Grrl Power #879 – Immovable grapple
He’s scratching his cheek, but I don’t think his cheek can itch. It’s probably an affectation.
Achilles would be a real pain in the ass as a grappler. There are certainly beings who can simple muscle him off, no matter how good of a lock he gets, but short of someone exceptionally strong, there’s no real way to shake him. Wrenching his pinky or thumb back won’t hurt him, you can’t poke him in the eye or kick him in the nuts. Well, you can, but it won’t help.
Of course, the fact that he is so potentially effective as a grappler is something Maxima has encouraged him to pursue. She was keen to impress upon him that drawing fire, while useful, is an underutilization of his abilities. He counter-suggested grappling people while clutching live grenades, as a sort of non-suicide bomber, at which point Maxima referred him to Doctor Frost.
“I meant flashbangs?”
I wonder when the last time the Human Torch was choked out. Sure, high level villains like Apocalypse or Darkseid could throttle him with little effort, but they don’t strike me as grapplers. Besides the high tier antagonists, anyone fire based could swing it. Maybe a Sand Guy. Or an Ice Guy. Or an energy absorber or power negator or someone with Nemesis or Asbestos Man. Okay, come to think of it, he probably gets strangled every other comic.
But you get my point. Someone like the Human Torch or Acid Man or Thorn Gal or Cherenkov Radiation Lass probably aren’t prepared for someone to put them in an arm bar.
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This page is so unrealistic; Achilles actually doing something rather than being burried in rubble all fight? How is such a thing even possible?
The fight has barely started, and Times Square can make a BIG pile of rubble!
By not fighting jacks of all trades instead of supers. A super excells heavily at something and can, thus use that something to push anything normal aside, but if one concentrates more at destroying foes instead of overwhelming them pushing aside isn’t something you do. You’re probably a lot more versatile and can thus destroy a wider range of foes, but against Achilles it’s of little use because his power is literally to not be destroyed or harmed in any way.
Against Sconia in her lair he was also pretty usefull.
Right. But you can’t use someone’s own arm to choke them that way for a couple reasons.
1: Try to lay your bicep across the front of your throat. Unless you are a pencil, you cannot.
2: It’s his grip strength vs her triceps and she can push off of the ground with her left hand.
3: She could 2v1 his right hand with her right and left hand (assuming she drops the sword) fairly easily.
Generally what he’d do instead is wrist control her left arm with his right, snake up to wrap her right arm, and get his left arm to complete the choke. Or just do a head and arm triangle from side control.
1. Just managed it. Not hard. Apply enough pressure and the arm might pop out of the shoulder joint.
2. With very little leverage, using the weaker muscles of her forearm. With her own weight fighting against her, on top of his not inconsiderable strength (he can push himself further than any normal person, as he need not fear tearing his muscles).
3. She already dropped the sword, in the final panel, as she started to loose unconsciousness. Combatants do not always use the optimal counter that an armchair fighter spots. The heat of the moment will typically see them react in whatever their go-to response is. in her case, being convinced it was unstoppable, it was to use her sword.
I lost unconsciousness this morning. I generally refer to it as “waking up” though.
Heh, yea, I noticed the superfluous “un”, after hitting the submit button.
I think the difference is that it’s not low across the front of the throat, it’s pushing up under the chin.
Your first point is just not true, the arm triangle choke is super common and uses their own bicep across the throat in more or less the same way.
You’re absolutely right about the second and third points though. Further more it doesn’t look like he’s blocking her right carotid artery at all, and worst of all there is nothing stopping her from turning her upper body away from him.
In the end this is a terrible way of choking someone, and wouldn’t work on a competent grappler, even with Achilles’s minor super strength, but it’s no worse than pretty much any comic book martial arts, and most actual choke holds wouldn’t look great in this panel, anyway.
You do know that he has his other arm free to use on the right carotid artery, or any other necky chocky parts?
I ain’t a grappling aficionado, professional, or anything of the sort, but before you say it’s not blocking her carotid, make sure you take into account that what we see of her far shoulder (her left) is some type of rigid… shoulder-pad-that’s-attached-to-her-arm-instead-of-her-shoulder or maybe some decorative piece or “scary” armor of some sort?.
Her arm is not very visible at all, I don’t think… and depending how/where it’s attached to her arm to begin with, it may be a good 10 degrees or even more off from being parallel. So, her shoulder would be much closer to the ground than a quick glance at the picture might seem to indicate, and therefore her upper arm would be applying significantly much more pressure to her carotid than it would be if her shoulder actually had a four-eye-socketed, two-horned skull incorporated into it.
maybe I’m wrong though
You ignoring one very vital point: she will be starting to panic about loss of breath and consciousness, she doesn’t have the luxury of being able to see how Les is holding her, nor the time to come up with a way to counter it
That all takes time, time that she is running out of
He admits right there that he’s not sure it’s a good grapple. He’s new to this. Give him a break.
No this is amazing.
The author is using them and us alike as draughts in a game of checkers.
People want realism on all fields? Give them an established incompetent character, let the character do your best impression of competence and see people discussing how a competent person does it, write down the helpful points and use them to describe the competent characters.
They think they get to spar with others and you and you stay out of attacks. Everyone is happy and you get bonus points for realism.
I love this!
“1: Try to lay your bicep across the front of your throat. Unless you are a pencil, you cannot.”
Nah, I can do that, and I’m no pencil. OTOH, I have hypermobility syndrome, I can painlessly dislocate my shoulder.
I doubt it was as painless for her.
I don’t mean to be a total jerk, but… she’s not human. Which makes it kinda dumb to attempt to choke her out in the first place, since for all we know she breathes through gills or something. But Achilles can get away with it, since she can’t hurt him even if he fails to choke her out due to alien physiology.
She’s humanoid, with fairly standard human musculature, so it was worth a try.
He announced it, so if it could not possibly work, she could tell him so.
It worked, so it was never dumb.
“If it’s a stupid idea and it somehow works, it’s still a stupid idea and you got lucky.”
Worth a try, as you say, given the similarity of visible anatomy and habitable environment – there are only so many ways for a body to function effectively in a given environment, and most of the other ones would cause visible differences. And even if the choke hold fails to put her out, she’s still held out of the fight until someone can come over and apply restraints.
Has Sydney been visiting the UK?
Yeah, this is why Sydney should never, ever go undercover at a pet shop.
Why does Achilles look so deformed in the current art style?
The last time he was shown (when he got hit in the face with a hammer), and Panel 1 of this one. The last time he was shown his face looked like the hammer messed his face up hard.
This one, his forehead and nose area look like this weird deformed, lump, that doesn’t show when he gets close upped.
Because DaveB is not a machine, he makes art mistakes
No one said that DaveB is a machine or that he can’t make art mistakes. Characters looking deformed or off-model on a regular basis is not a simple “art mistake”, it’s either a stylistic problem or an area that needs improvement. People pointing out stylistic problems or areas for improvement are not implying that DaveB’s art has to be perfect at all times.
This.
And @Guesticus, when we get an art shift, and the character changes drastically. On a page where they get hit in the face. My first thought was (weren’t they invincible?), then seeing how drastically different close up is to distance. It’s like NoriMori said. A stylistic problem.
What is he doing with his mouth in the sixth and seventh panels? It looks like he’s holding his breath (except he’s obviously not), or like he’s trying to pick something out of his teeth with his tongue.
That is covered in the author’s blog above.
The Flying Mountain Rescue Guy is now a real thing!
Ok, ok, I’m sure some other part of the world has probably already done something similar. But this is in the REAL world! Science fiction is becoming reality. Life is imitating art.
I’m torn on this. It looks like it has a lot of potential for Search and Rescue ops, but also a lot of potential for new problems. How many training issues and ongoing injuries are they going to have with the paramedics who would be using it? And how fast can a rescuer safely (and unassisted) shed the suit and access the medical supplies?
And how much does a single system cost? The US throws crazy money at police and S&R units for
toysequipment (a local paper recently reported the county had “never turned down an equipment budget request” which is kind of terrifying), but there’s gotta be a limit somewhere.She’s an alien..
Does she even need air?
Does she have a blood-analog?
Will a choke hold annoy her? Or kill her outright?
Well, she does seem to be gasping for air in two panels
She has already attempted to kill three people already, if she dies, well, too bad
He’s a cop/soldier not a judge, his job is being so competent that as much people as possible survive and the people in the wrong come before a judge including the murderers(especially, because the information you can get from them is the most valuable).
If he has to choose between the life of an active murderer or any other life he’s indeed required to choose fro the former, but he no people he is directly dealing with are currently in direct danger except Detla, so he now has to pay attention to keeping Detla alive.
Another point, Dabbler and Cora explain that the majority of the universe evolved similarly, into a humanoid shape. It stands to reason that similar moves would work – although granted, the different environments mean different physically responses.
Chokes out alien woman, her eyes roll back, a long blue tongue rolls from her mouth as she gasps, suddenly a stream of weird sauce spews from an opening in the tongue and she lets out a long loud moan.
Dabbler: “Um..Achilles not all species have their genitals in the same spot; you just gave what her species calls a “throat job” while holding her down…”
Detla: “check the outfit, I’m into it”.
Achilles: I need a shower.
One of the better options.
Her character design reminds me of Deathknights from World of Warcraft, specifically Draenei female death knights.
Normally superpowers are treated so stupidly, its nice to see them treated so reasonably, like some people are really thinking about how to use the powers against opponents instead of just using them wildly.
Ah Achilles, I can always rely on you to knock out an annoying opponent. Swear every time I read words coming out of him I keep hearing him in a European accent of some sort. XD
Lets talk about what will happen next.
First, what is the situation:
– Halo, Mr. Amorphous and Heathwave are going to meddle with the case.
– Cora has her hands free now.
– Dabbler has her hands free now.
– Dabbler can and could warn the entire team any time she wants.
– Since DEtla is chocking there’s a serious chance Achilles has put her out of the fight with all his hands free, but that could also be the shock.
– Maxima is still under stasis beam.
– The number of alien attackers is still unknown.
– Ray is still fighting.
– Ray’s tour is still lawfully dubious.
– Ray’s ship is still unguarded.
– Stasis pod alien still hasn’t shown up.
– not all aliens are shielded against simple melee attacks.
– some aliens are shielded against reasonably advanced ranged attacks with high tech shielding.
– The mercenaries now know about Cora’s involvement and “condition”.
– The alien with shielding didn’t seem to be afraid that a first strike from someone who’s not Maxima can get her down, because when she did immobilize her she accepted that it happened close to her teammates.
– Heathwave and jiggawatt have shown on national television they can take down serious shielding, but Jiggawatt established it’s somewhat at her limit.
– The team has some experience with aliens, but has not necessary a full database
– Achilles is not visibly wearing the info glasses(but could have contact lenses or commentary earpieces).
– Maxima doesn’t give commando’s.
– Currently the mercenaries are outnumbered by 4 to 3.
– This fight is in a busy city with lots of hostages
– There’re other aliens walking around and potentially causing trouble
– There’re galactic governments that aren’t going to like this.
– Dabbler pulled out a sword to fight the shielded alien.
– Alien tourists have a small tendency to follow supers.
– Since there was an alien ambassador in the council this is also council business.
– The Xenocharchy will not like it if the gal-gal 8 shield ends up in the hands of earth, but the US government will like it.
– If the gal-gal 8 shield ends up in the hands of the US government, SmugD’s plans will lose lots of their power.
– This’s the third third attack in a period of around one year, including the Fel attack and Sconia, which could be considered invasions on US ground.
– The USA didn’t sign any extradition agreement with galactic governments.
– Achilles started with chocking when his opponent was already down.
Second what will this do?
– Halo, Heathwave and mr. Amorphous will probably all spring in to fight the most direct threat(currently stasis gun) unless some high ranking officer temporarily takes over and orders them around or if they’ve a protocol to folllow.
– The Twilight council will want to investigate this and will probably be willing to work together with Arc-Light and all other agencies that will take interest.
– The USA and probably the rest of the world will write a protocol to take down the next invasion.
– The diplomatic talks with the alien ambassador are going to get even more heated.
– Who takes down the shielded aliens is will matter a lot, because if Dabbler takes them down it will be her loot, if Cora takes them down her breaking her promise not to shoot will get used as an argument to claim the shield, if Ray takes them down the laws he broke will be used to get it, if anyone from the team takes them down the USA will claim it as her own spoils of war or law enforcement.
– A similar thing will happen will happen with Ray’s tour bus. There will be a trial in, which Ray gets accused of a lot of things from parking on places this is not allowed to human trafficking to sexual harrasment to unauthorized violence to conspiracy. The US government will try to use this to get their hands on his tech.
– The Xenocharchy and the US will want to give him a trial on their own ground with their own judges and their own jails, they will get in seriously heated arguments about this. One of them gets what they want or there will be compromised.
– There will be a mention of Achilles actions here, but whether or not it will be positive is hard to predict. One can argue that whether or not she survives this is too uncertain(even normal cops and soldiers try to avoid it, because it’s effects are too unpredictable) or one can argue that since the number of aliens and their power is too uncertain his course of action is entirely justified. If I follow the few leads I have about what the American army thinks of this kind of cases, I think they would go with “good boy, you acted fast and steady and held the options open”.
Feel free to add and correct
What I want to know is why everybody is standing around letting everybody else monologue. If the super assassin is going off to the hero about how futile resistance is, that’ the perfect opportunity to hit them in the back of the head with a billiard ball in a sock.
I think that “billiard balls in socks” are frowned upon police equipment. Likewise police hitting a suspect, in the back of the head, would play poorly on video footage. Which is something that would inevitably be captured in a prime tourist spot like Times Square. In fact it is a popular spot for news crews, and a news-worthy event is going on.
Sadly there is more to winning a fight when you are a police officer. You also need to factor in public perceptions, the use of proportionate force (in this case weighing the fact that the suspect is wielding a deadly weapon, against the fact that the only person in immediate danger is utterly immune to any harm).
Finally monologing is an important part of the medium. It turns a brutal no-holds barred brawl into an entertaining match.
Has anybody mentioned that Ray planned this?
Because I’m pretty sure Ray planned this.
Why else is he putting himself between Dabbs/Cora and the one with the stasis beam? He figures they won’t splatter him because he’s “an old friend”, and while they don’t, every second gets closer to someone getting away with Max.
And banter aside, they didn’t splatter him. So the plan is working.
I don’t get that feel, to be honest.
Nah, Ray is just a snake-oil salesman out to make a quick buck. He’d be putting too much risk on the table to engineer this.
Or is that what he wants us to think?
He didn’t plan this, he’s pissed they didn’t include him in their plan though
High level villains like Darkseid won’t ever meet the Human Torch, because they are from a different comic universe.
And while there have been some crossovers, they mostly sucked. There were some “crossovers” where the characters were reimagined versions where the characters (I hate to say ‘heroes’ in this case since it applied to the villains as well) were kinda fusions of two similar characters from DC and Marvel, they were kinda good. But I only saw a couple of those, so either they didn’t sell well, or they were short lived for other corporate issues, or maybe I just didn’t see many because of poor timing on my comics collecting part.
“Wrenching his pinky or thumb back won’t hurt him”
Um…Dave? Wrenching a thumb or pinky doesn’t break grips because it hurts. In fact it often doesn’t hurt, even against normal folks. It breaks grips because it gives you leverage against the grip. It would work just fine against Achilles.
Best page of the webcomic NA
Gotta agree that there are some strong assumptions here that basically humanoid shape implies basically humanoid biology. Or at least that Achilles is assuming that.
BTW, writing as a judoka: if you’re dealing with a human, a blood choke, if you can manage it, is a lot faster than an air choke. Pressure to carotid arteries starts starving the brain of oxygen immediately rather than waiting for the whole body’s reserves to dip. Consciousness goes pretty quickly, with no damage if you don’t hold it more than a few minutes (which is why judo rounds are limited to 3 minutes). However, there are people who have trained to the point where their subconscious will continue applying appropriate counters trying to break free even after they’re out – which is the other reason for the time limit; you may not be able to tell that the clock is running.
The Green Knight gambit? Why not?