Grrl Power #272 – Sandbagger Vance
When you blow someone’s arm off in a superhero comic, it’s really only going to go one of two ways. Since Vehemence is an Arch-Villain, it had to go this way. Maxima just needed to face someone who wasn’t going to be out-powered. It’s a rare situation for her to be sure. I’m sure some people will be disgruntled by this and others will be… uh, gruntled I guess, but don’t worry about the fight resetting or anything though, we’re entering the home stretch.
I needed Vehemence to be so tough that if he ever shows up in the comic again, everyone knows that the proper response is “Oh shit, run!” He was always my guy who could go toe to toe with the Hulk or Juggernaut, Superman or even Darkseid, assuming Darkseid didn’t open with the ol’ Omega Beams. Vehemence is smart enough to know not to face off against a threat like that without warming up a little, which is a large part of what makes him Arch tier. Ooh, I just had a thought, I know I said him vs. Vegeta in the little byline, or whatever it’s called, but imagine Vehemence vs. DC’s Parasite. I’m actually not sure how that fight would go down but it would definitely be bad for the city it takes place in.
Drawing armored limbs that don’t look like Colossus’s is challenging. I tries doing vertical strips of armor, but he wound up looking like a metal eel or something. Which… is kind of cool, just not the look I had in mind for him.
So the Patreon campaign recently exceeded $3000 which is amazing! Within a few weeks of a year after I lost my job actually, or as I prefer to think of it, was promoted to full time comic dude. I want to thank everyone for their support as it’s been a great year. It turns out I really don’t miss the commute to the office to grind away in a cube like I had done for the last 20 years. The milestone goal for $3000 was “really making a living for realsies” so when I my wife had the chance she signed me up with her health insurance. Being without for a year was a little harrowing, but spending 10-12 hours a day drawing is inherently less risky than commuting and being around other germ bags. Still, yesterday I got a gentle reminder that living lean is really only a short term solution. I woke up and some nerve or tendon in my shoulder had decided to twist around the wrong way so I was in a fair amount of pain and had a super limited range of motion. Fortunately sleeping on it the next night fixed it (hooray for the human body I guess?) I was hoping it would since I didn’t want to live out the rest of the month like that until the health insurance kicked in.
Speaking of the health insurance though, I picked $3000 because it’s a round number and that’s how our brains work, not because it was the number I came up with after sitting down and doing a budget. Since American healthcare is enormously expensive, riding on my wife’s plan is more than a car payment. At least it includes dental and vision, which the cheaper Obamacare options don’t, and I could definitely use some new specs and a good tooth scraping. Unfortunately I will probably have to add at least one more ad banner to the site to make up the difference. I don’t want to, and I know it’s a first world problem, but the good thing is that I should be cash positive after that which is nice since I don’t want to be one of those webcomicers that has to run a kickstarter to afford to attend an out of state con. It also makes the next Patreon milestone easy to pick, which is to ditch some of the ads.
So I’m looking forward to next year! The first story arc will be wrapped up, and I’m excited for the next one. I promise more than one day will pass during it. :) I can put together a book (honestly it may wind up being two or even three volumes just cause a 300(-ish) page color book might be hella expensive), run a kickstarter for that, and even start looking at some of those out of state cons.
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Okay! That’s it! Pack it in! Vehemence is TOOO STRONK!! Game over, man, GAME OVER! He can’t be beat. It’s over! IT’S OVER! HAY GUYZ NERF VEHEMENCE GAME UNBALANCED (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
No, but seriously, unless they kill Vehemence right now, he’s never going to be stopped. There only chance now is to surrender, and run away.
Nope, for the following reasons.
– Demons with a major chunk of this powerset are a known thing in hell, so Dabbler may know of some countermeasures.
– If Maxima can get free, there’s still the “flying Anvil around as a shield” trick.
– If they can get Achilles out of the rubble, he can try and slow down V as well, and he seems to tend towards just being in the way of people rather than hitting them anyway. Maybe Halo could move him around as an obstacle with the light hook.
– Halo’s shield may just possibly still be able to stand against V as a further obstacle from anyone he might attack. Maybe.
– There’s a whole roster of other supervillains who want their shot at the team. One of them may yet step in and move V out of the way somewhere.
But what the team really do need to do is stop attacking him.
Oh please. He’s not that good.
He’s (roughly speaking) Dave’s equivalent of Doomsday, just with more words. He’s not unbeatable, just hard to work with.
Does he still need to eat?
Does he still need to breathe?
is his body “human” for purposes of toxins and pathogens? Elephant tranquilizer anybody?
How long does his energy charge last? Can he be induced to expend it wastefully?
If Archon had an attack telepath, that would help a lot too…
This would be Ma-Ti’s time to shine. :P
My only quibble about all of this is… the very first fight they have, and it’s Doomsday. It’s like having Death of Superman be the very first issues of Superman. Vehemence sets the bar. We see everyone going full-out against him. That makes anyone LESS powerful then him seem like a push-over or something that should be resolved in a page or two. To have a challenge, anyone will have to meet or exceed Vehemence’s power level.
Not necessarily. There is more then one way for a villain to be interesting. V is physically challenging, but not actually all that threatening (he doesn’t seem to want to permanently hurt the team). Later villains can still be challenging by being more then just a physical threat. Things like attacking civilians, employing non violent attacks (such as using the legal system), or having some stated goal other then “We will partake in a bout of fisticuffs” could all give a sense of weight to later villains.
Look at the Joker, and Lex Luther. Would anyone call them push overs? No. In the DCU they’re bottom of the barrel power wise but both are top tier villains. Physical challenges are not the only form of challenge that a super team can face.
I would *love* a Xanatos style villain.
I think a lot of the villains are more of the behind the scenes plotting type instead of Vehemence’s comparatively straight forward approach (from their quotes on the villains page + atmosphere). Supposedly this is a slice of life superhero comic which will focus more on the super’s lives between fights and whether those fights are challenging or not I bet they go by rather fast because Dave wants to get to what is important to him in this comic.
This fight will most likely be a rarer oddity in that the fight came to the team and it came to them whilst the bulk of them were in one place. I think most of the time they will be sent to the situation and they will be sent in smaller teams based on the perceived potential threat level at the time.
He did say “if they see him again,” so pretty shore if they do bet him he will get away and won’t be killed. If he is he’s likely faking death to escape.
I’m not sure he would need to fake his death. He could get away by hailing a cab. Who on earth would be foolish enough to chase the guy?
He could probably super leap away with the massive strength in his legs
Oh, man!
Rage quit like that & you can be certain that the GM will have your hero-character killed, or captured & brainwashed into becoming a villain, dude!
Sydney cannot trap V in a shield without trapping herself too, but what if she used the Lighthook to simulate the effect? There has been no mention of the maximum size/length of the tentacle (and it was pretty long when she did the little ad for the comic store back during the press interview) so what if she completely wrapped up V like the Michelin Man in energy tube?
Could it act as a sort of straightjacket, not really blocking anything or stopping him, but providing enough resistance to make movement, not to mention violent movement, difficult? At the very least occluding his vision, maybe highlighting Vehemence’s hitherto-unreavealed claustrophobia? Or not, he actually handled being trapped under that overpass-pillar pretty well, so maybe not claustrophobia… And Dabbler could help with some kind of spell to increase the air pressure around V, and if Heatwave regains consciousness she could heat up the air. Working in concert to provide the kind of crowd-control that modern police are trying to achieve with the whole directed-microwave weapons?
It’s already been shown that anything he does to the light hook ends up copying on Sydney’s end. Basically, if he started pushing on the inside of such a light hook construct, he’d drag her with him. Jump and Sydney goes up with him. That strategy is pretty much bust.
Right! That was when she grabbed onto his leg! (Or his arm, I don’t really remember) The point is, that was one point, which allowed him leverage. If she wraps the Lighthook around multiple appendages, weaving around him, any force that he exerts on it would be applied, at least partially, to the parts of his own body.
Wait, I think I just got the gist of your point. As long as she uses the flight orb to maintain a certain altitude, she should have enough time to alter the shape of the Lighthook to avoid being slammed into anything.
She’s already proven in the previous panel that when she encircles his head/eye without touching him with the whip, he
1) doesn’t get angry in response and
2) doesn’t attack.
…I wonder if he’d lose his powers if they used a tattoo-removal laser on him? I mean, those things are obviously pretty important, I feel like disrupting them somehow might be how they beat him. They probably can’t actually laser them off, but something like that. Maybe painting over them with magic paint. Or, wait, they could call in demonologist guy to instruct Sydney on how to shape her lighthook into a Malumus-binding circle.
Whatever they do, they definitely need to exploit some specific quirk or weakness of V’s powers. Anything else seems futile.
I doubt conventional means can remove or disrupt them. I mean they jsut got disrupted by his arm being removed entirely. And if that does not break them, I doubt anything can.
Even if the actual *pattern* of those tatts are important, blowing off more limbs won’t help either. When he regenerated that new arm, those tatts regenerated with it.
The artist comments revealed quite a bit in this. If the goal is to continue the ‘Oh shit!’ reaction from our heros anytime V shows up (also alluding to the idea that he will be appearing in the future, yay!), I highly doubt the solution is going to be as simple as another Halo trick. Otherwise they could just pop it out anytime and lose the “Oh shit!” factor that’s already being built upon. So there goes my force field idea x.x
*yawn* This isn’t even my final form!
Ok, so Dave has dropped hints that V will be a recurring villain:
So I guess we can look forward to someone managing to disengage. And it’s pretty much got to be V, because as I said above the newly formed, government sponsored, super team who cuts and runs and leaves the god of violence alone to do whatever the god of violence wants to do isn’t going to get much funding. And will lose a lot of public support as well.
V has had several “reveals”: Growth, I’m resistant to magic, magic-I’m-planted-to-the-ground-thingy, better damage resistance, and regeneration. And probably more that I’m forgetting about. So I suppose we should just sit back with some popcorn and wait for him to finally enter his final form and then bugger off so that he can come back again another day for the “oh, shit, run!” factor.
Me, I find it all to be fairly trite and dull. The best resolution in my book would be for Maxima to actually pull off the head shot she promised in the last strip. Maybe a nice combo-blast with Halo’s PPO. End this, end the tedium, get on to the story proper and I’ll hope that it is an improvement over this fiasco.
I think you forget that Dave has mentioned this is a slice of life/Comedy mostly (Unless I’m paraphrasing too much). And that killing, while usually a satisfactory solution to engines of sheer destruction and poor taste in magic pants, it wouldn’t be so for the comics air. The moment you kill a character you shift the comic to a whole new direction, And all the light-heart mirth becomes dreadful obliviousness to what-could-be.
Great… So this fight will end hilariously, and all will be ok.
Maybe Maxima WILL blow V’s head off, and then it grows back!
“Do you have any idea how much that stings?”
My money is on them finding some non-violent way to take him down, knock-out gas for example. He gets arrested, goes to prison, starts a prison riot to power up, busts out, and he’s back for Round 2.
BTW, where’s Mr. Amorphous? Was he not at this shindig?
Tickle him until he can’t breathe anymore! 8I
I know I recognize that quote from somewhere, I just can’t recall exactly where…unless it was from Men In Black, and it was right after Agent Alphabet blasted the weird looking alien dude who…..oh yeah, that’s the one
Glowbug zapped him and Heatwave awhile back.
How about any Sayin versus Vehemence? It would be bad all around, I am not sure that the world would survive, as long Krillin was there tossing out Senzu beans.
I totally called it.
Well, 92% called it. xD
you and me both, we were both right, however I’ll go a step further, Sydney knows how to stop him, that’s also obvious. Remember what she said before max attacked? I mean after his reveal that violence made him stronger… So now we know who is going to beat him, that it isn’t going to be Max, and that both of those things will in some way humble Max since she is a bit full of herself at this point thinking she is the end all of the team. We know the fight is nearly over and also that at lest in a small way V likes Sydney, recall near the start of the fight when V made his comment about hoping Sydney survives this encounter as she would be interesting to have around? He has the power at this point, I’m still thinking that max tapped out her power in that attack even though she is still acting like she is all that, and I’m still positive that Halo/Sydney will be the one to beat V, only thing is the more I think about it the more I have to finally say this fight is going to end up a draw. Sydney and the gang are going to be able to walk away and because Sydney will find his weakness they will survive. But also in some way V will have to be able to get away, or if captured eventually end up a member of their team, but an unwilling member at first if not totally for his duration on the team until he manages to get away from them. In either case no matter how it happens Sydney is the one who is going to end this because the comic centers around her, not Max.
I still want X to show up and drain Vehemence of his power, like DT did to Anvil. Sudden and unexpected. And gives us a glimpse of why they trust him to tail Dabbler and be able to do something about her if she misbehaves.
Well, we do know that in the start of the comic when we had a flash forward. Max called Sydney Corporal.
She must have earned that rank somehow.
And in that same panel , Anvil referred to Sydney as the “big guns.”
Yeah, this & all of those other clues point s towards Sydney being the one to take Vehemence down…Or at least get him to disengage & escape.
Unless something extremely drastic happens, Archon & ARCSwat’s existence is already validated because they still have all of those other villains off the streets & in custody…All in their first fight!
That is months away. She’s a recruit now, it does not happen on her first day. You don’t get promoted several ranks for beating a big guy, especially when you don’t actually have a full rank yet.
DaveB mentioned in somewhere in the comic/comments he was not sure about military ranks at that point and ranks of Arcswat may change as the comic goes on.
I still do not see how they did not know about this guy. He must have registered with some sort of military and/or law enforcement agency. Maybe not full details but something at least.
I also think Max was remiss at not just obliterating his head. That pretty much kills everything.
He probably didn’t have a reason to register.
He’s probably bounced around from conflict/riot/etc and simply camped out in an apartment or hotel smack in the middle of it.
Remember he mentioned being in the city at the time of the L.A. riots, for example.
He probably had no reason to be registered…There’s still no law that would require it. At the press conference, it was pointed out that even supers could still go about their normal, law-abiding lives with no hassle from authorities. As long as they’re not committing crimes or being vigilantes, then there would be no trouble.
By staying low-key in the “underground” circles & not getting caught overtly criminal, there’s no reason why Archon would even know anything about him.
Don’t think he meant register as in “registration” but rather register as in “registering 8.2 on the richter scale.”
Either way I agree. He’s already admitted he has never powered up any where near to this level before. In fact, I would bet even a full on riot wouldn’t make him much stronger than a pro weight lifter. It seems it has taken a full meta-human mega brawl to reach the same level as Maxima. There’s no reason to think any group would know about him being a “super.”
Dave has mentioned that he was into underground arenas
How much and what bit of him is “him”. In other words, if you blew his head off, would another head grow back? Or would the largest chunk of his head have to grow an entirely new body? If you split him in half, would both parts grow new bits and you’d end up with two of them?
So he would also have a cloning ability. That is starting to put him at an unreachable level of power. I would think that if he were in fact human (and there have been speculations to the contrary) then obliterating his brain would at the very least kill all memories and his basic self, if he were to grow it back. Regeneration also appears be a conscious effort and thus without your brain it would not happen.
Well, holy crapamoley. He can regenerate in an insanely short period of time and it makes him stronger?
I think there might be some kind of downside or limitation to that which he isn’t mentioning.
For example, the tattoos change colour according to the level of power he’s gained. What does he do? Instead of keeping quiet about that, he tells and shows them that he’s even stronger. So for one thing, that body ink is as much a guideline for him as for the readers. For another, I think that Maxima is totally spot-on about there being a point of diminishing returns, just not how she thought.
Assuming that V has even charged up this much before, he knows where the sweet spot of powered-up lies. As he goes beyond the natural capacity of his normal-sized form, he has to channel that power somehow to give him a greater capacity – hence the increase in body volume. If he were to receive a massive influx of vehemic energy, he might have to repeat that.
Okay granted, for all I know, you might be able to push him all the way to Godzilla proportions before it really starts to create diminishing returns. Still, he’s been quick to point out that they’re making him stronger – maybe the limitation of his power is that he has to channel it in some way (growth or regeneration) or it finds a less desirable route out of his system. He’s basically been encouraging them to hesitate and second-guess.
How’s this for a downside/limitation and reason for him to disengage and possibly encounter the team later: he’s getting so strong, an imp shows up and offers him a seat in Hell.
Well, at the first, he was doing much the same thing For Whom The Death Tolls was doing, taunting them into attacking him (only he was more proactive about making himself a threat.) Remember, he still didn’t want to deal with Anvil early on, so he tossed her away instead. So, he lets himself take a beating, slowly but surely charging up, then he viciously turns the tide. Of course, this is after he was passively charging in the early stages of the fight. He definitely has some sort of limit based on his current power level, but quickly surpasses that with vehemic influx (Max actually COULD have killed him with a head shot first, but maybe not anymore.)
Fun little theory: If Vehemence gets stronger every time he regens, maybe he wasn’t so big to begin with. I can just imagine him being a scrawny street rat with bad teeth getting mixed up with, idk, some gang violence, maybe losing a few teeth. He gets a new set of perfect pearly whites out of that. Maybe later on, he gets hit by a car or a bus–incredibly violent! Regrows a tougher skeleton and thicker musculature. Shattered jaw? Chiseled Chin. Maybe hung around the underground street fighting scene.
Overall, I like Vehemence as a villain. Arch-Villain. The best part is that he actually has a personality to go with his nefarious schemes for power. :D
Nope. He’s never been this charged up before. he notes this here–
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1543
–where he says he’s never grown before.
I assume he’s able to regen at lower power levels, since he’s obv. an experienced fighter, no one officially knew about him (word of a dude who double in size in the middle of a aifght is bound to get out of the superfightclub circles), and he was pristine at the start (and rather sharp looking in that suit, I must say. Oh, my, indeed, but that’s atragic thing to do to a nice suit). That, and he already knew he could regen, but had never grown before indicates this is not his first time at the rodeo.
Two things: 1) I’m with the “He’s about to get a tad more powerful then scoot out so he can do some supervillainy thing” crowd. That, or a Deus (Daveus?) Ex Sydney happens, which would cheapen the whole thing. 2) After he regens into armored form, I’m guessing if he goes on a “diet,” maybe does some TM or Mindfulness work, spends a stint in a monastery (Buddhist preferred), maybe spends a week with the Rainbow Family, he goes back to “muscular human normal” form?
Because otherwise he’s making some awful risky claims. What if he says “I regenerate, and it makes me stronger” only to have it not happen _exactly_ as he planned? This is a smart guy, he has everything planned out. He’s the Asperger’s to Sydney’s ADHD (as an Aspergian, I feel I can say that, so please don’t take it personally or as an insult– one of my better writing partners has ADHD, and we complement each other quite well).
As a fellow Aspergian, I feel I can say that I do not take insult to this comment. You have done well.
I just realized something (and forgive me if this has come up earlier in the thread, but it’s tl;dr): Vehemence hasn’t lost his cool. Yes, he has reacted to painful stimulus, like screaming when his arm was removed. And he has yelled to emphasize a point, or a punch. But he has remained calm, even conversational, throughout this encounter.
What if the key to wielding vehemic magic is maintaining emotional control? Sort of like a reverse-Hulk: he loses his shit, he loses his power.
Interesting idea, and I think it might just be new to the comment section, something that’s no small feat by now.
I’d rate the probability rather low though. But that’s just me voicing my opinion as it’s not my current favorite idea…
Thats a good one. I dont recall seeing that idea either. And Im gonna go further out on a limb and say that maintaining emotional control is key to wielding Any kind of magic.
/speculation
I believe that the practical application of Magical theory in this universe involves a bit more (very fast) thinking than we are aware of. That much logical and critical thinking can be severely retarded if you let your emotions get the better of you.
You want an example? Imagine those fight sequences from the sherlock holmes movies. How in the time it took to
get mad and be all GRRRRR and swing a punch
say “oh shit” and stare dumbfounded
or pull a pistol out of a pocket
or pick up a pipe and size up an opponent while taking a stance…
… sherlock (and his nemesis) had already thought out what their next 3-4 moves were going to be. (Math wasnt kidding around) and already half way through their first movement. All while constantly (and consciously) maintaining an awareness of their surroundings to update and/or alter that plan of attack; on the fly, and as required by the circumstances.
An “in comic” reference would be Syd’s first meeting with Dabbler; another combat spellcaster.
in the time it took for Syd to get out of a chair to hit someone with it in a reflexive hyperactive panic Dabbler managed to retake control of the situation by disarming Syd and putting her back in her chair.
/end speculation
I concur with my colleagues above.
I do believe we may have just been shown V’s weakness.
Now if Sydney will just realize it all will turnout well.
Or, it could be that losing emotional control while using emotion-based magic results in the forces you channel taking the helm, leaving “you” as a helpless hanger-on while your powers run rampant in an attempt to realize whatever desire/emotion you were drawing on.
So in Vehemence’s case, it could result in him going on an indiscriminate rampage, exploding, or becoming some sort of eldritch horror, Warhammer 40K-style – none of which are good for him, considering that V’s greatest asset does seem to be that combo of strength & smarts.
Well, yeah. Pretty much anyone in any fiction-world who uses magic power has to at least be able to concentrate in order to focus the energy for a specific purpose. The only exceptions would be like innate, automatic powers such as the way V gets stronger & more resilient. The growth, Ka-Pants & armored regrowth all needed some level of concentration.
Other magic that might not need concentration would be certain types of magic that have a time-duration; once the mage’s concentration starts the effect, it may continue until the time wears off even if the mage was rendered unconscious or killed.
Even Dr. Strange in the Marvel RPG pointed out that focused concentration is required for most magic usage.
All I can think of is Winter Soldier. XP
Sydney is out of her bubble. Why is she out of her bubble?
Her medication wore off, and she’s easily distracted in that state?
I know were I in her place, I’d have peed myself a long time ago (OK, maybe yesterday, after V’s arm was blown off). Since it’s airtight/sandtight/watertight, if she puked offscreen, she might have let it down to limit the splashback.
Because breathing is fun.
Oh come on!!! Now I’m a bit mad, this battle has gone on long enough. I’ve been able to stay patient up till now. This is getting ridiculous, it’s turning into a freaking “Goku Battle”. What’s his next power, the ability to turn into a god? Ugh… *sigh*… I just want this battle to end, hopefully next comic.
Sort of agree that it’s gone from being exciting to being Dragonball Z boring pretty quickly with this particular comic :/
It might just feel more like that though because it’s a twice a week update. If I was reading it in the future where this was one comic after the other, I probably wouldnt be as irritated :)
It’s easier to get a sense of Dave pacing if you read through pages that are already posted, rather than only during the updates. The pacing is *much* better if you can to several pages at a time.
Yes. Thought right now it’s feeling like ‘Okay, we finally finished this fight. NO WE HAVENT! NEXT TIME ON DRAGONBALL Z….’
Which was interesting the first three times it’s happened in this fight, but now it’s getting sort of repetitive when waiting because it feels like a lack of progression (while in a normal comic, the progression would be turning the page, and I’m sure I’d be a LOT more thrilled by how Vehemence is such a significant opponent right from the get-go. Plus it will let Sydney be the real hero here, which IS something I like.
I bet everyone saw this coming, his nonchalant response to loosing an arm, teeth, and his eye hinted to this.
Seems to me the easiest way to defeat him is to get “for whom the bell tolls” up and point out that V was betrayed…. power set instantly counters V’s.
honestly bringing “counter everything” guy to a fight to betray him and then grandstand seems like the worst plan.
I would agree with you except that For Whom the Death Toll’s powerset is purely defensive. True if they kept worming Death Toll in the way of Vehemence’s attacks it may work, but otherwise Vehemence could just walk around Death Toll and wail on the team with at most a minor inconvenience of having to move around Death Toll.
10001 signs that dave finishes the weekly comics in the morning of: Typo’s lots and lots of typo’s. (thank you Dave, Thank you so much for the sacrifices you bring with these comics.)
On the dental- if all you’re getting is bi-yearly tooth cleanings, I’d suggest talking with your dentist and reviewing your risk for more serious tooth issues. I had the option of going on dental insurance a while back (the Cobra stuff) and doing a little math, it turns out that the insurance would have cost me a couple hundred dollars more per year than just paying out-of-pocket for the checkups and cleanings. Insurance isn’t always the cheapest or best option, especially if you don’t have regular issues to go along with it.
On the ads- I don’t know if it’s a Patreon thing or what, but I say go crazy with the banner ads! If it makes you money, and allows this magnificent comic to continue, I’ll gladly watch dozens of flickery gifs on the sides of the screen all day long- heck, some of them I even click on because they’re actually relevant to me!
” Insurance isn’t always the cheapest or best option, especially if you don’t have regular issues to go along with it.”
That’s very true, but then again there’s always a chance of some kind of sudden accident that messes you up pretty good. That’s the whole reason to have insurance in the first place. One sudden, unexpected incident could bankrupt you if you didn’t have any insurance…It’s the idea that “I’d always hoped I wouldn’t need it, but I was glad to have it when (whatever) happened.”
My solution, throw him into space. If Halo can fly up as fast as she can fly horizontal then she should grab him by his foot with a pseudopod, fly straight up as high and as fast as she can go, and release. Maybe she can send him into deep space where he’ll have a chance to cool off.
Looks like you didn’t look at the comic posted just a week ago. Hint: Maxima tried this. Didn’t work. The Hentacle is weaker than Maxima so Sydney probably won’t be slinging V into orbit anytime soon.
Hey this theory is almost as popular as the one having Sydney using her shield to suffocate V, but it’s only since last Thursday that we know it wouldn’t work.
No, the hentacle was destroyed by Maxima’s blast, and Sydney wasn’t trying to lift V of the ground. V is never actually shown breaking Sydney’s hentacle just dodging it. If Sydney grabs V by the foot he could loose balance and be dragged straight up. We KNOW that Sydney’s flying ability is at least on par with Maxima (#158), and her strength may have nothing with what she can pull with her hentacle.
Energy may not be destroyed, disrupted or dissipated sure. The lighthook seemed intact inside the blast. Also Veh has shaken it loose before, after dragging her using it.
Last Thursday Max tried to pick V up and he fastened himself to the ground. So Syd shouldn’t be able to pick him up either.
Okay, there’s also Sydney’s two-orb limit. She’d have to use the Flight orb, certainly & the Lighthook orb too. Okay, so how’s she going to breathe when flying fast AND gaining altitude into thinner air…Unless she also uses her shield to protect her from air friction & to carry an air supply with her?
It was suggested a couple of pages ago that it could still be done IF it’s Sydney & Maxima inside the sheild…Maxima grabs Sydeny & does the super-speed flying while Sydney shields them both (from air friction & in case V climbs up the Lighthook to attack). The only powers Max would have to shift her power into would be speed & flight.
Maybe Sydney can get a spacesuit? Maybe Dabbler has one? One that Sydney can her orbs inside to hold perhaps?
Maybe she can use the Stay-Puft Astartes armor.
I HOPE you are making a joke about that, but if you’re NOT… that would be a no go… since, unfortunately, its NOT airtight… all it *really* is, was the armored and padded suit the E.O.D. guys use when they have to go in and “cut the RED wire!” other than that, it sure won’t work as a spacesuit…
That would work…Until Sydney needed to switch to another orb for whatever reason.
“So yeah. Mittens are my kryptonite.”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/589
So I don’t know about you guys, but it seems like this might have been a lead up to revealing the abilities of one of the unknown orb’s powers. Obviously (from Dave’s comments) Vehemence won’t end up truly beaten, but I could imagine something new driving him off.
Maybe an ability to drain ethereal energy? Don’t know, but it is certainly starting to look hopeless for the team without some new piece brought into play.
I know it’s childish, but couldn’t he be tickled into submission?
Lack of oxygen would make him pass out and it shouldn’t be considered attacking him…
Someone suggested that earlier in the fight…I added that Sydney’s shield with a feather duster in her Lighthook might try it.
So, dunno if it’s been addressed before but I saw this a few times in the comments about toxins and just blowing his head off… and I don’t think either of these would work. Since I’m not sure of the rules for regeneration in this world, I can only go off the rules for it of the universes where I know something about regeneration: Marvel.
In Marvel with a strong enough healing factor, not even a severed head is necessarily the be-all-end-all of moves – and that’s in the case of cellular regeneration. So if that is, in a comic-verse, able to continue when death should occur then I’m willing to bit mystical regeneration that gives metal-limbs is going to be something else to deal with.
As for toxins… he might be susceptible, since it’s unclear if the regeneration is taking place at a cellular level or just ‘vwoosh healed’ he could actually be dropped by any sort of tranquilizer. But it’d probably have to be a very large dosage to drop him (multiple tranquilizers) and then it’s getting them -into- his body that’ll be the next step. But if his regeneration does occur at a cellular level whenever he needs to recover from a weakness… then pumping any debilitating chemicals into his body is just going to make him stronger before it makes him weaker.
There’s a reason why they say ‘cut off the head’…
But… but what if all the gooey parts regenerate into multiple Vs!
They’ll meet an army of V.
Sorry, I’ll stop now.
I just finished watching a gynoid make-out session from her…
Geez, that’d be like fighting the genetic offspring of the Hulk & Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man.
Wow. How do you fight someone who everything you do to them makes them stronger? Tickle him?
come on Halo, use the PPO :D i wanna see him take a hit from that, just for fun :D
I think she needs some practice with it before using it that close to civilian buildings (and yes I know they aren’t that close).
Yeah, she had to first shoot at the tank, miss & then track it to that tank during the press demo.
If only she’d gotten some training before now…Sometimes, on-the-job training programs really suck.
Ha! called it.
Joke Suggestion by friend: Have Maxima dump everything into Strength, and then pitch Achilles at Vehemence and see if Maxima’s pitch has enough force to drill Achilles through Vehemence.
It worked for giant robots…
Vehemence will likley see him coming and bat him into orbit. Ether that or it will act like one of those guys who take a cannon ball professionally. Not kill him.
Except that would be a terrible idea. Here’s why: https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/
Probably, but for all that to happen, Maxima would need to accelerate Achilles to .9c or close to it. I sincerely doubt even with maxed out strength she could accelerate him that fast. I did some super rough approximation work and came out with Maxima needing to output approximately 6.468×10^9 Joules (assuming Achilles weighs around 80 kg, and we are trying to reach .9c. This is also a bare minimum since this is assuming an ideal state without air resistance and 100% of the energy being transferred into kinetic energy moving Achilles forward.). Now 6.468×10^9 Joules means nothing on it’s own to most people so for a rough estimation that would be equivalent to 1 1/2 tons of TNT exploding all at once.
1st: Amazing taking that all into account.
2nd: Are we really sure Max couldn’t move something that fast? If Achilles can’t be hurt, couldn’t she just use her blaster in a focused explosion and propel him that fast? (It seems as though she could manage 1 1/2 tons of tnt explosion…also, what’s that in nuclear yield?)
The Fat Man & Little Boy bombs dropped at the end of WW2 measured 21 Kilotons & 16 Kilotons, respectively.
Well, using 1/2 mv^2 and ignoring relativity (and Maxima’s own mass!):
I make it 2.9×10^18 joules, which is equivalent to 697 megatons yield. Or seven Tsar Bombas at maximum output.
Seems a bit much, even for the World’s top super!
Wow, I was off by 9 orders of magnitude, I went and redid numbers, and I came out to 2.9X10^18 as well. Not sure how I was off by that much.
There’s also the fact that Achilles isn’t exactly a rigid structure…Hitting Vehemence with him would likely make Achilles fold up like a wet noodle on impact, thus reducing the energy of the impact too. Of course, Achilles wouldn’t get hurt by it though.
Okay, since this is actually designed to be law enforcement and not the standard “do gooder vigilante” they shouldn’t have any restrictions against using lethal force to subdue out of control threats. I feel like if Maxima focused, she could kill V by taking out his head or something else vital since his regeneration appears to be controlled instead of automatic like Wolverine’s. I only say that because it took him this long to regrow those teeth.
Long story short, I agree with the “blow up his head” crowd.
Caveat to my idea is that it seems very unlikely with all of Dave’s talk about V showing up again. Although another commenter made a valid point that if the team can’t handle this in a way that somehow goes into the “win” category, they are going to lose a lot of public support very quickly.
Well, at this point, Max looks to be making that attempt now. Just that V managed to grab her as she’s charging up. Either way, a bit late to be trying it now, Max.
Yeah, she’ll have to shift a lot into armor just to keep him from snapping her neck like a toohpick.
Ok, but in this comic she tries that and he grabs her by the throat. If she doesn’t max armor he’s going to snap her neck. It would be an insane gamble to max blast while he’s holding her throat.
Kinda think that Sydney will say that she’s been trying to share a plan, but everytime she begins to share it, she gets shot down since step 1 is ‘Don’t attack him and listen to what I have to say’.
I maintain that Sydney is going to say
“Ok, you win” to V. Give him whatever he wants. If they keep fighting he’ll just murder them and take it anyway.
Seriously, V is Kobayashi Maru like a boss.
Hit him, makes him stronger.
He hits you, makes him stronger.
Try and finesse this dilemma? He uses magic to counter.
Figure out a way to damage him despite his increased power? He heals and grows stronger.
De-escalating the situation is the only possible route out of this. It’ll play hell with their prestige to let a villain beat them and walk in their first super fight, but the situation is dire. THEY ARE AT HIS MERCY. If he was willing to kill he could massacre them right now. Its time to admit reality.
He is into magic.
1) Sydney taunts him that there are other magic users more powerful than him.
2) She gets him to wish that he was an all-powerful genie.
3) He gets sucked into a lamp and trapped there. Problem solved.
Hey, it worked in the movie.
Sydney uses the shield and its larger size to enclose as much as possible in the shield, and then taunts Vehemence that only Maxima could break it to get him to waste energy.
Sydney traps Maxima in the orb to get some time to chat and form a plan.
Anvil.
Achilles.
Backup from elsewhere plus a new plan.
That assumes he’s a macho moron.
It would probably be worth a few punches, or a doom blast. Vehemence isn’t stupid, but he’s also going to want to at least try to attack through the shield.
Well… Taking off his head might work. The regeneration doesn’t seem to be automatic.
Idk the way he has been behaving it’s more like he wants a challenge more then going out and being all evil. Kinda like Math to push himself to see what hes truly capable of and probably how much this team can handle. My guess is he’ll say they’ve all had enough and leave hinting they’ll see him again. Giving them a chance to heal up and be ready for the next time to give him a better challenge which seem to be what he’s looking for.
I am confused on one count of this. How does he know he can regenerate, and when he does, become some steel rock thing, if he already is not in that form? In order for him to know about it, wouldn’t he basically already be stronger because something had to happen to make him aware of it?
I guess it probably wears off…???????? But that part is my least concern with this ^^”
My guess is that it’s a temporary thing. Once he looses/burns off enough energy he reverts to normal.
Or perhaps, being a magic user he always knew the theory/spell but never had a chance to use it before.
My bet is he regenerated before but he ever had enough power to make it alot stronger so it only improved little by little bits. Now however as he mentioned before he has pwor to burn so why not burn it toget an adamantine arm teeth and eye :P
He’s becoming a little bit of a Wesley Crusher for me at this point…
Well, “Crusher” at least fits nicely…
Maybe a more appropriate simile would be Vehemence is becoming a Sylar – someone you just want to see die already because he started as a decent villain, but all this deus ex machinae and run on run on is just making him intolerable to read about.
Admittedly some of it might be from it coming out at webcomic speed, but still, this IS dragging on now with all the new powers coming out of the woodwork over and over, for their FIRST major villain, who seems to have no motivation other than ‘because I want to do this’
Liking what I see! I knew he’d regenerate, but I didn’t know he’d also have an evolution perk were whatever hurt him before can’t hurt him again. Vary nice! (Evil grin)
HA! I knew that wonder spaz was on meds. But if this is what she’s like when she comes off them then she defiantly needs to change her prescription.
ADHD meds.
When you’re in the prime area after taking the morning dose, you can force yourself to be distracted by a “COOOL” moment. When you’re off, there are a whole lot of moments vying for your attention
Coffee & Meth cocktail STAT
Harem would be better off putting her thinking caps on, rather than having a pop at the newbie on the team. Mind you, on top of the meds wearing off, Sydney has got to be suffering fatigue from this longest of days. Unless stomach rumbling keeps her awake, I can see her crashing into a deep sleep, the instant the adrenalin rush stops.
That is a little odd isn’t it?
“Hey eccentric, easily distracted and completely inexperienced or trained newbie that hasn’t been with us for even 24 hours yet with the ink still wet on your contract!”
Sydney: “Um… yes?”
“Have you figured out a way for us more experienced, some extremely experienced, trained, senior team mates to beat this extremely powerful, decently intelligent, multitalented, multitasking and somewhat hard to predict arch villain yet?”
Sydney: “………………………… no?”
“Well hurry it up jeeze!!”
Sydney: O.O”’
Me: LOL
Well, NOBODY else figures out Death Toll. She set a precedent.
The other leader types are down. Harem is smart but she is looking to Sydney since as Zero said, she had the plan to take down DT even when Max didn’t.
It’s more of a case of “you’re on the team. you’re on the battlefield. How about trying to think about things like the rest of us?”
Sure that’s one way of looking at it. Its just such a long way from where she started. You known when she was to stay back and shielded doing nothing the whole fight to OK assist but shut up to FINE! How do you think we should get Bell Toll? to What are you doing? Think of a way to stop this crazy powerful and experienced guy! I thought it was worth noting how far she’s come with them in like a half an hour or less.
I kind of have to figure Maxima likes keeping her options open though or she would have sent the greenie away (Sydney could have flown back to base on her own in just a couple minutes and taken passengers to safety besides with her shield.).
I guess Anvil called it right. Sydney is ‘big guns’. Harem is smart. Smart enough to recognise talent, when she sees it.
In Bell Toll’s case, it wasn’t a situation where she was asked. It was a Sydney response “wait a minute.. hmm. HEY, can you do this to him?”
So, metal teeth, too? With the teeth he will look like a stereotypical thug with outdated dentistry.
A Richard Kiel stainless steel grin. I miss Jaws.
So do I.
Managed to get my picture taken with him the last year before he passed away.
His hands engulfed my head.
I’m liking it!
Several things are happening here which are promising. Unless some clever solution is thought of, Max is going to have her first ever defeat, something she seems long overdue for. As is she seems to carry a ‘worst case, I’ll kill them’ option around with her, and force, more force, with a side order of force has worked so well for her in the past, she’s not really bothered to cultivate other avenues of conflict resolution.
And poor Sydney. While the plan is for a slice of life/comedy strip, on the day of her signing on the dotted line she’s getting to see in splattery detail just what the group she has joined is willing to do to ‘keep the peace’. And that its not nearly as entertaining in person as it is in the pages of a comic book. And that they don’t expect her to be a spectator, but assist in the splattering. Police and the military at least know enough to give some mental preparation to their people before putting them in harms way, ARCs approach seems more ‘welcome to the jungle’
I like the ddescription of Maxima’s strategy as force, more force with a side order of force. That’s funny.
Maxima T-Shirt slogans, a new trope :)
‘Force. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’
“May the force be with you” *image of a smirking Maxima with a nondescript villain slamming through buildings in the background with explosions going off*
With Force Sauce, of cause…
Although this would be her first defeat in-comic, ISTR mention of Maxima and Peggy spending time in hospital (but I can’t find the reference right now). She has been defeated before, it seems.
, of course…
Obviously.
*cringes*
Its in Peggy’s bio. Which would lead one to infer Maxima was injured in Iraq as well except they met later while convalescing, probably in a military hospital in Germany or the US. So Max could have ‘caught one’ anywhere on the globe.
Max has been defeated before, twice. She mentioned at the press conference that two people have defeated her. One was dabbler, and the other is dead (read: alive, and speaking Arabic).
She wasn’t defeated. They were the only people who could fight her to a standstill. Vehemence, however, is one person with powers that counter Maxima’s strengths.
Yup, the worst outcome she has had thus far is an inferred close call where her opponent is ‘hopefully’ dead, and a draw with Dabbler. Though given Dabblers personality, I’m wondering if she (Dabbler) didn’t take a fall so she could stick around Max, because Dab’s finds Max entertaining.
She wasnt defeated – two others were able to fight her to a standstill. One’s dead, and the other’s Dabbler.
And that they don’t expect her to be a spectator, but assist in the splattering. Police and the military at least know enough to give some mental preparation to their people before putting them in harms way, ARCs approach seems more ‘welcome to the jungle’
yes, they HAVE acknowledged the fact that she NEEDS training in the press conference, BUT… you forget that this fight is taking place less than 3 – 4 HOURS after she joined up!!. remember how the Press conference was basically starting up AS she was getting her uniforms issued (well, borrowed from Peggy, but still) then afterwards they all went out to eat dinner… there has been ZERO time for her to GET that training…
True.. except the location of said celebratory dinner was a setup for retaliation. ARC has a BIIG fortified building with its own dining facilities and resturants in which to celebrate in relative safety, which begs the question of ulterior motive in doing a ‘bring it on’ display of force press conference in the desert and then choosing a dining option out in the sticks for their evenings repast.
‘And’ the datum that ARC-Light was already set up on-site to gather data. You don’t need armed guard(s), a telepath doing a ‘we are not the droids you’re looking for’ mantra, and whatever might be out of frame if you are ensconced back at the HQ. So I stand with ARC having goaded a response.. and having a zero training recruit involved when it occurred.
Pre-emptive derp on myself. Remembered they were at the party along with everyone else. My first point is still solid, though.
“Unless some clever solution is thought of, Max is going to have her first ever defeat, something she seems long overdue for.”
Considering she met Peggy while they were BOTH recuperating in the hospital, I doubt she has never been defeated, especially when she was first getting used to her powers and the risks/benefits from different configurations thereof.
I think it’s safe to say we can add winning smile to Vehemence’s list of super powers.
I really don’t know many who don’t smile when they’re winning…Except maybe Vulcans.
Uh… Big V, I hate to break it to you, but your head hasn’t regenerated in order to be stronger yet…
At this point, I’m wondering what DOESN’T make him stronger?!
He strikes me as the type whose probably allergic to dairy.
Uhhhh! Can’t resist…The urge is too strong…
Sorry, but I have to try milking this pun for all it’s worth.
I’m feeling a little cowed by all this.
I’m udderly shocked – this thread should be full of the cream of the most cheesy puns by now.
And someone tell me to stop posting links…
This reminds me to pick up some bread…If I don’t, my next breakfast will lac-tose(t).
That yellow is looking like a lethal shade of very unhealthy.
Strange…It seems to be doing wonders for V’s health…
I don’t know why, but it’s pushing it for me. Not just insta limb-regrow, but it also makes him stronger??? Wut? How does that even work? Okay, it doesn’t have to be rational. But for inexplicable reasons, it sort of falls on the (totally subjective) border of my willing suspension of disbelief…
I hope he doesn’t have any more ridiculously overpowered tricks up his sleeve :| Still very much interested in what his deal is and how he is going to be … well, if not defeated, but how will the Team not get totally screwed over?
I am actually expecting a sort of “And that is what you have to deal with when you deal with me. Don’t stand in my way. Good bye. Exit to the left.” from Vehemence.
It is entirely possible he’s bluffing about the regen making him stronger. If I were in a super fight I’d try my damndest to look unstoppable no matter how many levels of bad I was feeling like, because psychological warfare is a thing. He might have regenerated an arm with a different structure, which might be able to exert more strength, but I seriously doubt he came out of that regeneration with more vehemic energy than he started it with.
My guess (back in the earlier comments) is that the arm, teeth and eye are composed of material from the demon realm, like the magic part of Dabbler’s sword. But taken from some place where vehemic energy is naturally stored. That gives him regeneration and a power boost in one shot. No proof of course, we’ll see what happens.
PHYSICALLY stronger, even though it uses up energy. Also, losing a limb is probably one hell of a lot of energy to get in terms of vehemic power, so it is probably close to even.
I wonder how long it takes for Vehemic energy to start draining if nobody is attacking and if Vehemence doesn’t attack anyone.
Do you really think Vehemence is going to just sit by while they time it? Or do you think he’d rather just * commit more mayhem ™ * with or without them participating?
O.o
That raises the question:
Does it count as violence/vehemic action if Vehemence is only swinging and never connecting?