac?
is an ex-SEAL not allowed to be a classic car fan?
I don’t think that’s a classic car unless Shawn’s done some work to wire the power side mirrors. On the other hand, the front looks like a de Ville or a Sixty Special from the sixties. Maybe it’s an Eldorado.
I disagree, the older cars have rounded lights, this ones are nearly square. It looks like a STS.
And that one has not enough room in the boot (or is it trunk). At least in my opinion.
I beg your pardon?
“…not enough room in the boot…”? Really?
You do recall that it went “Kaboom” just now?
If anything, it had too MUCH “junk in the trunk” for its own good!
Ugh – bad joke, sorry.
Slinking away in shame now…
“…the front looks like a de Ville or…
Well, it doesn’t look like that anymore. Just as Shawn is an ex-Seal, that has become an ex-Cadillac. Impromtu customization jobs can be a real b**ch, huh?
:/
Is that like an ex-parrot?
Nah!… it’s a … sorta…’49-’70 Caddy…
I don’t think it’s one of the land yacht types. Apparently Cadillac makes smaller cars as well these days.
Because you can’t carry enough grenades in a Corolla.
Actually, I’m very impressed with the grenade storage capacity of my Corolla. In fact, I believe it may have gone a long way towards overlooking the insufficient head and leg room and the fact that getting out of the back seat has been likened to being born on more than one occasion.
Vice city fan. Grenades and flashy cars. All makes sense.
Hand-me-down from his dad on the occasion of his retirement. Cadillac does make really solid cars. They can last a really long time. A friend of mine had a Cadillac soon after graduating from college (she got it very used).
Except for Shawn, we have been introduced to the players. No ned for an extra long Who’s Who. And Shawn may have some difficulity explaining why the grenade inventory is off by a bit.
Unless he just has his own supply! Every psuedo-super-solider should have one! :P
One more for the list: Shortly after the explosion we hear a muffled voice from under the rubble pile “I just heard something go boom. What’s going on out there?”
Poor Achilles, he missed all the fun.
One Suggestion, can you post the comic in higher resolutions? I have a 28 Display running at 1920×1200 and can barelly read some letters.
I think this may be on your end because I have a 19 inch display running at 1600 x 900 and the comic is as clear as day.
Vehemence has a spectacularly expressive face.
Dave has a good eye/hand for expressions. From normal to anime extreme and back without losing a drop of ink.
I dunno, I think it’s more a matter of quality over quantity. One Vader isn’t more of a threat than 100 Stormtroopers simply because of numbers; he’s more of a threat because HE’S the Dragon and THEY’RE just Mooks.
To further illustrate, consider the opposite end of the spectrum. Suppose that instead of 99 out of 100 Vaders getting sucked into your hypothetical gravity vortex thing, it was 99 out of 100 Stormtroopers. Do you really think that one last Stormtrooper would turn out to be the lone badass of the bunch, simply because he’s the last one standing? Probably not. More likely, he’d glance around, realize with horror that he’s the only one left, and either throw down his weapon and surrender or run away screaming. Because the last Mook standing is still just a Mook.
Examples like this always make my head hurt.
While I can follow it in a “movie logic” way it just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
Darth Vader is Darth Vader because he’s different than the others. There can’t be 100 of him – the fact that he IS Darth Vader already means he is an individual being you know a lot about.
The problem with the stormtroopers is that they are intentionally pretty much indistinguishable. And it always hurts me when they are described as “harmless low-level environmental hazard”. They are elite troops, their blasters are just too weak to penetrate ablative plot-armor.
Also, if you attack them you are just as likely to accidentally draw the attention of sarge badass, scourge of the seven taverns and ass-kicking champion of Iridar5 , as you are likely to accidentally trample Yodas favorite tulip when raiding the temple gardens. Or you should be – damn movie logic.
But… but … He’s just one man…. DO SOMETHING YOU FOOLS!
This note brought to you by the Cobra Commander School of Acting and Leadership.
As Math would probably liken to point out, just ONE man can do quite a lot. It’s not the numbers that hurt, it’s the fact that REAL badassery is rare. You’re more likely to find it present in an individual than in a group.
*warning* this post only applies to comics, cartoons and movies and in no way applies to real life * warning*
real ” badassery” isn’t rare it’s subjective nonsense, the real reason large groups fail in stories is because otherwise the hero would die and story would end.
No, real badassery is NOT subjective. It IS rare among the human population. If it was common, then it would become the new “average.”
https://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi
Was that from when they were fighting Sgt. Slaughter?
The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord
number 46 If an advisor says to me “My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?”, I will reply “This.” and kill the advisor.
@ Wanderer: Not to bring up a forgettable (and in many opinions, horrible) movie franchise, but remember Resident Evil Afterlife, and how badass all the Alice clones were? Yet they all fell victim to Inverse Ninja (from Wesker’s point of view, at least) when Wesker blew up the facility. Only the original survived, cause she knew he would flee like a coward, and guessed correctly which chopper he would use.
I see two things that I want to point out.
1. Vektor is not in the Who’s who, despite having a line of dialogue in the second panel and some “incidental sound effects” in other panels.
2. Vehemence was hit with the front of Shawn’s car, not the trunk. The grenades would not have gone off. Mythbusters has covered this one a few ways and a few times. Even loading your trunk with mixed binary explosive and inducing a read-end collision at 200 mph doesn’t cause an explosion. Sending a car off a cliff so that the front end smacks into the ground does not result in an explosion, even when you cover the entire front end with fire-staring materials. Busted! What is Shawn doing? Carrying nitroglycerin in his engine compartment in intimate contact with 100 kgs of ANFO?
Time for some “suspension of disbelief” I think. It comes down to two words: “Superhero Comic.”
Sure. Doesn’t everybody?
When he says “I might have had some… grenades in the trunk”, looks like he had something else there that he couldn’t say… “huh… grenades ok?” hahaha
Yeah, that. It was probably NOT grenades.
I’m willing to bet that Vektor, in addition to slamming Vehemence with the car, telekinetically set off a spark in the gas tank so that it would explode. He could have easily done it with cables to the battery, the headlights, or one of hundreds of different relays, fuses and switches in the engine/dash compartment areas. Why look, one of the front headlights (and its wiring) is completely exposed in the frame just before the car explodes.
Judging by the dramatic pose in panel three, he ripped the tank open aerosoled the gas and sparked a crude fuel-air blast while hiding behind a TK shield. The same shield that V punched right through. Or at least punched hard enough to launch Vektor and his shield.
Depends on what sort of grenades Sean de Seal had in what is left of his caddie
Somehow, seriously doubt that even MythBusters could replicate a caddie being TKed at whateversortofSuper Fedorka is
He begged ARC to give his car some sweet upgrades cause that’s what a super hero’s ride should have. Unfortunately in a hard enough hit = boom despite the armor! (he chose the combination of upgrades not the techies)
It’s quite simple actually. As a true operator he customized the booth to hold his emergency arsenal. Every pistol, knife, rifle, smg, scattergun and anti vehicle weapon was secured in a logical and easily accessible fashion together with their repective ammunition and magazines. Grenades he had fashioned a tactical storage system where they were suspended by the pull pin so employing them would be fast and efficient… Yea… Right…
On second thought I’d say it’s Comic Book Physics…
Wow, tough guy! He didn’t even loose his hat in that explosion! I think his powers aren’t simply being superstrong und superdurable. In that case his situation would be similar to Achilles on page 180 (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1164).
He might not have lost the hat but when he takes it off there is damage to the brim in the back. Dropping a car on him may reach the low end of affecting him. Torn clothes and singe marks.
Yep — nothing worse than torching someone and even their clothes (and hat) barely show any damage of note. Maybe he has one of them there ‘super auras’ that is a fraction off his body — so he doesn’t shred all his clothes due to air friction of something.
Somebody better get Vektor before he drowns. Face-down, unconscious, in only a few inches of water can cause drowning very quickly.
Unless he has some sort of super durability or healing powers probably not much point. I doubt he survived the punch.
His face seems to have landed on the ground rather than in the water.
Yeah, his head and feet are on either side of the stream, and he did mention having a shield that Fedorka didn’t get through
Yes he did.
It Clearly shows in pane #6 when he ka-crunches Vecktor and sends him flying.
But does the shield continue to exist when he’s unconscious?
Well math wanted a challenge …
Pity he’s going miss the boss fight. He still hearing bells from Jabber’s knee to the nose finish.
And still dreaming of the ‘shirt’ that she had on under her jacket. And the luscious melons that confronted him shortly before the knee to the head sent him to dreamland.
I’ve never been so jealous of a man with a broken nose.
She’s referring to the Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConservationOfNinjutsu) as TVTropes does it. This is a variation in which it’s not how many opponents you have but how many ACTIVE opponents you have.
Well-done setup, though, in which Death Tolls LOOKED like a major threat (and had the costume to go with it) and then got punked (though depending on how his power works, a rematch some months later might go rather differently), while Vehemence at first seemed more the “Hmm, I’ll just see how this goes before I actually commit any crimes directly… you know, things have gone bad, maybe I should make a display of good will…” type, before revealing that he’s more the “Why should I bother to act if the second-stringers can handle it” type.
… or, given his backstabbiness, “I’d like to get the measure of my opposition before I take them on… and now I’m done watching and you’re no longer needed.”
Well, now that the team is dealing with Vehemence, this leaves open the possibility of Opal coming around and bamfing everyone while no ones watching.
I imagine that Harem has already taken care of Opal. And is working on Vektor.
Considering that the start of this comic was a group of people playing DC Heroes RPG (looked like 3rd ed), it’s totally appropriate that fights take forever to get through. At least the characters in the comic don’t have to declare their actions in reverse initiative order before starting the round.
It’s all a matter of personnel and perspective. I was in a Hero system (aka Champions) game when we managed to get through 3 fights in 5 hours one night.
I’m in a monthly DC Heroes 3rd ed game, and if everyone’s involved in a single fight, it can take upwards of five hours for that one fight. Which lasts about six or seven rounds. (Ironically, in terms of the whole one ninja vs 100 ninjas thing, my current character in that game is a ninja who is the last of his clan, and the only person on the team with no actual powers.)
Panels 2-4 reminded me of this: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1224 where Maxi advises Sydney on why you don’t throw things at people, but rather throw people at things. If Vekter didn’t know this, he’s either badly trained or already knows that he can’t move Vehemence.
Love Sydney immediately going “Shields up!”, she’s genre savvy enough to know when the scenario has suddenly gone “end of stage boss” fight.
Pretty sure that page specifically says to throw people on the GROUND and NOT on things.
Vektor appears to only be able to affect non living matter with his TK. Which means he has to throw things at people.
He should have tried to hit Vehemence upwards which unless he has some kind of odd dense mass like superman or a connection to the earth/ability to fly might have at least moved him away even if it didn’t hurt him.
I think that’s a given at this point. Throwing an engine block at his neck would have knocked him over if he was moveable, even if it didn’t hurt him.
True, and the rock storm. But if you are going to bother at all you would strike upwards. Vekter is probably just losing all strategy to his emotions because of what happened to his girlfriend I suppose. I wonder if he can lift himself like Magneto if he is standing on a rock. Running away with his girl on a magic carpet ride to the hospital might have been the best bet.
Given that a lot of the team aside from Dabbler, Max and Syd are significantly roughed up that was quite the warm-up.
I’m sure Vehemence considers the rest of Arc SWAT as chaff along with the bunch he just threw away to check Max’s reflexes. Challenge Accepted, indeed.
Except Sydney who he probably thinks has future potential.
Indeed. He is answering to Max, the “you” could likely refers only to her.
And what Syd is going to say is that if they dogpile on him he will kick everybody ass, so the only one chance to save the day is to transform this into a good guy, er, good lass – bad guy final battle.
Well, it was a nice neighborhood while it lasted.
Someone should dig up Achilles his epic human shield powers would be handy.
And attach handles to his back so the stronger heroes can wield him properly.
Shield bash!
They should make him a suit that allows them to attach different things to him so he can be used for different offensive and defensive purposes. Like attaching weights to his arms so he can be used as a flail! IF he swallowed a bunch of lead weight maybe he would make a good bludgeoning weapon? This doesn’t really make use of his potential as a “smart” weapon. hmmm… XD
Now that he has a name, maybe you should add him to the Who’s Who of #236.
No, DaveB doesn’t go back and spoilerize pages, an example is the first page we see Maxi and Anvil (just prior to The Day That Never Ends)
Fair point.
Why are people assuming he is about to fight them? He took his hat off, is standing with his back turned to a bunch of girls and saying he wanted them warmed up. Maybe he is wiggling his butt and starting a strip tease. Just sayin. This is Dave writing the plot, might as well try to claim foresight.
Because he also says “before dealing with me” right afterwards.
With this context, that he is going to fight them is exactly what he means by that.
Or he’s a stripper with a filthy mind and high expectations.
I’m with Deathrite. Next panel will be a striptease.
If this shall come to pass, I will be so torn between delight and disappointment like never before.
Unless his combat powers require him to perform a striptease: Then everything is okay. Well, except for the state of our fragile little minds….
Not to mention the state of my nasal passages. Snorting an entire cup of hot coffee through your nose HURTS.
I try to avoid this comic until after the coffee. However, I have to tell you I’m reading this comic in the AFTERNOON and your comment now has me cleaning soda off my keyboard.
This thread is evil.
You know little about DaveB, don’t you? :)
Well, it seems that whatever is protecting vehemence’s clothes it has either limited range or limited strength (maybe only weak against fire – future will tell : p)
So far, only the car’s explosion affected his clothes (his hat is burned, and is suit too)
Author said something about forgetting to add in the proper amount of clothes damage in his descriptive post so it probably that screwing up your speculation.
Is it strange that I’m actually looking forward to Sydney’s training than the actual fight scenes?
Since the “about” section and several comments and descriptions from the author have him stating that its the “slice of life” everday superheroine moments that this comic was made for and not as much the fights: No, that is EXACTLY how you are supposed to feel if you have a feel for the authors style by now. :)
Agreed. But if you are Sydney-esque you are just waiting for the next view of the power tree chain level orb chart thingy. Sorry I need to work on my jargonerdisms.
Well, that is what Sydney is waiting for if that’s what you mean. This fight stuff is probably interesting because it is new and she will probably always have an interest in the boss fights but it wouldn’t surprise me if at some point she makes a mmo-type comment about these fights with lesser supers just being “grinding” for exp.
This villain watches too many DragonballZ bad guy speeches, lol
not that he’s not a reccuring villain, mind you, just his STYLE.
If the conversations start lasting so long just one takes the rest of the year… maybe…
He’s nowhere near DBZ level.
That would be a speech lasting almost a month worth of comics for Dave. Easy. That would be a brief speech.
Never got into the whole DBZ thing, so these hints at how dragged out it could be is hard to visualize. I do remember some one wanting to show me a part of a fight in Naruto, and I had to sit and wait as he was searching for the right episode. Thing is that fight, which I was told was short and sweet for the series, took up more than 25 episodes… If DBZ is slower than that I don’t understand how people were able to sit through it…
It was a great time to get popcorn, carbonated soda and bio-breaks in?
Beats me. I watched it when anime was rarer in these parts and the novelty got us through I guess.
Very much HMMM!
Soooooo…..yes on “perpetratin’ evil.”
One of the many things he was “multi-tasking” on. He also does stock trading online as well as action figure toy sales. Is this manipulation insider trading? *shrugs* If I understood stock trading I’m sure I would have more cash.
my first thought is that he was an inverse ninja because he was expected to be a villain, he was, he didn’t hide, and is “ninja” powerful
I believe Sydney will be the hero tonight.. Why? Quite simple. 1. She finds a solution about how to defeat Vehemence or 2. She beats him one handed. Right now shes private Scoville, but remember what Maxima calls her the very first time we meet the team? Corporal… She earns her rank tonight.. Just my 5 cents! And by the way: “Eat Cadillac!” Im still laughing!
Wasn’t Chili’s fajitas with rice & beans added called Cadillac style?
Nope, that’s Cadillac Ranch Bar fajitas, or used to be. I haven’t been to that part of Dallas in ages so I don’t even know if that restaurant is still there.
If he is just physical power without any ranged abilities then the first move to limit his attacks would be to just find a way to pick him up and hold him suspended in the air somehow.
Oh wait, we just lost that guy.
Since he has spent his time examining the strengths and weaknesses of the whole team he is not going to fall for the standard moves of each person. It’s time to get creative and have someone think up some special combo moves and team-ups. OK Sydney, it’s up to you now.
Up to the raw recruit. Says a lot of the teams training up to now!
you do realize that the best fighter/swordman, etc in the world doesn’t fear the SECOND best, right?… they fear the newest, rawest RECRUIT… because they can predict what the 2nd best person will do in any given situation, but they CAN’T predict what the recruit will try… thus they can’t be the “three steps ahead” that Math preaches…
Unless the best fighter/swordman has spent any time training others to fight, spent time in decent sized training groups or spent time fighting raw recruits in which case they know how several types of greenies like to flail with their sword and if they don’t have him figured out before the first swing they probably will AS he swings then they would teach him just like they would teach there own students only with more blood.
Unless the best swordsman in the world has no rapport with their fellow human beings, trained mostly by themselves, never paid attention to how newbs and the untrained/halftrained fought, and somehow kicks everybody’s in the worlds but with a bunch of memorized sword moves like they were a computerized chess player. I would kind of think the best would have some ability to read people not just their swords…
But this guy may not be the best. He may just be really powerful and reasonably experienced and Somebody’s “I don’t know Ka Ra Te but I do know Ca Ra Zey!” could throw him off quite a bit.
This always sounds negative in type. I just like nitpicking too much. I actually like stories that follow your logic quite a bit! (even if I don’t always agree with that logic… )
You are correct though
If the ‘worlds best’ gets beating by a raw recruit, then they totally don’t deserve to be the ‘best’
Read Phule’s Company by Robert Asprin. I on scene you have an Olympic fencer going against a practiciner of escrima. The fencer wins the contest because he knew the rules, but everyone there knew that in a real fight he would have been turned into dog food. That scene showed why the master must beware of the newb, because the chaos is strong in them.
I doubt anyone (including Halo herself) will be able to predict what she will do in a fight.
The thing is: you don’t have to be able to predict how someone will fight, if you put them down before they have the chance to ‘spazz out’
I wonder if Vehemence can take a little 50-cal love tap? Peggy, you’re up.
And yes I know she is unlikely to shoot him just based on his actions so far, and it is unlikely to actually do anything more than attract his attention.
Why does everyone want to turn Pegs into a killer?
Need to stop Opal? Blow her leg off at the hip
Why in heck do you think a .50 would kill this guy? Considering what he’s resisted so far, I doubt that Peggy’s shot would do more than stun him, but I expect that the energy in a .50 round, applied as precisely as I expect Peggy to be able to do, could stun him.
I doubt it’d kill him.
So far, Vehemence has been a walking Chuck Norris joke. “How do you tickle Vehemence? Cover him with burning gasoline while shooting him with a .50 caliber machine gun”. Dealing with him may require… cutting a deal.
I never suggested shooting any previous opponent with the rifle. Until you are sure that either there is clear and present lethal danger or the opponent is capable of taking it the rifle is overkill.
My point, which I admittedly didn’t make, is that this is a great opportunity – he’s not moving, the rest of team are not occluding sight lines, and he’s shown he is extremely resistant to physical damage. Attacking Vekter with what looks like near-lethal force is already a serious crime and he then announced his intent to do the same to the team. So, he is a lethal threat that is a clear and present danger and right now the sniper can hit him without worrying about collateral damage. Sniper time is now.
Vehemence will probably treat the shot like Maxima treated Hex’s attack, but in order to truly know you have to try.
And if you got it wrong? What then? Say “Oops! Sorry, was sure he would have survived.”
I support unmaker here. V was unharmed by the rocks, a car, and an explosion indicating the round would at most act like a normal round on a nonsuper wounding him and making arrest easier. if the wound seems bad he gets evaced to the hospital by max where she pulls guard while he receives treatment to preserve his life an event max couldn’t afford to do when there was multiple enemies she might need to get involved with. the fact peg could shoot his foot easily disabling escape if it works limits the risk to his long term health and keeps this fight nonleathal attacks.
Inverse Ninja – also known as the Space Invaders Principle.
Okay, Fedorka is back on the Card list (way down because of what he did to Opal, but back on the list nonetheless)
Oh look, Anvil is getting back up again! Just in time to be put back down again :P
Looking forward to the next dozen pages of this fight (it’s already been 50 pages? barely noticed, could have doubled that number and would still be wanting more :D)
Maybe she will be redeemed, not that she did anything wrong mind you, here if he has no energy drain and mostly punches for attacks.
Anvil’s power makes for a unique method of resuscitation when hurt. If you see her lying unconscious somewhere just kick her repeatedly until she feels better.
Yeah, right. YOU kick her. I’ll watch from a safe distance. With a powerful telescope.
Is that Opal at the bottom of panel 3?
Yup, he was trying to shield his girlfriend looks like.
Vehemence is the manager that Harem would have to see if she wanted to get a refund on her Supervillain Blitzkrieg, right?