Grrl Power #271 – How do you disarm someone with super powers?
This is really Vehemence’s fault. Gentleman brawler or not, he made it clear their options were limited. If anything he’s lucky that Maxima didn’t start with his head. It would seem he forgot that Max is a solder first, and this would definitely be an ignominious end for Vehemence after such a promising start. On the other hand (sorry, V) that was also fantastically violent, so hopefully Max was right about there being a tipping point.
TV Tropes is running a kickstarter to spruce up their site, front and back end. They’re a good resource and drive a lot of traffic to a lot of webcomics so at least give it a look. Just be careful with your time if you go to TV Tropes proper, as the site is actually a time vampire.
I just want to casually remind everyone about the Amazon affiliate link since it’s cyber-Monday, something that e-tailers just made up a few years ago and now we all just accept is a thing. Evidently Saturday was “Small Business Saturday” in an attempt to win back some customers from the Amazons and Wal-Marts. I imagine within a few years nearly every day between Thanksgiving and Xmas will have its own name, from “Knick Nacks Thursday” to “Oh shit it’s nearly Xmas and I still need to do all my shopping Wednesday.”
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome which I can’t live without anymore, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
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He wasn’t too broken up about the loss of his eye or his teeth. He hasn’t demonstrated it yet, but he could be about to use a power he may have had all along and just avoided using, perhaps he has it only when he acquires enough vehemic energy. The power of regeneration. Like wolverine. Then the question is only if blowing off an arm gives him more violence energy than the energy needed to grow it back. If not, it’s definitely his win.
But think about it: he was completely nonchalant about losing two ostensibly permanent teeth, and possibly being permanently blinded. Too calm. Not a normal reaction to that. If he DOESN’T have regeneration powers, then that means that this fight is far more extreme than anything he has ever experienced before, since he started out with perfect teeth and no apparent scars, so if he was being taken apart like never before, isn’t that a situation that would normally make someone upset?
He fights like somebody whose body regrows. The only question is: How fast?
And in particular: Has his eye already regrown and he meerely fakes being still half blind?
If not then I think this fight is over.
He can probably use his power to regenerate wounds. It’s basicly fueling magic for him at this point.
But it’d probably cost him alot of energy and time to do so. Not something you can do during a fight
I would argue that if he does have regenerative abilities they would normally be cost prohibitive due to the energy required to do it. However, at this point he has energy to burn, and if he can take out Maxima that’s the equivalent of winning the game.
“…nonchalant about losing two ostensibly permanent teeth, and possibly being permanently blinded. Too calm.”
This is how I figure that Vehemence has *some* way of healing or maybe even regenerating that he’s already aware of. Not only did he start this fight is pristine physical condition, he’s pretty non-plussed about what damage he had been taking…Although, we can’t be sure about him having the ability to regrow lost limbs, we haven’t really seen how he intends to fix that particular problem yet.
Although if he has to go with cybernetics to replace his arm, that means his power to grow any bigger would be useless…Unless his magic ability to grow would also include a cyber-arm, he’ll have to stay at his normal, human size.
Or he could just do like weapon brown and have a cybernetic arm so large he’d HAVE to grow in order for it to match his other arm. Tho I think in this case it’d have to be about the size of his entire normal body, but assuming he’s only got access to terrestrial tech that may be the case anyhow.
Actually, considering how he was already pretty big at the start of the fight, it’s possible that he doesn’t shrink down after fights and the only reason he’s so big now is that this one has given him more power than he ever experienced at one time prior to this fight. Tho I’m sure that he would need progressively larger doses of violence in order to grow again, so to get any bigger he’d need a fight at least twice as violent as this one.
He better declare surrender before he regenerates or Maxima may take that as intention to continue the fight and her next move will blow his mind.
…Literally.
Food for thought, Midnight.
Vehemic Energy may be the equivalent of a mind altering substance. So he might not be thinking straight at the moment. Once the energy wears off, then he might start realizing just how bad he got hammered (well, the arm is a given, was referring to other injuries).
Yeah, the power is probably affecting his judgement. Max has already put him through a meat-grinder (with that support pylon) & he pretty much sloughed it off regardless of how much of a full-body scraping he shows…Sort of like how someone on PCP has to take several bullets before they even seem to notice.
If the eye is merely injured and not gone, then that’s not too big a deal, especially if he has simply sped-up healing. And teeth. Pfft, they’re teeth, you can get fakes.
Now, an *arm*…? Yikes!
Oh yea, and let’s remember: *Dabbler* has cybernetic parts. I think magic healing only goes so far.
Personally, I think dabbler going for cybernetic replacements was more a case of “because she could” than a “because she cant”. In other words, she lost the limb and the eye in two separate fights and decided to make something Better to replace what she lost rather than simply heal it magically and get back the same old boring arm… Plus, its not like she can install all those vision modes in a flesh and blood eye or assorted other features into the cyberlimb.
Agreed, Dabbler could have likely gotten her arm and eye repaired. However, the cyber route added to her already vast bag of tricks, which is her favorite way of gaining power. Well, ok SECOND favorite behind tantric.
He’s going to regrow that arm, I’m 92% sure of it.
That’s what I was saying. His teeth and his left eye too. I’m not quite as sure as you are though. Don’t ever overestimate the odds of an author realizing obvious opportunities and utilizing it in the writing. I give it 77% chance.
If not before this fight is over, then he’ll heal it after. That’s my best guess.
Speaking with all of the authority of an “armchair artist,” that’s how I’d write it. Vehemence can regenerate, but it takes time (significant time — days, weeks, even months), costs him in vehemic energy, and he regenerates to the form he had when this fight started. That would keep him from being unstoppable in a fight, but still make him a top-tier super-power. That keeps him interesting; he can be defeated, but it’s going to take an awful lot to do so, and the reader knows he’ll be back, eventually, to be an armor-plated, itching-powder-coated thorn in the hero’s side.
I’m kind of afraid that Max may be too powerful to stay interesting in the fight scenes. One begins to question why the rest of the team is needed, if Max can apparently take out anything less than a planet-buster all by herself. But Max could grow as a character in other ways, offsetting her penumbrate status and keeping her interesting. It really depends on how Mr. Barrack decides to write her. Since, this fight scene aside, the comic thus far has been about how supers interact in *mundane* situations, I’m pretty sure Max won’t wind up becoming Deus ex Maxima; she’s much more interesting when she’s playing “big sister” to Sydney than when she’s hauling the team’s anatomy out of the fire in some final boss-fight.
Well, look how long Superman has been around. Since at least DC’s Silver Age comics, Superman is written as the kind of hero that essentially has *no* limits. Even over the past decade or so, when they reworked their continuity issues, Superman was somewhat reduced in power, but his innate ability as a Solar Battery means that he can keep coming back, just as powerful as he needs to be.
From what I can tell in the Grrl Universe, Vehemence seems to fill that role nicely as a recurring villain. But Maxima definitely *has* limits & has to compensate for those limits, sort of like Goku in the DB series. Goku is the kind of person who strives to *overcome* limits instead of having no limits.
Superman was a big reason why more fans preferred Marvel back in the day. And I’d say that this victory pretty thoroughly establishes that Maxima’s only limit is is her concern for the teams image given that she just demonstrated that she could one-shot a character who was more physically powerful than the rest of the team put together.
Max’s biggest limiter is that she has to shuffle her “power pool” around to her different abilities. One wrong guess on where to shift it & when…
And it has been noted (By Max) that the fight has reached a point where if he lands a square hit on max, she could be in a world of hurt, and she is the teams Ace in the hole. Max’s role really isn’t the tank or big gun. She can be if needed, but look at her through the rest of the encounter. Mostly she was stand-off tactical, coordinating the team and keeping track of the baddies. Stepping in as needed. Sure, perhaps she might have been able to take the whole lot of them. Also, there may be times when the team has to split up to deal with multiple incidences.
That, and being a member of a military police force, there’s rules and regulations she has to follow for legality’s sake. She can’t just go in and arrest everyone just cause she feels like it.
Plus, there are obvious consequences if she goes “all out” in the wrong situation. Her mega-blast is of limited utility in a hostage situation, for example.
Yea but she could only one shot his arm after Sydney distracted him (otherwise she would have done it already, instead of wait for an opening). So it must have taken her atleast some time to charge up that explosion.
Vehemence also already broke her nose, even before growing. Presumably, the only reason he wasn’t able to end the fight after growing, is because of her super speed (which DaveB has already said is one of the strongest powers in his universe, and one of the main reason why Maxima is so strong)
You have to wait for the proper opening to disarm someone. Otherwise she could have just planted the charge in the middle of his back while she was behind him. This was her last step from “non-lethal” to “anything goes”.
Oh yeah the comic’s focus will always primarily be “the extraordinary person in the ordinary situation” but they are superheroes so there will be the occasional scrap. I highly suspect this will be by far the longest one ever, or a least quite a long time.
So two days comic time or twenty-five years in our world. :-)
Okay, Dave I had to make the joke. I love the comic, I really do. But, JOKE, must be made.
As many super villains getting rounded up in this first fight goes, ARCSwat has gone a long way towards “thinning the herd” already. I expect it’ll be some time before they have to face odds like this again.
;)
Are you trying to ruin my joke? :-P
Not at all. The Underground criminal society has just developed a vacuum in the power-structure…There will *always* be others to step up into place. It’s just that it would logically take quite some time before the “newbies” get settled & build their own power to the point when they come out to the forefront.
The joke will live!
Unless Max blows his head off first….
This comic just gave me an interesting theory for Vehemence’s powers (forgive me if this has come up in comments before). What if, rather than any sort of healing spells, he instead has a sort of “automatic revival” natural ability that kicks in if anything significantly violent kills him. He would still be theoretically vulnerable to old age, sickness, or energy draining (barring other immunities), but anything like being murdered, or being caught in an accident would revive him and heal his body of all injuries, along with the obvious power boost. It would explain why he doesn’t seem to have any wounds prior to this fight despite not demonstrating (yet?) any healing abilities, and would further add to his intimidation factor as an enemy in that even outright killing him only makes him more powerful.
Another creepy option. He is like a Hydra, cut him in two pieces and each piece reforms into a new complete copy. (I will admit, the probability of Dave actually going with this option is slim at best)
So, the V-man grows a new arm, new eye, and new teeth. The Arm grows a new man. The two teeth grow 2 new men. The various splatters of blood and eye grow new men. The cells that naturally slough off grow new men. Where does it stop? I only read one sci-fi short that did this justice, and it wasn’t pretty. (Each cell would become an amoeba-like blob and engulf anything it could for nutrition. The national guard used flame throwers to destroy them. I wonder what about all the cells that go down the shower drain or down the toilet. The author didn’t evened address that. One person with this ability would wipe out all life on earth. Please don’t go there!)
PS Nuke it from space. It’s the only way to be sure.
Automatic self-cloning?
He’d be the *perfect* recurring villain.
Hmmm, a thought just occurred to me. If Sydney hadn’t been dubbed Halo, I would have suggested Gadfly! It would certainly seem that one of her strongest powers is to annoy everyone to the point of sputtering incoherence.
Well, I didn’t see THAT coming!
Really? I was wondering how long it took. Especially since she mentioned “Arianna unfriendly” way of ending the fight.
They were going non-lethal, non-permanent injury because they could afford it (they had that much more power´or thier goals were not worth killing for).
And Max is a soldier first. So her goal would be to disable the enemy. And as she pointed out, she could have gone for his head directly. Still giving him that much quarter is very nice of her, given the situation.
Thanks to Sydney, Vehemence didn’t see it coming either…
It’s about time someone took charge!
I expected sydney to trap him in her shield until his power wore off. But I guess that wouldn’t be as visually exciting as blowing him up.
Even after all this, we still have people making shield trap suggestions.
Well, Atlantis may still rise yet…
I don’t usually read the comments. So I didn’t know it had been suggested to death. But still. I don’t see many other options. Besides killing him, if that is possible. Maybe Syd can do a double bubble type of thing, or maybe V wouldn’t hurt her if she wasn’t trying to hurt him… he seems like a ‘gentleman brawler’ type.
the shield only forms around herself, right?
She can include others in her shield, but she can’t exclude herself from it. Whoever gets trapped inside of the shield, Sydney’s there too.
That is indeed the only conclusion that can safely be drawn based on actual observations in how the shield behaves in the comic.
Here’s your sign.
thanks for doing it so I didn’t have to
… nuked his arm off… now I’ve seen everything…
Not true! None of *us* saw Vehemence without his pants! All we saw was how everybody reacted to it.
And we are all very glad for that fact.
Well, MOST of us are, I’m sure we have some members of the audience who would of loved to see that.
Raises hand
Maybe something for the next valentine’s bonus image?
(that was a joke)
It might still happen. Maybe a pic of V on the “rear-view” with Dabbler in front of him, licking her chops…
If Dave were to draw V on the front view, I don’t think TWC would let him post it so he’d have to just post a code-word at TWC that would link back to some otherwise-inaccessible page on this site. I’ve seen other webcomics that do “X-rated” vote incentives on TWC before, using the password method to view the actual incentive.
Don’t give up hope yet!
Sydney’s number one power: She radiates an “I need a cuddle” aura.
Except that most of the time, she’ll stab you if you try to cuddle her
You offer and only follow through if she accepts. You do NOT try to take advantage of situation unless she suggests you do. With Maxima you hold off until she’s ordering you to do something at the very very least.
“Ma’am doing treating a woman as a sex object is pretty rude but I get the feeling doing so with you is downright suicidal.”
And remember all those who ogglled Max’s abbs….
Leon can find where you live and max can be there in 20 secs….
He can’t find my lair.
Challenge Accepted
(not really leon… Merf…)
I will be waiting for you.
Just remember, if you hear a sonic boom, Max is *already* there…
From indications we’ve seen in the comic so far, I’d guess that there’s only two guys that *might* get away with it & still remain physically intact:
Tony, back on pages 17 & 18 (Kung Shoe & Free Boobs for All)
or Leon, after he established his nerd credentials (p. 123) & Sydney flipped The List over before adding his name (p. 124).
Although, according to Sydney’s displayed behavior, Tony would probably be accepted as first in Sydney’s line.
Instead of “Not touching! Can’t get mad!” I would have gone with the classic sibling taunt “I’m not touching youuuuu…”
Also, I know Max had her people clearing the area, but did they have time or are they now covered with bits-o-V?
Personally I would have gone for a leg. Same or worse damage but limits V’s mobility. That would also angle the blast downward into the parking lot pavement rather than across or upwards, again I hope Max checked what was behind the target…
From the artwork, I’d say the blast originated inside V’s arm, blasting outwards rather than being a peircing/cutting attack that would penetrate through and continue on.
hmm… implosion blast inside his arm… ouchie.
No, still an explosion. Just coming from inside, so bypassing all the armor on the outside
Implosion would be the outside collapsing inward
If Sydney were less compassionate/squeamish and more of a jerk, her next move would be to use the Lighthook to pick up the severed arm and start smacking V with it while saying “Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself.”
Assuming that said arm is severed and not reduced to its constituent atoms.
Ooooo…maybe he’ll return the favor and take Maxima’s arm off!
That wouldn’t work very well for V, if Max can generate her beams from her eyes…
We haven’t seen anything that would even imply that, but energy-blaster types can commonly do so.
Shooting energy beams from her eyes would invoke Maxima’s only weakness, copyright lawyers.
I thought they came from her hands. Not her eyes
So far, yes. It may just be that her particle beams can be produced by any part of her skin, but she aims best with her hands (and she wants to keep some details of her powers secret, like with Sydney’s truesight orb, in case she ever needs a trump card). She’s shot blasts from her fingers and her palm before, and the effect wasn’t noticeably different. And her entire skin is made of unknown goldium – she doesn’t have any special markings on her hands, her entire body is a special marking. I think it’s a plausible theory.
… oh god, please tell me Penny’s line about shooting laser beams out of their nipples wasn’t foreshadowing.
Nah, if she could do that she would have already told everyone that she could do that….
Well before this, Maxima was still to fast for Vehemence to grab. IF Vehemence doesn’t surrender now, we’ll have to see if that’s still the case
I read that as “ooh, maybe he’ll return the favor and take Maxima’s bra off”. I’ve been reading the wrong webcomics lately :)
…That would probably be the fatal mistake V makes that pushes Max over the edge…
Funny part is, I kinda saw the same thing. O.o
It would appear that V has been…
nope, not gonna say it. Not gonna say it.
Maxima: Have you ever read the book ‘Farewell to Arms”?
Disarmed
But not yet defeeted
I don’t know, I think that was a fairly even-handed approach to the current state of affairs.
If V is right-handed, then max’s approach would’ve been odd-handed.
I have to admit though, that a lot of people have been pretty loose with the off-handed comments.
If he’s not careful, he’s gonna lose his head.
Is it just me or did Max just plant explodey energy into V’s arm? If so then that increases the number of supers she can harm from roughly 95% (just guessing here) to something more like 99.995% of supers. That sort of ability flat out ignores most types of damage reduction such that almost the only supers who can avoid it either directly absorb the energy of the blast or fall into the literally cannot take damage category. There is a pretty good chance that not even Achilles or Anvil could take hits like that (although Amorphous might).
On the subject of V’s apparent disregard for the loss of his eye, teeth, etc, and given his ability to Ka Pants I suspect he may go into a semi unstable state when he reverts back to a lesser energy state. One where the added bio/energy mass he is charged up with is converted into any missing parts and repairing damage. When he “bulked up he probably doubled (at least) his mass it would make a form of sense to use that to replace his lost arm. The result of which might be that he ends up completely undamaged but significantly weaker and without the bodybuilder physique he displayed at the start. Another possibility is that damage taken at any point after he gains energy actually doesn’t matter because, either he returns to his previous state (in a time-reversal like fashion), or he is in a battle form that takes damage seperatly from his base form. I am also a fan of the revival type regeneration ability pointed out by (at least) All That Is Left Unsaid, as it fits pretty well with the description of malumi given a few pages ago. So they cause lots of violence, damage, and destruction, die, and are subsequently reborn/regenerated (possibly with a different face if they do it like a boss. Err, Timelord). This means that many of them would show up after the fight/war/whatever as a lucky survivor and it is assumed by the population at large that they were an incredibly lucky bystander or a new arrival who showed up afterwards. Clever ones might pose as authority figures investigating the catastrophic events and their cause (cough-Men In Black-cough).
“There is a pretty good chance that not even Achilles or Anvil could take hits like that ”
No. Achilles could. He definitely could. His whole thing is -complete- ridiculous, unbeatable invulnerability to the point where sub-atomic isn’t enough.
Anvil maybe not, but her thing is kinetic absorption, not energy absorption in general.
Achilles could definitely take a Max pew pew shot. He was outside the shield during the Press conference…
Unfortunately, Achilles cannot do “Ka-Pants” and so the results would not be pleasant to most
Given the rest of his appearance, about 60% of the population would probably be OK with it.
As Babylon 5 demonstrated, the best villains are those which have a personality and a motivation that we can understand and, to a small degree, empathize with, maybe even like a little bit.
Another Babylon 5 fan, glad to see that I’m not the only one left. Personally I like a villain that is bad, you know he’s bad, but he(or she) just makes it look so cool that you’re almost rooting for them. V is living up to that pretty well, playing the affably evil trope.
well i liked Babylon 5 as well but i still consider Vandal Savage from the justice league series to be my favorite villain, far as super powers ago he is a joke, he can recover from any injury and can’t die of well anything.
I’m actually genuinely curious as to what you think V’s motivation is. I ask this because I always viewed it as an ego trip, but am open to other ideas as well.
umm to make the world burn?
actually seeing as he gets stronger with violence happening around him id imagine he wanted to see how far does it go, he mentioned being in some riots that got him quite boost id figure he prabably was the spark that started the violence there too.
If Vehemence can use his power to heal and regenerate himself then he can likely just regrow and heal his arm and the rest of himself easily with all the violence that is just oozing off of Max right now.
If he could heal instantly, he’d already have healed his eye. Having 2 eyes is a significant advantage in a fight, and he did not heal it.
Unless he didn’t WANT too….
Another possibility:
Vehemence gains power from Violence – even violence he commits, possibly even against himself – so the answer to “Why are you hitting yourself?” for him would be “So I can beat you up next!”.
Since healing is basically the opposite of violence, maybe using it completely drains his power, leaving him a short skinny wimp with no injuries? So, heal from any level of injury that didn’t kill you, but you’ve got zero power left afterwards – that would mean it’s not something you do mid-fight, even if you’ve been blinded. You power through like the Black Knight, and tell them ’tis but a flesh wound. Once you win, you can afford to heal up, shrink down and sneak away anonymously.
You have to prioritize these things in a fight. Miss some teeth or an eye, not that big a problem. But a blown off limb defiantly takes priority.
Looks like wonder spaze is getting a little green after seeing her team leader blow up someones arm. As well she should be! Sorry though, an accessory is still an accessory. And we can add accessory to attempted murder to this tool’s crimes besides battle interference, and being the most annoying person there.
I have to wonder, do you clinically look at EVERY piece of fiction with this hyper-realism mindset? Books, comics, movies, TV shows, all of them involve suspension of disbelief. NCIS is a perfect example. In the real world they would show up to collect various needed information, then the majority of their work from there is done in the lab and office. They’re the sorts you pretty much NEVER see really, the CIS folks.
If Maxima walked into a house and blew someone’s arm off … well, then the legal system is going to have a heyday. That would be fitting within the genre. This however is extreme force perhaps, but they had no other choice and its up to Arianna to make this squeaky clean (as possible) to the public. This doesn’t mean that Maxima won’t be doing some careful movement around Arianna and the public for awhile.
When Reality and Fantasy(Comics, Movies, Books, Television Shows) clash, Reality gets curb stomped. Every Single Time.
So … if you look at everything with that hyper-realism … I pity you, truly I do.
I look at everything with hyper-realism to get a perspective on it. It doesn’t stop me from enjoying the fiction I am reading or watching. However, I really need to say this. I give comics a realism pass sooner than I give the crime lab shows. Superman is ‘supposed’ to be above and beyond belief. NCIS pretends this is how police work really is. IRL it takes months to get a fingerprint match, much less DNA. These shows do it by the next cut scene. In NCSI they got a DNA match off a guitar string in a pawn shop guitar that was displayed right next to the door, like every putz and his brother didn’t touch that string on the way out of that shop. Bull! Bad story telling.
As for Max blowing off this guy’s arm, the police in Ferguson emptied a full clip into a guy, (right or wrong, did they need to empty the clip? Really?) and it was determined to be a justified police shooting. Max’s use of force in the face of an unstoppable and violent perpetrator seems to me the least far fetched aspect of this whole encounter.
To pick up on Ferguson just a moment more: The whole clip at point blank range? If an officer feels his life is in danger, two shots should be reflex. Three shots if it is a drastic situation. The whole clip was either panic, (not appropriate for a police officer,) or spite, (also not becoming an officer.) Why didn’t he run him over with the squad car for good measure? Maybe drop a piano or an Acme safe on his head?
Got to agree with you on Ferguson there. Two to three shots max would be fine, but the hole clip is defiantly overkill.
If it were a civilian shooting to defend himself from an attacker & the attacker flees, it would be tricky keep shooting & claim self-defense at that point. But Wilson was a fully trained cop & his duty is to *stop* a perp from becoming a danger to the public…He had little choice but to keep shooting even after the perp tried to escape. When Brown disengaged & tried to flee, Wilson was no longer under expectation to defend himself, but he still had the duty to protect the public too.
In this case, it’s ARCSwat’s duty to prevent V from escaping, if they *can* because Vehemence IS a clear & present danger to the public at large. They ARE following legally-sanctioned procedures in their duty.
Midnight I will agree that it can take many more than 2 or 3 shots to stop an attacker, but I do not believe that Wilson was attacked. Cops in America have been killing way too many people and getting away with it for too long. They have an above the law attitude and the courts support that. This is just another case of jackboots against the American people.
I agree that cops killing is way too prevalent nowadays, but not in this particular case. I’ve seen the video evidence & some of the forensic evidence that was released publicly…And the jury had much more evidence presented to them that has not yet been made public. Just from the public evidence alone, I don’t see how the jury could decide any differently than they did.
IR is mostly here to stir s*** up. Ignore it.
I look at thing with such realism! ….and hate my brain for it daily. =S
It’s got less to do with hyper realism, and much more to do with Sydney hate. Don’t dwell on it too much.
Bleh … I can understand why some people can’t stand her. There are a number of medical disorders that people Just Don’t Understand(tm pending). ADHD to a large degree is one of them. Because they don’t understand it, all they see is an annoying little twit who spazzes out over stupid ****.
Dave has handled writing her ADHD quite well I have to say, especially in the fact that he doesn’t mock it. Yes, there is humor in how he portrays it, but if you saw me when I get suddenly distracted by something in a conversation you might seriously think I’d just gone bonkers.
As a side note, there was a time that I myself didn’t understand how taxing and difficult it is for folks with ADHD.
And I get it, too. People in general have problems coping with someone that isn’t considered normal. Constantly reminding us how much you hate a fictional character, on the other hand, probably less necessary.
Well, during Sydney’s interview at Archon HQ, it *was* pointed out that she’s actually prescribed medication for ADHD…What counts as credit towards Dave is that everyone is still not spazzing out over her behavior. Even though they’ve been pretty much gutting through it with tolerance, Sydney is starting to show them that it’s not necessarily a *dis*ability on her part.
Midnight, a friend of mine some months back said something that may sound odd, but goes right in line with what you said.
“People with ADHD are often some of the best multi-taskers out there.”
Now this came from a guy who discovered he had ADHD back when he was a kid. He’s had the time to adapt to it. I’ve only had a few years in comparison, so its still difficult at times to grok. But … to a degree, he’s dead on in that regard. I find it easier to have three or four projects cooking in my brain than focusing exclusively on a single task.
Think outside the box? Psha. Please! Sometimes I’m busy figuring out what kind of material the box is made of! That or if we could fit the topic at hand in a nth dimensional container!
I don’t have the actual source at hand, but it was reported that the guy who first diagnosed ADHD made a deathbed confession that he entirely fabricated it. All those kids who’ve been diagnosed? Well, that’s how kids think naturally until they grow up enough to learn how to focus on any one thing…In short, it raises the question on how wrong it is to be drugging our children just because they *are* children.
Please DO NOT feed the troll
I keep three things in mind when watching/reading things.
The Genre, Suspension of Disbelief and of course the fact that we’re here to be Entertained.
Reality can take a rain check. So long as I’m entertained, then the artist/writer has done his job.
+5 for you.
Same here. I don’t always over-analyze a piece of fiction (Hah! Achievement Unlocked: Master of Understatement), but when I do it’s within the context of the genre itself.
One sentence will say how crazy over-analysis of any form of fiction Can get.
Man Of Steel. Woman Of Kleenex.
In the words of the immortal Captain Osaka:
SHIT JUST GOT REAL
Three pages of comments and no one suggesting Sydney forcefield chokes V? HOW HAVE YOU MANAGED THIS?!
Look closer…
I’m afraid that is where you are mistaken, take a look at Kikiklas’ post above, it doesn’t really *suggest* per se, but I think that counts anyways. Dang, MidnightDStroyer beat me to the punch.
Sigh. One day…
How exactly do people keep missing this?
THERE HAS BEEN 0 INDICATION THAT SHE CAN PROJECT HER FORCEFIELD AROUND ANYTHING OTHER THAN HERSELF
This has been ‘suggested’ multiple times already in every single page for the last month atleast
Hey, maybe that’ll be one of her level up powers.
How much XP is she gonna GET for assisting the takedown on Vehemence?
Probably three or four skill points worth. She’ll probably finish off the sheild skill branch (five points already in one branch of it with one left) and put the rest into the criss cross skills.
I think you miss Walter’s sardonic point. He was not suggesting it, he was amazed that no one had for once.
Then we burst his bubble and brought him back to reality. =D
More accurately, we brought him back to the reality of the fiction…
Not too late to get that drink.
I kinda did suggest choking/suffocating him. I asked if she could make the shield any shape as long as she was in it, and be able to trap vehemence “outside” it. I.E: Bending it around him so he’s stuck in an airtight bubble outside it.
You’re not the first to suggest that Sydney “shape” her shield in such a way. to all evidence shown so far, she doesn’t have that kind of control, at least not yet. It *may* be an ability that can be unlocked in her skill tree. Dave is the only person who has the full Instruction Manual & he’ll be revealing her orb upgrades as they happen & Sydney figures out what those upgrades actually are.
So far, she’s unlocked an upgrade on her TrueSight orb, but hasn’t yet shown that she knows what it actually does.
I wonder if Sydneys PPO can hurt him
Yes… Yes, it can… that’s why i continue to bet my Moxana Points on it being her PPO (i’m hip) as the weapon/super combo that is the one that takes V down… thus earning her he “Big Guns” nickname from Anvil in the pre-flashback comic (strip #4 IIRC)
I just assumed that was a somewhat ironic nickname, like a 600 pound dude being called Tiny.
If you remember the talk between Max & Dabbler during the very first part of restaurant scene here, they were discussing Sydney’s powers & the implications of her even *having* a skill tree…They recognize her potential as she gains higher proficiency. In time, Sydney could feasibly outpower them all!
Maxima needs at least one opponent that can stand up to her in a fair fight. Invincible is boring. If she doesn’t have anyone that can challenge or threaten her then their really isn’t anything that can threaten the team. At that point the answer to every big problem is “Let Maxima handle it.” A reusable trump card like that makes things boring really fast. For the Long term good of the story I really hop he can come back from this one.
Also, Maxima really needs someone or some thing to keep her humble.
Actually Vehemence WAS standing up to her in a fair fight, giving her real trouble.
It was only with Sydney’s distraction that she managed to explodify his arm, and Vehemence has already broken her nose (and hit it again).
She needed all her smarts to beat him. Safe from actually beating Maxima, that’s as close as you’re going to get
It’s not being Invincible or Invulnerable that is Boring. It’s HOW the character is written that makes them Boring or Interesting. There were chunks where Superman was just straight up boring (well, to me anyway), because the character was Boring, and that had little to do with his Invulnerability. The writers began to add in more weaknesses, and played up on his weaknesses more often.
Think about Achilles. He knows he’s invulnerable, but frankly, he’s definitely not what I’d call Boring. If only because of just how he deals with damage.
“My shirt is all ruined.”
After a huge blast hit the area, destroying almost the entire back of his jacket, shirt AND pants. And the biggest thing on his mind is the damage to his clothes. Or …
“Why did you do that?!”
About blocking a sword strike with his Eye!
Creepy in a way, but funny!
Achilles also dealt with Sydney grabbing his naked buns pretty well…
There is also the option of something flipping Maxima so she ends up being a villain. (Either temp or perm.) That could put things into perspective. (But also be blatantly cliché….)
It isn’t about who is the strongest or most powerful. It’s about why and how different people use the powers they are given. Maxima was born with insane abilities, but it’s not about the power itself, but how she uses them, and this page CLEARLY gives people reasons to wonder if she’s using them in the best way possible, as evidenced by the number of comments. Add on to that Sidney’s clear instant regret, and you’ve got a number of moral questions instantly up for debate, starting with “How far is too far?”.
Maxima may find she went a bit too far, Sidney may find she isn’t ready for this level of violence. We really don’t know at this point, but it’s an outstanding way to examine the morality of combat, and in my opinion that can make for an exceptionally good storyline.
Remember, this is the first “big” fight, so it’s setting up a lot of questions that will have to be answered later in the story. It’s one of the reasons I love this comic so much.
Malcom, there are other things making this situation messy as well.
Vehemic Energy is energy that is born of violence. I’d hazard a guess and say that if he’s not demon or part demon, that he had to have learned how to use that energy. That puts him into the potentially insane category, which makes things even worse. Even though he seemed nice up front and all that, it doesn’t mean he can’t be insane. Combat is one thing, but when you involve insane people fighting … it gets even messier.
Not just that, but even if he IS normally sane, Vehemic Energy probably isn’t exactly conducive to a healthy psyche. Long termed usage of any such form of energy (unless its something innate, like Tantric Energy and succubi) would probably lead to various … issues.
Yeah, Sanity and Combat. Not a good combo.
Shaped nuclear charge to the elbow = ouches. >.>
There will be no whisking! Sydney is less powerful than MarySuemixa, and she isn’t just left to roam free (she banks for herself, as an example), she leads the team. What makes you even consider that Sydney would be whisked while MarySuemixa isn’t?
*sigh* This was a reply to Nephandus on page 2 (the last post, if it doesn’t get pushed to page 3 by further p1/2 posts).
I seem to have about an 80% chance to have the “reply” button operate as intended.
I think maxima went 100% or as close as possible in Offense to land that blow so far from her being like a superman with all stats running at 100%all the time she can boost one by lowering the next. But at what cost…
I don’t think Maxima used a fully-maxed blast on V’s arm. The blast she gave to the dummy tank during the press conference was more destructive & wide-spread & Max even told the press that even THAT blast wasn’t her strongest.
Ok, I’m very happy that Halo was a part of this action, even if only distracting V long enough for MarySuemixa to take the opening she had been waiting for.
I’d have preferred something along the lines of a combined MarySuemixa blast / Halo PPO combo, but this at least keeps the main character relevant.
I just noticed, the blast didn’t even push the Henticle away.
how about that.. it didn’t!!! or did it? i would like to know…. if it did not her tentacle has an insanely high damage limit… if not she just fount out what her orb can take…damage wise
hey the fights not over yet.
You keep saying the Mary Sue thing. Since the author is a man, do you know something I don’t? You think he wants to be a superheroine? (That is less Mary Sue, more Miss Saigon, since there are more than enough male supers to fantasize being.) Actually, Since Sidney is the main character in this comic, do you think he wants to be a little girl with magic balls? (Getting creepier…)
I only just started reading this comic’s forum, so this is a real question. Do you know something I do not?
Edit: I just tried to go to page 2, and realized I started on page 3. Silly software. If the part I am missing was on page 1 or 2, I apologize.
On another note, Man! This comic gets a lot of comments!
The author’s gender is irrelevant. The character is female, thus Mary Sue applies. And since Mary Sue and Maxima both start with ‘Ma’, I thought MarySuemixa was a semi-clever way to express it.
I believe MikeLin is using the same definition of Mary Sue that I have used for the past, oh, 35 years: A Mary Sue is a *SELF-INSERT* wish-fulfillment character. I.E., to call the character a “Mary Sue” the character is not merely overpowered or overly important in some way, they are recognizably and directly derived from the author themselves.
By that standard, Maxima is not a Mary Sue.
Me, I *know* Mary Sues, I’ve played them, I’ve written them, and I’ve published (real paid-for) books with them as at least noticeable characters.
When you get right down to the “self-insert” properties of any and all characters, none of them could technically exist if they don’t contain at least *some* portion of the authors that write them.
There is, however, a huge gulf of difference between “This character came out of my head, and thus must have some connection to me” and “this character IS me, and I’m thinking of ME being in that situation and writing about ME being there and Me, Me ME!”, which is what a Mary Sue is. If it doesn’t have the author’s name, a Mary Sue has a very close analog of it. If it doesn’t look physically identical to the author, it’s just because it’s an idealized version of the author. It likes everything the author likes, dislikes everything the author dislikes (except, say, possibly for things the author thinks they SHOULD like, like exercising), and does everything the author does, or would LIKE to do. (Unless they’re a Pity Sue, in which case they FAIL dramatically)
Maxima never really was “all about me.” At the bank robbery, she had the safety of all of the bank’s clients in mind (& argued about it with Arianna later). In Archon HQ, she tried pretty hard to get that “nerd link” with Sydney to press in how serious & dangerous being in ARCSwat could get.
Even during the battle here, Max was coordinating the team effort against most of the “lower-tier” villains & only stepped in to help when it was tactically appropriate (finishing Hiro’s opponent so he could help defend Jiggawatt with his absorption power against that sonic attack, for example). Even at this point with Vehemence, she’s still trying to get a peaceful surrender against a guy who is certainly in the category of “lethal level of public endangerment.”
She’s also been following in accordance with the Rules of Engagement & the rules of Escalation, which has nothing to do with her own personal sense of “judgment” but is a matter of Law…If she were a Mary Sue, she’d think of herself as a “law unto herself,” like Dr. Doom does.
This is why I don’t consider Max to be the arch-typical “Mary Sue.”
I think the Mary sue maxima thing is about the massive power that maxima has. She is stronger than any super, faster than any super, flies faster than any super, has the strongest defence of any super, and can cause tzar bomb level explosions with energy blasts she claims aren’t her best.
Another definition of Mary sue is someone who the universe bends around to please. I think Oberon is trying to say that maxima is way too powerful for anyone to have any chance of challenging her. But to be honest, it’s like Dave B made a female superman with different looks and only the base powers. The point pool idea is kinda cool at first, but just boils down into “I can be superman in only one power, but I’m stronger than anyone else regardless”
Forget we are talking about one battle we’re basing this on. Even if she truly was the most powerful super in the grrl-verse, that is still not enough to label her a Mary Sue. Power-wise, though a difficult match to deal with, we know her powers are not so absolute that she can’t be hurt. There’s a reason why, even prepared, her jacket is partially torn, or the fact with defence ramped up she still got a busted nose. And she sure as hell isn’t enough of a know-it-all to not be out-debated by Dabbler on feminism of all people. Maxima may be a woman to be feared and respected, but the universe within is sure as hell not bending to her will.
Now, being irritated with her actions, THAT’S an entirely different subject.
You’re right.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there. Maxima has the golden skin which sets her above the rest even in a world where other female supers have perfect bodies. She is hip enough to use PPO. She not only has more powers then most of the other supers (only Halo and Math tie her, only Dabbler exceeds her), but they are also stronger.
I could continue to go on, but I’ve pretty much covered it in my other posts.
But for Ryk Spoor:
Then for 35 years you have only been using it in the most narrow possible way. Get out, smell the roses, and live a little. Mary Sue covers a lot more ground than your tight little definition.
It can go too far the other way, too. A tough, skilled, competent character, whether male or female (but female characters draw the label more frequently), does not invoke the trope. Incompetent people rarely not only live live through dangerous situations but triumph against them in order to have stories written about them.
This is a good call by Maxima.
Vehemence might be getting stronger and more durable, however he has yet to demonstrate any form of ability to heal quickly, he has still lost 2 teeth, one eye is gone, and he has all manner of scrapes and bruises all over his body. And even when he went super sized, his original injuries remained.
Kid gloves are off now, Maxima the hero is taking a back seat, and maxima the soldier is stepping up.
Maxima the soldier was always there. She was following her own ROE and avoiding lethal attacks. Or even potentially lethal ones until given no option.
Just a flesh wound, come back here and fight!
I think Max will be the one to bite his kneecaps off if he doesn’t quit.
What’re you going to do, bleed on me?
He already that. It didn’t work.
He already >did< that.
You know, I for one can’t wait for the day when he returns as Cyber-Vehemence.
Once again…
If V dies a VIOLENT Death, the energy will transform him in a true demon? “Kill me an I come back stronger, than before” Full Malumi…
He has seen how much Power Maxima has…and V has shown he has a brain…
His true plan..to become a full fledged Demon?
shhhhhh! do not give dave ideas!!!!!
That’s actually a scary one when we remember what was said by the demon Dabbler fought, and that Maxima’s Doomblasts are very Fire and Burning oriented. V dies a Violent Death, becomes Gateway for Demon to return full of Violence power or possibly even to Merge With V to create a Violence Powered Super Demon
I’d have to say that if V does transform, it’d better include a new arm. At this point, it might be said that V just had his hand bitten off by the same Maxima that was feeding him.
Fuck yeah, Maxima!
Ask me, and no one has heh heh, the ultimate tension in GP will be end up being about concepts like what people will expect and do in a world with superheroes.
Max could end up up labeled a supervillainess pretty quick with an “end justifies the means ” attitude, -but it’s a fair one for a soldier.
As has been said and demonstrated she’s not in the “masks and tights” business, but that’s what’s at least a little expected of her. Sydney’s reaction is a pretty normal one for a non-combatant.
Anyway, good stuff. Happily anticipating more.
Oh, and I support banning anyone who uses “Mary Sue” (or some derivation thereof) out of sheer outrage to good taste. =P
I respect your right to have an opinion. But just for the sake of argument, try to tell me exactly how Maxima doesn’t qualify for the label. Keep in mind that being an author insert character is not a requirement for being a Mary Sue character.
She is/has:
1) The most powerful (ranked at 9, with the next closest being a 7 and the team average being just under 6. Has only been fought to a draw by two people, one of whom is thought to be dead, the other being a member of her team who she couldn’t very well use her full power against, etc.);
2) Has no known weakness to balance her power;
3) The leader of combat operations (rank does not have to equal ass-kicking);
4) An idealized female body;
5) Is beautiful (body and beauty are two different things);
6) Holds her own with anyone, on any subject (knew what hentai was, has used D&D references, etc.);
7) Has stepped in and absolutely devastated opponents her team was struggling with (so there is no “rock/paper/scissors” going on, Maxima is just better);
8) Is the only person on the team who has inflicted anything other than minor injury on the current Boss monster;
9) Has basically told her team “Hide, I’ll handle this” since Vehemence’s latest power-up, and has just blown his arm off after deciding she needed to remove the kid gloves;
I’d go on, but I think the point is well enough made. And of course we shall continue to see as new comics are released. We know from the comics which lead up to this flashback that Maxima is whole and healthy after this fight, so even if she sustains more injury than her broken nose, it can’t be terribly severe, right?
Actually she has many weaknesses if you but have eyes to see them and wit enough to understand them.
Which is just the sort of cop out needed for you to try to appear witty while having nothing at all to add to the conversation. Congratulations!
I’m not sure if I should take someone who’s named after the Fairy King seriously. You picked one of the great trolls of literature to be your screen name. Then again, I’m not one to talk. I’m fairly certain that, despite the personal meaning it has to me, my screenname couldn’t get more stereotypical if I tried.
Anyway, how’s this for a combat weakness; sneak attack. If Max isn’t combat-ready, she’s somewhere around Hiro’s level from what I understand. Tough, but definitely mortal. Now, if you let her know you’re attacking her, then she can allocate her power points or whatever and counter what you try to do, but if you just moon laser with no warning or something similar in scale then she’ll probably be just as crispy as anyone else. Also, we’ve yet to see how her armor holds up to forces other than compression. Torsion, for instance, is a really damaging application of force.
If your gonna start trollin’ I’ll have to ask what you hope to achieve?
Poison, disease, nerve gas, suffocation. Just off the top of my head. Mind control to self-destruction is a little exotic. Trap her in Sydney’s shield and let the kid talk her ears off. Insanity should render Max ineffective if still alive.
Actually, now that we think about it, how DID Dabbler fight Max to a standstill? And how many people were chanting “not a lesbian” in their heads while this was happening?
None of which we know Maxima is actually vulnerable to. Not that I’d put money on her being immune to those things, I’m just pointing out that you can’t really call something a weakness until it actually manifests itself as being one.
True enough. I’m sure Dave has a dramatic moment reserved for Max needing a rescue. It’s just not going to happen in a fairly standard brawl like this.
Induce vertigo i.e. massive dizziness
Use TK to pinch her carotid arteries she goes to sleep or worse
The ability to immediately transfer her attack to where/whoever you want
Teleport an irritating/distracting object into her pants
Want me to go on?
Mary Sueishness isn’t just determined by how smart/knowledgeable/pretty someone is. Sueishness, instead, is more easily determined by how much the story bends around the character to make them seem better.
Like, let’s take one of the ultimate Mary Sues in fiction- John Galt from Atlas Shrugged. He’s not only brilliant, handsome, rich and an embodiment of Ayn Rand’s guiding philosophy, but literally THE ENTIRE WORLD has to listen in when he speaks publicly. Even when he’s getting tortured, he asserts his superior objectivist awesomeness by helping his torturers fix their own electric torture machine… because apparently electricians don’t exist in Rand’s vision of the world, but I digress.
The reason many people find Galt (and the actual self-insert character in the story, Dagny Taggert, who is essentially his girlfriend) so insufferable is because nothing he does is ever painted in a negative light. Even when he’s literally taking steps to ensure society collapses, he’s seen as nothing less than a free-market messiah, saving the elite intellectuals and financiers from the looter masses.
Compare to Maxima, who has very definite in-story flaws. She has some anger issues and a strong sense of pride- which are not idolized here, and indeed, she’s been chewed out for her hubris several times already. Her “ends justify the means” mentality is also clearly problematic, and she’s flat out scared some of her teammates with her innate tendency towards violence. Any or all of these issues could wind up creating conflict, and maybe even push Maxima to supervillainy.
Most importantly, though, the world doesn’t just bend to Maxima’s will. Even if people idolize her attractiveness, her strength and her dedication to her cause, they also don’t indulge her mindlessly. She’s the commander because of her military experience and her accomplishments, but they’re aware that she’s a ticking time bomb, and know that blowing off Vehemence’s arm is actually her holding back. And they know if Maxima chooses to turn her powers against humanity, the rest of the world will have to sacrifice a great deal to stop her.
That’s not a Mary Sue. That’s a villain in the making.
I couldn’t have said it better.
I always considered Galt to just be the Deus ex Machina of the story. He’s the guy who was prophesied to come, and when he appeared he had already created a capitalist Utopia where the lowliest truck driver was the perfect example of a truck driver (for a capitalist Utopia): completely competent at his job, ultimately happy with his lot, with no ambition to ever be anything else within this Utopian society, because of course even the most Utopian capitalist society needs truck drivers.
Just remembering this makes me want to vomit.
The Marty Stu was, IMO, Hank Rearden. Just look at him: Self made millionaire (billionaire? It’s been, well, not long enough ago since I read that horror. And I did it willfully! *shudder*), he allows no unions but his workers love him and would never consider striking, makes the best iron in the world which no one can compete with, blah, blah, blah, it goes on and on. But the thing that clinched it for me was this:
As written, and so presumably fully supported by the author since this was basically her moral screed spilled out upon paper, he was utterly morally justified to conduct his extramarital affair with Dagney, basically just because he was rich. It’s only a tiny bit more complex than that, no matter how many words the author used to talk about it.
Rich = do whatever you want.
And sure, Dagney herself was the Mary Sue.
I wanted to split this reply apart from the Atlas Shrugged reply.
On Maxima. You list some supposed weaknesses: Temper, pride, hubris (pretty much just repeating pride, but whatever).
You might be forgetting, or perhaps never recognized, that a weakness written about isn’t actually a weakness unless it causes bad thing to happen to the character.
Take Bella from the Twilight books. She was supposed to be clumsy. A loner. Shy, the new kid in town. Did that ever stop anyone from loving her at first sight and wanting to be her friend? Did she ever suffer bullying for her clumsiness? Nope. These were just things written about her as weaknesses which never slowed her down at all.
Back to Maxima. You said she “got chewed out”. Fine. What real impact did that have on her? The guy who chewed her out is the same guy who has this written about him on the cast page:
Notice how this General isn’t really written up as being his own man? He wasn’t “offered the position at Archon due to his competence and skill.” No, he “transferred with MarySuemixa.”
More:
Do you know how many personnel a General officer normally commands? This guy has the lightest work load of any General in history, and yet he just plays the political role and lets MarySuemixa do her own thing.
Maybe you don’t read as critically as I do. Or maybe you were never taught to read not just the words written and blindly accept them instead of looking for the truths revealed by the text. But there simply is no way to deny that MarySuemixa isn’t a Mary Sue character. She may not be as over the top as some other examples you could cite, Bella and Dagney being perhaps good examples of that. But she’s still a Mary Sue.
That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, and it doesn’t have to mean that the story isn’t good or engaging or wont be successful. Guess who else is a Mary Sue? Honor Harrington, from Weber’s Honorverse series of novels. Wildly popular, financially successful, and still going strong 20 years after the first book in the series was published.
“Notice how this General isn’t really written up as being his own man? He wasn’t “offered the position at Archon due to his competence and skill.” No, he “transferred with MarySuemixa.””
As far as that goes, I’d have to ask if you were ever in the military yourself. I was. I’ve seen first-hand examples of how “rank has its privileges.” He’s a long-time commander over Max & is quite aware of what she has & can do in her position in the military. It’s quite common for such competent officers to be granted leeway by their superiors.
Let’s take your example of Bella Swan, since she’s actually a really good illustration of why Maxima isn’t a Mary Sue.
Bella, at least prior to Breaking Dawn, possesses no powers of her own. She is, as you say, stated to be weak, clumsy, and a bit ditzy, but the key here is that none of these traits ever come back to haunt her. Bella makes tons of mistakes and god-awful decisions throughout the Twilight saga, but any time she does, the story bends over backwards to make sure she never suffers the consequences of her actions. This reached its ultimate (horrifying) apex with the birth of Bella and Edward’s daughter, Renesmee, which actually got into an implied pedophilic relationship between Renesmee and Jacob, just so Bella wouldn’t have to feel bad about leaving the third wheel of their relationship out in the cold. And yes, that is totally why that happened.
But let’s get back to Maxima. You say she’s not going to suffer the negative consequences of her actions? Well, first, it’s a bit too early to say that, but here, we can at least get some insight into her role in the story on the basis of her presentation. Note how often her face is heavily shaded, or put entirely in shadow, when discussing violence, compared to the otherwise bright and colorful palette of the comic. This is Dave attempting- not so subtly- to demonstrate to the audience that Maxima has a lot of dark impulses that she normally keeps hidden, and that these impulses are not meant to be positive qualities. This isn’t an early 90’s Image Comics franchise, where every “hero” carries a thousand guns and grits their teeth and murders people left and right- Maxima’s use of force here is meant to be horrifying, as Sydney can attest.
In this fight, we have seen what happens when Maxima gives in- only a little bit- to the latent rage she carries at all times. It is tempered by duty and discipline, but Sydney’s reaction on this page is meant to reflect the audience’s reaction- disgust and revulsion at what had to be done to keep Vehemence in check.
You may look down on Arianna and the General as being weak or morally dubious, respectively, but both have been presented as relatively reasonable and well-intentioned people. So if they chew out Maxima, it’s not intended to make us hate Arianna or the General- it’s meant to show that Maxima has crossed a line, and if she makes a habit of it, she’ll have to deal with far worse than a reprimand.
No, I said she hasn’t so far. Someone pointed to the General snapping at her as a supposed weakness. I countered that a written weakness with no actual consequences is no real weakness at all. Because it isn’t.
If and when we ever see the General tell Maxima she received a poor performance review for this or that or the other, or was passed over for a promotion she was due for (both being absolute career killers from the time an officer is a 2LT (army, and the other services probably operate similarly for the exact same reasons: too many people for the available promotion slots, so anything under an excellent review means you’re headed for retirement)), then we can say that Maxima getting chewed out by the General actually means something. Other then that it’s just story fluff with no real consequences for Maxima.
And yes, MidnightDStroyer, I have been in the military. But please, let’s not get into any kind of dick measuring contest here. I don’t care what you claim you’ve done, it can’t be substantiated and before long you’ll be a nooclear (sic) rocket scientist with a sideline in animal husbandry and medicinal herbs, insisting that people take your words for how things are done because you know better than them.
Your suggestion that a general officer with maybe an entire 2,000 people under him is going to sit back and be hands off is ridiculous. Unless he’s just coasting out his time waiting to retire he’d be killing his own career, because he has to report to someone, and that someone isn’t going to want to hear that he left/leaves things, and especially not combat things entirely up to a LTC.
And yet for all that, Maxima did indeed use a gradual ramping up of force against this guy. And there’s not a police force nor a military courts martial which would even take up a case against her for blowing off his arm. Or killing him.
One of the reasons I’ve taken to calling her MarySuemixa is because after comic after comic of exchanging physical blows with V, which only served to scuff the paint, she pulls out her energy blast which she had on tap all along and it does so much more than scuffing the paint. It blows his arm off in a single shot. Pulling out something which is suddenly far more effective doesn’t give any sense of drama. And in all future fights the question will naturally be “Why doesn’t Maxima just open with the fight ending energy blast?”
Additionally, Maxima is rated at 5 for strength and at 5 for energy blast. Unless they use different scales there’s no reason for her to have been so successful with what could be assumed to be an equally potent attack.
She wins? Please elaborate on all the supposed drawbacks of her using her energy blast. Were civilians harmed? No. Was more property destroyed than she already had destroyed with her exchange of purely physical blows with V? No. But maybe I’m missing something. You tell me exactly what dire consequences occured because Maxima let loose with the (supposedly, and hopefully) fight ending energy blast.
Sure, Vehemence might thing things just got out of hand, but he’s the criminal. It’s not typical to pity what happens to the fool who charges the cops while firing a pistol at them. He gets put down, and none of the cops is seen to be all dark and edgy because of it. Similarly in this case, nothing about this scene really paints Maxima as being all dark and edgy. She used a careful escalation of force, and the criminal got what was coming to him for failing to take one of his many opportunities to end the conflict.
Your argument sort of proves too much, yeah? Basically “powerful + beautiful = Mary Sue”?
Everyone in comic is beautiful. One of them will be the most powerful. That’s currently Maxima, but the comic would look basically identical if Maxima was removed and Dabbler was in command. She’s similarly a quantum leap beyond the rest and is similarly gorgeous.
It’s not super fair to demand faults, then reject them as invalid because they haven’t caused Maxima to suffer. Maxima has a temper. She suffers no consequences of this because she’s omnipotent. Its still a flaw, but one she is shielded from the blowback from by virtue of her power. That would be true of any other flaw the author might give her.
What if Maxima was racist? She wouldn’t suffer for that any more than she suffers for her temper. It would still be a flaw, yeah? Flaws are flaws regardless of whether a character receives consequences for them.
But, the real argument to be made here is that Maxima isn’t a Mary Sue, because the story isn’t a Maxima Worship Engine. She’s a supporting character. Mary Sue is the character the story exists to vindicate, Grrlpower seems to be, in terms of narration, the story of Sydney. Maxima is Straight Cougar, she’s Superman in a new Justice League character’s story. Invincible and beautiful, sure, but used as a contrast to point out how weak and ugly Sydney is by comparison.
The point you made about the general applies to everyone but Sydney. They are all characters in her story. We don’t know if Arianna is married or has kids, because we don’t care. Her role does not demand that we know. A comic strip showing that Heatwave knits or that Mr. Amorphous plays pool on the side wouldn’t be relevant to the story of Sydney becoming a superhero, unless it revealed something about something we care about.
Other note, on the General:
The reason for the light load is that he’s not really a general in the conventional sense of the word. He’s Maxima’s handler. She enjoys soldier cosplay, so the system obliges her with the trappings of soldier-ness, but she wasn’t discharged for the stuff she’s pulled so far because she’s not really a member of the military, replaceable with another of the same rank. The military needs her, not vice versa. If it fired her it would just have to turn around and surrender to her.
“If it fired her it would just have to turn around and surrender to her.”
Nah I’m 80% sure if that happened she would just join the Air Force, or the navy. Or some other organizTion. Heck she may start her own. But her getting fired is a slim to none chance in this comic as-of-yet
Here’s a fact about Archon & ARCSwat that got totally ignored recent posts: Archon IS military, under the command of the DoD. That was revealed during the press conference. Maxima IS still military, but was transferred here from the Air Force. As military, Maxima & everyone else (except some of the office-work paper-pushers were probably hired out of the civilian sector & still remain civilians) are subject to an Oath of Office under the US Constitution.
Yes, Sydney just signed up to the military & she will be subject to the Oath of Office just like everyone else in ARCSwat except for those like Math & Dabbler who are there *specifically* as Civilian Specialists.
I know this because I was in the Navy. I had to take the Oath of Office before I shipped to boot camp. After my A & C schools, I was sent to my duty station. There were civilians office workers & also specialist civilians from AT&T (yes, from the private-sector company) for specific tasks at the station. My Rate required at least a certain level of security clearance just to be in that Rate & all of the civilians working there had to qualify for security clearances also, just to be *in* the building where I was; even though I’ve been out of service for nearly 25 years I still can’t say anything about what we did there. The civilians, however, were not under Oath of Office & were drawing their paychecks from the company that sent them to work there.
Dave has been trying to integrate as much real world as he can into this story…I just handed him (& everyone else who reads this) a bunch of the real world right here.
Midnight, I can also comment on that, albeit not so directly, as I have a friend who was in the Navy(retired now). There were times when he was deployed he had to avoid mentioning where he was deployed or what he was doing. There were also times he had to straight up say “we can’t discuss my location or my current activities.”
It was a matter of Security.
They discussed some time ago about the fact that with few exceptions all people with superhuman abilities have a near perfect physique for reasons they don’t truly understand. The reason why Sydney doesn’t have such a body is that her power is external, not internal. So the ‘pretty’ angle is out of the picture, since both the men AND women who have superhuman abilities tend to have a ‘near perfect physique’.
Exceptions do occur of course but … in general, that’s how it works, and they even said they don’t know why. A nice lampshading on the Genre tendency to have well built and/or good looking heroes. Even most of the geeks in the genre are good looking!
As much as I criticize Max, I’m in full support of her actions here.
That aside, I was wondering whether or not that would work. I’m a little surprised it did.
Vehemence never showed any sort of invulnerability just extreme toughness that increased with the rest of his power. At each higher step Max could still hurt him. Unless that blast was a 10, and it most certainly wasn’t, she’s still got more power.
Either Max is right, and there’s only so much more his strength can be elevated through violence, or there is no cap, in which case this might feed his powers so much that he’ll balloon into a monstrous mass of flesh like Tetsuo and explode.
There is also the possibility that like in many RPGs there is a progressive increasing amount of violence he must amass be for he can use it to level him up the stronger he gets and any he has to use for things like magic pants, anchor spells, and such must be replaced in the mean time.
She telling him she thinks she can still ramp up the violence faster than he can absorb it and use it to increase his durability and the next shot wont be to disable him.
akira reference for the win https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2KjCViFbRI
V’s current level of growth is due to deliberate & conscious effort, it didn’t happen automatically when he achieved that level. I doubt he’ll “balloon up” & explode. There may very well be no top-capacity for him, unless the loss of some of his tattoos might have a detrimental effect on his ability to absorb power.
If V has a top-cap for energy, he doesn’t show any real signs of having reached it yet but the fight’s not done yet. According to everything shown so far, Max IS taking a calculated risk in trying one last time to get him to surrender though, because it doesn’t look like it would take much more for him to be able to overpower her limitations with shuffling her power-pool around.
I gotta say I really like the last panel. I’m not a big fan of grievous bodily harm and gore (most of the gore here is blocked by the fire so it’s not so bad), but the actions on the page and Sydney’s reaction tells us a lot about Maxima and Sydney. I think I like Sydney a lot more now. Maxima, a little less, but I understand she is a soldier so it comes with the territory. Part of why I will never be a soldier if I can avoid it.
On another note, this could go either way. I could see this ending the fight, but could also see him just regenerating. Maybe both happens. Maybe he’s like “Ow, *Regenerate* Okay, I’ve had my fun.” Probably not, but we did have hairdresser enthusiastically surrender so who knows :P
Each of the facial expressions in this page is the best.
I vote that if V grows his arm back, Max drop’s a F-bomb. Then hits him with the Max-Bomb.
V has shown no instant regeneration ability. Adrenalin may keep him on his feet for a while. But he’s done.
this is failed view as comics go, no V is not Done he’s just getting started because there no way the fight ends here. besides the fact Sydney has a new power that has yet to be shown she also has to have a reason that she skipped a few ranks in the month from the start of the comic.
the most likely answer is V regenerates and Sydney comes up with a team take down for him
She has contributed significantly already and I think fight might be over. There is plenty the heroes can do other than continue one battle and, fascinating though it all is for us, I am sure Dave is itching to play out other parts of the plot.
If V loses consciousness, surrenders or successfully escapes, this fight is over. But I would expect once he recovers, Vehemence will be back. As the farmer said, “A pig that good you don’t eat all at once.”
This fight has taken up ire than a fifth of all the pages in this comic. I think Dave B is wrapping this fight up with a lesson for Sydney about life on the field. It ain’t pretty.
Man if this is the end of the fight (highly doubt it) I’d be sooo disappointed. V got hyped up pretty good and I was hoping for a good nitty gritty all out brawl but so far Vs only gotten in like 4 good hits and other than be amusing he ain’t done much. But if V does go out with a whimper I hope he can be an example for better fights.
In modern/comic/anime storytelling the first fight is there to show how awesome the good guys are. It’s fairly short, but not a curb stomp the way the big good taking on a misfit minion might be.
Then again Dave enjoys subverting tropes.
I’m not really surprised but this is an unexpected solution. Even if it is the obvious one. We were all expecting clever and Sydney based solutions. Max just severed the Gordian Knot.
Just a thought or two, what if V is working for the government because they need to know just how far this team and their leader will go, how much damage they are willing and can inflict? Or what is it is something else? They all ate and/or drank. They all could be drugged and this fight isn’t really happening outside of their minds where another super is running the action like some demented dungeon master (I know, I repeat myself) from D&D?
Hey all I’ not sure if this has been discussed before but I think we might have seen Vehemence back on page 186 first panel (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1189) the guy looks to have the same outfit he started with and grey hair. I was just wondering if people thought it might be possible for the energy Vehemence absorbed to return to his physical peak. I was wondering what you guys thought about this.
Yeah, we all realized that was V on the first panel. No hair, though.
thanks for helping me catch up.
Yeah, Dave’s still got a pretty good “stable” of villains to draw upon even if V doesn’t get away from them. But he’s still the type of villain that could very well be bouncing back as bad as a rubber check.
C’mon guys! This is nowhere near the climax! Normal story flow would dictate something along the lines of Vehemence getting away/being brought to a standstill, a temporary setback, but ultimately coming out of it more powerful. Or something like that. It would likely result in neither’s victory, IMHO. Well, I guess the superheroes can claim victory since they’ll end up bagging everyone but the Big Bad.
Anyone want to bet that Maxima has a sleep spell headed her way?
Or anything else along that line like: paralysis, blindness, deafness, or a combo of the above.
He’s going to surrender. He lost his whole arm.
A sleep spell would be non-violent, and thus not part of Vehemence’s way of doing things – if he was going to use a spell on her, it would be more along the lines of a pain curse, or the “Concerto for Cuisinart and Microwave” spell.
More likely, he’ll either surrender “for now”, or escape somehow. My money’s still on a little panel opening in his back, and the real Vehemence flying away in an escape pod.
Judging by the mess V is not a construct of any sort. More like a door opening behind him and sucking him in before Max can react.