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.
“Don’t breathe this!”
Whoooh boy, that will not go well for the hero team. Ten bucks say they just steped in it big time.
bope, they gave him PLENTY of chances to surrender, he ignored and escalated each time, Max is doing her job and stopping him. if that moved her OUT of the comfortable “keep it non-lethal IF YOU CAN” territory, then she’s still i the clear… now, granted there WILL be an investigation, as there is in ANY lethal encounter, and debriefings galore to see what could have gone better, what could have done worse, etc… Yes i can see that the press will have a heydey, but overall nope they’re fine.
thought Ariana will have to update some more spreadsheets…
hey… still non-lethal…he ain’t dead…
yet
Given he no longer has a left arm 2 pages after going “I am inwincible!” I’d say tipping point reached.
He grew pants. He can probably grow an arm…
An arm is incredibly more complex than a pair of stretch pants.
Yet another of the phrases you’ll only ever see on GP’s comment section.
That and he may have just done a complex summoned/teleport on the pants.
Or transmuted them from his old pants which mysteriously vanished without a trace. Why am I the only one who noticed that!?
Well, we never did get a good enough view of the ground near his feet after his pants ripped…
Come to mention that, we don’t even really see if his arm was vaporized or blown/ripped off & went flying away somewhere.
The fact that Dave has to be reminded to draw important details half the time probably has a lot of us not sweating it if he forgot the pants and shoes lying on the ground amongst all the other rubble. Not to mention they’ve moved around just enough and have enough people in the foreground half the time that they may not be visible.
The only reason I would expect to see them is if there was a big overhead shot of the immediate area of the fight with V.
Keep that shield up Syd- the smell of roasting meathead isn’t very good in the morning.
I love the smell of roasting meathead during supper…It smells like victory.
Ok, this is going to be extremely awkward for Max if my theory is correct. That’d mean that she just blew the arm off of the new ArcSWAT trainer, hired by the general himself. So, I’m hoping I’m right just so that I can see Max’s reaction
He’d NEED regeneration with that bunch around.
Max doesn’t look remorseful here in what is post Vehemence.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/60
She’s had to kill in the line of duty before. She was in Air Force operations overseas at least tow times that she admitted to during the press briefing & also said that she’s been in other combat operations that are still classified, even before being transferred to Archon. Like it or not, soldiers who face combat duty have to face life & death situations.
Soldiers are not trained to kill without adhering to certain Rules of Engagement; those who violate those rules & laws can expect to face NJP or Court Martial, depending on the seriousness of their actions. Maxima was well aware of all of these points (& more) before Archon existed. If she has regrets or remorse, she’s had to learn to deal with it a long time ago, maybe even with professional counseling.
Vehemence has already shown with both actions & words that the only way they’re going to stop him is to kill him…If he refuses this *last-step offer* to surrender.
Sydney’s only just now coming to learn this. No doubt this is a hard lesson to learn & it’s going to be on the forefront of her mind very often. Yet, when this comic started, she’s still a member of ARCSwat, even some months after this fight.
He mentioned a few pages back about how he had an EVIL plan. No matter how cool other people keep saying he is or how they admire his politeness, cleverness or modesty, he’s still been fighting them, attacking others and demolishing public property with no regard for human life. So I hirely doubt he’s been hired to “test” their abilities. The proper time for that particular revelation is long past.
Make that “little” regard to human life. He has pointed out others who were wounded in the attack. But now his main focus seems to be to stomp ARCSwat into the ground.
Time to pull a Daken* and pop out a fresh arm and backhand Maxi to the moon!
*may or may not have been Daken, but do recall someone doing that… oh, that’s who it was, Colonel Glasshole
The rapid/instant arm regeneration trope was heavily popularized by Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z, but it probably goes back even further.
Daha! Another Spinnerette fan! V does remind me of Glasshole in that he’s a villain who is so powerful that the fanbase starts resenting the fact he just won’t stay down for the count.
Yeah, but Glass probably isn’t regenerating from being fed to a furnace until he was ash. That’s not to say it’s impossible, these things have happened before in comics. But if feeding him to a fire doesn’t work, then he’ll always be a recurring villain. Which I suppose is the exact point: It’s easier to make up some outlandish reason why your well established villain comes back from the dead than it is to make up a new and engaging villain.
Glasshole… *gigglefits!* Love it. And Spinny. Is How I found this place. As for V, it WOULD be a shame if he was a ringer. But I don’t think so. Congenial bad guy, FTW.
Unfortunately for her there DOESN’T have to be a point of diminishing returns, worse he’s not been fighting to kill prior to this but she HAS gone for way more than just trying to blind him to blow the guy’s arm off and tell him she’ll kill him next which is going to likely remove whatever restraints he’s been fighting under. So she’s fed him a massive burst of violence and told him it’s kill or be killed, it’s NOT going to end well.
The diminishing returns Max is referring to is how badly damaged Vehemence might get if the fight continued. Sure he got a dose of vehemic energy, but that might be all that’s keeping him upright and conscious right now.
Looks like hes been…..
disarmed.
You forgot a line. Its…
Looks like he’s been…
*puts on mirror shades, music plays in background…* (whoooo are you…whoo whoo…whoo whoo…)
Disarmed.
You missed the YEEAAAHHHHHH!
could’ve also gotten better effect with:
( •_•)
( •_•)~⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)
I expect that he will burn most of his energy to replace his arm before teleporting out. I actually think that he is more of a mage than a fighter. He just fills his mana pool from violence which required a few more trips to the gym than the stereotypical wizard.
Mr. Barrack, I wanted to say that I enjoy it when you’re on “The Trade” podcast, but I’m going to stop listening. I just can’t take Melony Chitwood anymore. I don’t want to go off on a full rant against her, but I just feel in balance she is more of a hindrance to the podcast than a help, largely due to her–let’s call it–high energy style that frequently crosses into actually heckling her co-hosts.
Over the past months I did try once or twice to leave a (more diplomatic) post in the comments for the actual podcast, but Libsyn apparently ate them all. If you ever join another podcast, or guest on someone else’s, please let us know and I’ll be there. But this one I need to get out of my ears. Sorry.
I’ve no problem going off on a full rant against her!
I agree with HumalaDuck’s assessment 100%. Chitwood is shrill, rude, her humor is off, and she often comes close or even crosses the line on insulting her cohosts and guests. There’s a line between some friendly and occasional ball-busting and just being plain rude most of the time of which she appears to be completely unaware.
Take episode 23, with Jamie Dee Galey. She mispronounces his name, admits to being behind on his comic, and makes a lot of off-color “jokes” and comments which I thought were quite inappropriate for a host. “Nut up or shut up!” Host has a meaning in the English language, and she should look it up to refresh herself.
Not doing the minimal amount of research required to be current on Galey’s comic and to know how to pronounce his name just screams I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU. I’m not sure why he would ever be back given the kind of reception he received and the lackadaisical attitude she showed towards both he and his work.
My sympathy goes out to Sydney. She joined up in large part to protect people and stopping the bad guys, not blow their freaking limbs off and in her very first day she was part of blowing a bad guy’s arm off because he gave them little choice.
As Vehemence noted himself by the time he revealed the nature of his powers, it was too late to deescalate things. but still they made the attempt to try anyway with the mummy missile. Even as bad as maiming someone like that is. He presents a threat and wouldn’t back down even after reasonable requests for him to surrender peacefully. Maxima is doing what she hopes will end the situation before it gets worse and is still trying to take him alive despite the risk. What she was a plea and a warning, not a threat. Please don’t force me to kill you because I will if I need to.
It was still pretty stupid to reveal the powers. Maybe there was some sort of hidden motive to it, but ARCSwat does not seem to be impressed.
Whatever happens next, the agents of Arc need to start including passive restraining techniques in their training schedule.
Because supervillain or not, if Max has to start blowing people’s appendages off to stop them, there is going to be media backlash like you wouldn’t believe…
Max will do whatever is necessary to protect the public and her team. Arianna is in charge of public opinion. She warned the bad guys in general and V specifically their choices are limited. Play nice or go to jail, the hospital or the grave. She was not exaggerating.
Maxima doesn’t give a crap about media backlashes.
And enough big media backlashes and the villains will probably start getting the message. If you mess with Maxima, she’ll blow your arm of IF YOU’R LUCKY
No, only if you yourself escalate the situation to that point. When the Barbarian Hairdresser offered to surrender, it was accepted. Vehemence himself is responsible for the escalation & bringing ARCSwat down to the final option.
Personally, I expected Sydney to use her shield to start suffocating him until he collapsed. Either he would have punched through, which I doubt he could manage, and things would go this way, or it’d work and he’d be passively disarmed.
I suppose because people have been commenting less on this that that’s why you made the shield suffocation idea. That said, small, but very significant problem with that idea: shield activates with Sydney inside it.
Huh… did I feel a tremor?
yes, not ONCE has Dave EVER said Sydney could project the shield off herself (yet.) So it’s really just you bunch making assumptions…and you know what assuming makes you.
I figured Max would eventually hit the godzilla threshold and have to use her energy blasts awhile back, after all, physical force wasn’t seeming to affect V.
Long time readers will tell you otherwise, starting with the forcefield activating specifically around Sydney and the auto adjustment it makes.
Then the evidence of the comic pages themselves support this further. She had every ample opportunity to use said shield outside of herself. That includes both Maxima tests via fists and the pew pew laser. Dave has also made it a point to subvert most ‘obvious’ ways of dealing with V, including the bullet to the eye and the toss him to space. We even have comments made on why super firefights don’t work in ‘real life’, or why a supposed ‘X gene’ does not explain away super powers in the grrl-verse. You’re telling me Dave went through all this, and the shield doesn’t get used?
I’m sensing trolls, and I’m laughing my backside off because of it.
There are soooo many people posting Sydney should have suffocated him with her shield posts that it’s almost become a trope in and of itself. And yet every time someone mentions it, the barrage instantly begins. :)
The answers are by people having fun and joking about something that should be way past done, but hey internet memes live waaaayyyy to long too. Got to get the jokes in between comics you know. :-)
Yeah, people should know when to stop repeating a worn out comment. How many times has the ‘use the shield’ idea been mentioned? Its Over Nine Thousand!
The size & mass of Capt. Obvious’ pile of trophies is similarly off the scale too. Dr. Revenge has had to take on some extra ninja clans to deliver his signs & even a few code-writers to make them. Those who are playing the drinking game are by now either in alcoholic comas or severely bloated from taking in too much liquids.
That is why I am now using the automatic orbital bombardment cannons to deliver the signs.
The craters may act as a hint to future humorists. We can only hope.
I sense trolls, too, and in a twisted way, it’s still fun. ;p
Trolls power is diminished if all we are doing is making jokes about it. :-)
There’s very few things that discourage trolls, but making fun of them & light of what they say works to diffuse whatever impact they *think* they’re making. The tactic of simply ignoring them until they get bored takes soooo long…
;)
This is not so much trolling as a running gag that has a lot of latecomers trying to get in on it. My 2 cents.
I think some of the ones bringing it up are just doing it because they have seen it so much.
Budget’s a bit tight (especially this time of year!) for me to be supporting webcomics, even a little bit, even one as impressive as this one. However, I can certainly click a link 5 times in a row if that helps (though if you’re being paid a % of sales and not per click, I suppose it’s not doing a thing. :P) It’s the sort of thing I wouldn’t push too far, however. If I’m not planning to make any purchases, then I’m simultaneously helping you and screwing over your affiliate with each click (In other words, I’m cool with that, but only up to a point. ;) )
Most referral links of that nature are pretty good at filtering out attempts like that. Multiple hits from the same IP in a short period of time often get ignored. I get that you want to help, but I’m afraid this is the opposite of helping. I have heard tales of site owners getting penalized for this, sometimes severely.
With five clicks it’s likely going to be ignored, but when it scales up, fifty or a hundred or more, then they start to have A Problem.
In short, don’t do it. In the long run it either didn’t help or wouldn’t have enough volume to make a difference; and if it did make a difference the affiliates take it out on the site owner.
So what can we do to help? Not click the links? Or maybe just click them once a week?
You can help by using the referral links as they are intended: Use them to get to vendor sites (Amazon, in this case) when you know you are going to make a purchase from that site. It costs you nothing except the tiny bit of effort to use the GP link to get to Amazon rather than typing Amazon.com into the URL bar of your browser.
You can even do your browsing for whatever you want to buy using Google or whatever to find it, even if it takes you to Amazon, and then use the GP link to get to the site to make your purchase.
Or you can just save it as a link in your toolbar.
That’s what I did, and I bounce back and forth between Grrlpower’s and Erfworld’s links for amazon.com purchases :)
You can always help by clicking on ads on the website. That does help
Does Halo have to be inside her force field? What’s stopping her from just using the force field ball to contain Vehemance? Wouldn’t he pass out from lack of oxygen after a fairly brief non-violent “time out” in the force bubble, given how jacked up his metabolism probably is right now? If this worked, she could totally wrap him up and dump him in the corner like a spoiled 4 year old, and he really wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
She actually does need to be inside her force field. On the bright side, you should receive a free sign soon. Or so I have been led to believe.
And also creating a new trophy for the mountainous pile, as well as allowing others to drink to prevent dehydration…
No trophy/sign/warning. He/she didn’t blithely assume, but asked a question.
Very astute of you.
+1s for both K and Spatulaodoom
Have to say, I really hope this isn’t the end of the fight. Mostly because one thing about superhero comics that tends to irk me is “Oh, I can’t defeat this enemy with brute force… I’ll just need to use MORE BRUTE FORCE!”
Vehemence may force Max to kill him just as a final “F*** YOU” rather than live with defeat. Max has already said that will be her next move and she doesn’t bluff. Except when a bluff will work.
personally i hope Max will get away from the fight with the feeling of defeat, not because Vehe won, but because the only way to win against him would be to use Procedure 110-Montauk
Well, if he hadn’t gone from Euclid to Keter…
Really hope they don’t have to call in Alto Clef and Dr. Kondraki. Even Arianna can’t put a good spin on that.
They could always bring SCP-682 in and have them fight. Now THAT would be an interesting battle, although V would most likely lose.
Nah. Who am I kidding. SCP-999 will definitely stop him.
Max has already noted that the team needs to work up more passive offensive moves (love me some paradox). All the people wanting Sydney to use her shield for a trap may get their wish, eventually.
…presuming if that option exists somewhere on Sydney’s skill tree in the first place…
That’s not a paradox. That’s an oxymoron.
You are right. maybe we should put him in “Military Intelligence”, and feed him “Jumbo Shrimp”. :-)
“Sends Shrimpzilla to visit the military intelligence unit.”
Shrimpzilla? Wasn’t that on Full Frontal Nerdity?
Yer right. My grammer is gonna be mad at me.
I never saw my grammer be mad. When our family visited her, she always had stuff like cookies or ice cream for us kids & was always glad to see us.
Reminded me of this :
https://www.ookoodook.com/store/SizeOfExplosion.shtml
As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero. -Vaarsuvius, Order of the Stick
The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries
6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
That one is definitely getting proven here.
Plot twist: Vehemence is just possessing that poor sod. Maxima is mangling a hostage.
that would be a good plot twist…
And that would make Sydney feel even worse than she does now.
And then, Vehemence possesses Maxima.
And given there was no way to know, Max will shrug it off as too bad for the victim. Whatever it takes to end the fight.
Alright, I’m game:
Because she’s not perfect, and the people who don’t adore her (Harem, Ariana) aren’t themselves despicable. Yeah, she holds a lot of the right cards -she’s clearly the Alpha Cape but to be a true Sue requires not only excellence at everything, but also to be loved by everyone except the people who should be hated (by the author’s reckoning).
I don’t think she’s anything like omniscient, but she’s had the advantage of talking about topics that she’s either experienced in, otherwise prepared for, or are plausibly a hobby -If I find out Maxima rebuilds motorcycles as a hobby, I’m game. If she also crotchets and is a national Cha-Cha champion, that’s a bit much.
The real question, imo, is what anyone prepared to do if she loses her dedication to service. She’s not just powerful, she’s tactically sharp and ruthless. She’s Superman Back From Afghanistan minus the kryptonite.
Another non-Sue in disguise, to borrow from Game of Thrones:
Rob Stark.
Rob’s a principled leader, a gifted warlord, a weaver of alliances to shame Commander Shepard and he’s young to boot. And maybe finds true love. AND the Dire Wolf.
Rob makes almost zero mistakes and the one that counts is with someone so astoundingly bitter that he looks at someone who’s got all the hallmarks of legendary greatness and decides, “nah I’d rather have my sour revenge and side with the faction that’s been losing round after round to ”
Walder Fray is not only gambling on revenge, he’s _also_ giving up having a daughter as at least a 2nd wife to a damn near certain King -a Noble Blooded King, also.
That’s him being a dick at the cost of getting 95% of what he wants. Now he’s a small/medium fish again protected mostly by his own defensive holdings.
Rob held most of the Sue cards, but in the end they weren’t enough because he wasn’t also paranoid. He was undone by his own virtues and a nemesis willing to throw away almost everything out of spite.
Yeah, I never got the idea of Maxima as a MarySue. It would be different if she wasn’t surrounded by more popular people, but she is. And while is quite powerful, part of her abilities comes from years of practice and training to learn how to juggle those powers.
And because I am totally obsessed with that show: Don’t forget that Frey decided to support the people with the power and the money (who had held some form of both for quite a while) rather than support some young upstart that breaks vows and thus cannot be trusted to act as expected. While I like your analysis in general, I think
She’s not Mary Sue for two major reasons:
1) She’s not an avatar of the author. To me, and the groups I’ve interacted with, that’s ALWAYS one of the defining traits that distinguishes “Mary Sue” from “Wish Fullfilment Character”: the Mary Sue *IS* the author with only cosmetic tweaks.
2) She’s NOT the central character of the comic. She didn’t even get into the BATTLE until all the little guys were smashed and Vehemence showed that he was really starting to outclass a lot of her team.
#2 is sufficient even for those who balk at the “Must be the author avatar” requirement. Maxima is certainly powerful — she’s, basically, the Superman-equivalent of this universe, at least as we’ve seen it so far. She’s able to be the strongest, fastest, and toughest person on the block, plus she has super-blast powers.
But she’s not the star. That’s Sydney. Sydney gets significant “screen time” even when the battle’s really just Max and Vehemence, and she’s even getting to play on THAT level — when all the other characters have basically just stepped back to watch.
One MIGHT call Maxima a Deus Ex Machina character — something directly lampshaded in the comic — but she’s not a Mary Sue, because the comic isn’t about her, doesn’t revolve around her, and in fact focuses on other people — even though it actually is some EFFORT for a writer to avoid having the most powerful superhero in a superhero setting be the focus.
Mary Sue, even leaving aside the requirement *I* have always found as part of the character (being an author avatar, as was the original “Ensign Mary Sue”), isn’t about being “unique”, though that is certainly often a characteristic of a Mary Sue. It’s about being CENTRAL. You can have a Mary Sue who is WEAKER than the others,or one who fails or is injured frequently — a “Pity Sue” is a well-known subcategory of Mary Sue. What is absolutely VITAL to define a Mary Sue (especially a badly done Mary Sue) is that they are the FOCUS of the story — and, in fanfic terms, DEFORMINGLY the focus; that is, their presence distorts the normal expected relationships and events in a manner that shows that it is the Sue’s mere PRESENCE that is driving events, not even necessarily the Sue’s capabilities or actions. The Plot is focused on Sue, and all events will swirl around Sue whether they like it or not.
You have a misapprehension of what it takes to be a Mary Sue character.
A character doesn’t have to be loved by everyone who is good and hated by everyone who is evil to be a Mary Sue. It sue helps, but it isn’t a requirement. Not being loved by Ariana and/or Harem doesn’t break the trope, but it’s interesting that you bring up those two characters.
I’ll take this opportunity to remind you that Ariana is a character who has been shown to be a manipulative liar. She orchestrated a fake bank robbery, didn’t notify Maxima (the head of the team) about it, endangered civilians needlessly, and then used it to lie to the public about the achievements of Archon. “Twist, twist on my finger!” Harem, in like vein, has been shown to be consorting with a known foe/opponent of Archon, and there have been a lot of hints dropped that she is double dealing or is at least fraternizing where she should not be fraternizing, and probably against established regulations.
So congratulations! You managed to use as your example of Maxima not being loved by all the good guys the two characters on the good guy side who might not be all that good.
And you haven’t really done anything to refute my list and didn’t even address many of the points, so I’ll just leave it there since you’ve failed to make a complete response, and the points you did make in your response I’ve refuted soundly.
Hey.
Use “refute” one more time, maybe you’ll convince me. =D
Ariana’s a jerk, sure. That’s not a real qualifier for evil, and as demonstrated by the downtime in the restaurant she and Maxima aren’t personally hostile. They have the relationship of two professionals with very different approaches who’re forced to work together.
The bank stunt was less dangerous then most “Reality Television.” Two military-trained nearly unkilllable superheroes are sent on a dumb-ass mission to rile up an unknown while being unknowingly babysat by their boss. That Maxima could catch a bullet mid-flight is very plausibly common knowledge at ARC-SWAT, and if she’d over-reacted and punched one of them into the next county that’s still “no harm, no foul.”
Harem’s “young” dumb, but I doubt she’s malevolent. We’ll see.
If I were her I’d spend a minute thinking about how it’d feel to have multiples of myself being subject to “enhanced interrogation” simultaneously and consider the odds of that being possible consequence of screwing around with loyalties while under a military commission.
I’ll pass on the ‘grats, thanks. I’m wary of shallow flattery from dubious quarters. Doubly so from someone who has to pat themselves on the back for doing such a good job.
Keep at it though, I bet you’re about to “win.”
Well done Dave. I think Sidney’s initial reaction is very good (and accurate for an untrained civilian). I am sure you already have Sidney’s reaction planned out, but…
If you want to be more accurate, I recommend the book “On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace” by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman
It is a highly regarded book in Military and Law Enforcement circles.
You have so far written a really good and reasonably accurate superhero comic. I am also sure you would keep it funny and treat the subject matter with respect.
And what popped into my head? “She finally let.. it… go……”
Anyone want to bet that when she has to blast him again it works about as well as Peggy’s second shot did?
Max can raise her power level. Peggy is stuck with .50 cal ballistics. Apples and oranges. Max can turn the parking lot into a molten crater, although I doubt she will need to.
So. Is “resistant to STDs” listed among the powers of any of our heroes? I’m gonna guess that some of that blood landed in Max’s eye, mouth, or one of her open wounds. ‘Twould be a bummer to defeat the big fella only to be laid low by the clap, or worse.
Well they have a doctor on service with healing powers
He lost .. The arms race !
“runs back in the corner”
It’s safe to come out. We’ve heard much worse in the last two days. At least yours is unique and terrible. That’s praise for a punster.
Well that was handy
look mum no arm
You could say, “He’s Armless
Now when you say it cost you an Arm and a Leg
and an eye
i wonde what other parts she is going to blow off but i half expect him to grow the arm back
I hope not.
I would like this day to end.
And so does DaveB. He’s been saying for some time now that he doesn’t really like how long this fight has been going on
Max has said “surrender or die” the next missing body part will be above the collar bones.
Well, V was getting pretty intimate there for a while. Being the feminist she is, Max just had to emphasize that no means no & HANDS OFF!
So what if In the end the arc isn’t about how the fight ends, but about Sydney’s reaction to how the fight ends?
You may have the answer right there. This is where Sydney has to get serious about being a member of Archon. This will happen again, is she willing to stick it out or does she quit? Even though we saw her with Max and Anvil in the first part that doesn’t mean she works with them. She may be there to allow them to study the orbs or help train in unconventional tactics.
Sydney did say before the flashback that she was a “superhero”, but even without that if she were just letting them study the orbs, or training, she would be a civilian not a corporal.
I will agree this is a big growth spot for Sydney though.
Holy shit!!! Didn’t see that coming, I thought Sydney was gonna do something tricky. Welp, there’s always regeneration or just ramping things up and fighting one-handed.
Assuming this fails as spectacularly as many of us are expecting, I have a new strategy in mind (And it doesn’t even involve the shield, so y’all can put your drinks down).
Have Harem go for the pants. She has experience with teleporting in and stealing clothing, and if V was modest enough to make a pair of magical pants once, perhaps he’ll do it again (And again, and again, and…). I mean, I assume it doesn’t exactly take a lot of energy to make pants, but even a little energy loss would still be progress, right?
Does he really seem dumb enough to fall for “spend all my energy making pants in the middle of a fight” to you?
1: someone is going to be the strongest.
2: ‘Known’ but, ok. Grant that …
3: The fact that she is a leader makes her a Mary Sue? Ok …
4: Other than Sydney or the other normals ALL of the supers have idealized bodies. Not just maxima.
5: See number four.
6: really? The fact that she knows some geek culture makes her a Mary Sue?
7: Again, being the strongest does not make you a Mary Sue …
8: a normal took out his eye. Normally losing an eye is defined as serious.
9: gee. The strongest who can take the hits telling others to let her take them. How weird.
is it bad of me to imagine sidney’s end of the lighthook on fire and going “KAI KAI” sincerely?
or sidney actually using her force orb to make a “cup” so she can throw up into it even? hehe
Is someone off on the “Mary Sue” tangent?
That entirely idea has done off into silly meme land, and become entirely meaningless, because so many people use to mean “female character that I don’t like” or “female character that’s not helpless”.
Wait, you mean it’s _not_ an unimpeachable judgement of character according to universally lauded strictures that themselves were carved into astral diamonds and mounted in platinum above Mount Rushmore?!
Damn! I was lied to! XD
am i the only one who really want to see this blow up in maxima’s face? I mean she speculates on his powers having a point of diminishing return, but she might have vastly underestimated that point. I really want V to just knock her out, regrow his arm and leave.
it’s already blown up in her face a few times. specifically her nose.
Time to evolve for V.
Yeah, now he can take that amount of violence to spank Maxima. Before he was almost as good as her. Now he should be +1. And if Dragon Ball ever told us anything: If your power level is one more, you’ll win a fight that is about ‘who has more power’.
Well. . . . .
https://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/27096223.jpg
“How do you disarm someone with super powers?” apperantly you disarm them more literally than youd think.
Or, in the case of Cyclops from the X-Men…Either Peggy would have pegged him or he’d be headless by this point..
I can’t say I’m too surprised. I’ve played Rimworld, losing an arm or two in battle is par for the course, if rather unfortunate.
Given that V seemed surprised a few strips back when Maxima shrugged off a broken nose, I’d say that he was not expecting to lose any limbs when he cooked up this fight. Just as ARC underestimated the quiet guy standing around watching the fight, V underestimated what ARC could throw at him and how far they’re willing to go in a fight.
I think that there might be a twist. Perhaps these vehemic abilities can be transferred through violent events, or through blood. Can you imagine a crisis worse than Maxima becoming even more powerful than she already is? ;)
Yeah. Super PMS.
PMS == Pissed Maxima Syndrome
All females on ARC-SWAT are the victims of a new villain whose power is to induce PMS. Poor Achilles, having to tank all the hits for Math, who would probably not let up on his lechery.
Something tells me since he can materialize solid objects, change the size of his body, shake off bullets to the eyes, that he can regenerate an arm.
I theorized earlier that V is one of those incredibly old entities that have been around since the dawn of man. Lose an arm, meh, both legs is problematic –an arm is just a couple years using buttons instead of zippers. My bet is that his big finish was to cocoon up and become a youth. Now when he does that, Maxima will feel like the southbound end of a northbound donkey…
The thought occurs to me that this might be less violent than the protracted slugfest. That was a fight. This is putting down a rabid dog. The presence or absence of explosions aside, the concept behind this one is actually a minimal application of the necessary force.
Of course, the necessary force is pretty friggin huge in this case, but still.
Well, that’s one stick less underarm deodorant he’ll need in the morning from now on!
Yep, he’ll only have to buy it half as often now.
That’s gonna be damned awkward to apply one-handed.
Awkward, yes. But it’s something I can do even as a broken down, physically decrepit 50+ year old man. As long as V isn’t bulked up so much that he loses full range of movement, he could too.