Grrl Power

Oceans X and Analysis Paralysis

Makes sense to me.

Gotta go with Ingsol on this one - sometimes, you just have to act on what you think is best but prepare for the worst, regardless.

Besides, Sydney, if you're going to go that route, you might as well prepare for an attempted Xanatos Gambit. Sometimes, your best hope is that you're not in zugzwang.

Yup, total trap, albeit one which I feel Maxima and Sydney ought to have little trouble combating. Although, the self-destruct could get really messy on this one... tight spaces and the one way out very long and probably easy to collapse...

Sciona seems to have a thing for oversized walls of pain.

Action scene. Nothing much of import as a result of this being a reduced two page spread.

http://grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2621

God dammit Max

I'm somewhat wondering if Max is just bluffing here. It sometimes helps to suggest a weakness that doesn't actually exist, particularly if you suspect that the enemy is probably watching (and I certainly would suspect that here).

The supernaturals are taking an ego hit.

And is it just me, or is there a site redesign going on?

If there is a redesign, I'm not seeing the elements of it yet.

Also, I'm with Ingsol in the last panel. Plus, with security regarding locking up some of the most dangerous magical artifacts in existence, I think security is like dakka - never enuff.

I'm getting no sidebar, and the space for it is on the left, not the right.

Huh... if you mean the sidebar where the "who's who" and some side banners usually sits, that's on my screen, and on the right (like usual). Not sure why that might be popping up differently for you.

I switched computers and it's the same as always. I suspect a particular security toolbar. Wouldn't be the first time it's done things like that.

Sweet Murgatroyd! Fun expression.

Side note, I wonder what Sydney being able to smell things outside the bubble means about its actual permeability...

I'd assume that she's got into the habit of blipping the bubble from time to time when she feels safe, just to avoid suffocation.

I just did a deep dive into the use of "Murgatroyd" as an interjection. And... huh. Seems Ingsol has a fondness for fiction that I would not have predicted.

Give his age, he might just be a Bert Lahr fan. Or Ruddigore for that matter...

I still feel like the "smell things through the shield" thing is going to become significant somewhere, if for no other reason than that the comic starts by pointing out pitfalls of being able to sense through a shield and what that implies about permeability. I suspect that her shield probably screens for poisonous gasses while letting through the aromatic bits, but that still means she's affected by stinky things, which can be its own weapon.

Unless, you know, she doesn't actually have her shield up right now, which seems to be the case since there's no clearer spot around her that's smoke-free... in which case I'm just blathering.

Both possible, though the Ruddigore explanation seems a little thin given that Murgatroyd is used as a family name and not an interjection in that play. Still, it's kind of hilarious to imagine the centuries-old vampire watching any of those.

Poor Cooter...

The next question is whether the security systems immediately turned him back into that blood.

Yeah, I'm getting the sense that Asshole Victim is very close to getting a new entry.

Alternatively they sent him in first because he is a vanilla human and he is outside the system's threat parameters and is only currently (with given values of currently appropriate for a serialised flashback) being targeted because of the residual magic from his method of entry.

Not that I'd be shedding any tears if he was blasted back into chunky salsa. But there has to be a reason why they recruited him and sent him in first.

Could also be this is a sort of a Magneto gambit where there's something in his blood that will neutralize defenses, maybe he's been injected with silver or weaponized nanobots or something.

Or, heck, a Xanatos Gambit by Sciona - she knows that one of those three is correct, and sending Cooter first establishes which one without risking someone who might actually be valuable.

Alas poor Coot. And indeed, something in the blood, albeit more active than what I was thinking.

Looks like @1371 was closest to correct. Though given the author's note in The Rant, I think I was correct in saying that Asshole Victim is appropriate here... just that it was all Sciona's fault.

Looks like Sciona forgot to mention to Coot that his role was ablative pointman