Grrl Power

Nope, that's more of a Doylist failing to show how spread out the fighting has become. (The degree to which they do it is a lot smaller than you think.) But yeah, the comic does have that as a flaw.

There's a much bigger weakness though, one that really will be a problem in future situations. I'll let you guess one more time, then I'll fill you in if you're wrong. (Hint: there's a bit of subtle foreshadowing here.)

Anyhow, yes, Vehemence is somewhat living up to his billing. Although if he was as smart a fighter as he's apparently supposed to be, he'd focus on each opponent for long enough to actually take them out of the fight. I'm not sure if he's dropped any of the heroes yet, except maybe Stalwart.

But if he takes down an opponent, that means one less person to fight...

So his Blood Knight tendencies may be overcoming his Combat Pragmatist intelligence.

Well, since there are no other guesses...

If you look closely at the team as a whole, they are far too dependent on overpowering enemies through raw force. Lots of physical brawlers, lots of blasters. It's equal parts an issue with the power sets of the team and the mentality that some of the team members have.

Look at some of the major obstacles they had to deal with, all of which couldn't be brute forced.

• Knife Speedster: Disrupted multiple other heroes, Dabbler slowed him long enough for Harem to take him out.
• Jabberwokky: Defeats Math with the power of sexy, gets out-sexied by Dabbler and turned against the enemy.
• Gamma radiation issue: Dabbler's Omanyte gadget stopped it.
• For Whom The Death Tolls: If Sydney hadn't identified his powers with Harem's help, he would have likely wiped the team out.
• Teleportation escape: Vehemence himself stopped it. None of the heroes were in a position to.

Notice a pattern? It's the same three people actually handling the bigger problems, not counting Vehemence, and they did it through subtle methods and analysis. Of the other team members who didn't handle these problems, the only one who actually didn't try a brute force solution (Heatwave) got quickly taken out.

This wouldn't be a problem, except that given what we've seen of Maxima so far, she tends to value that kind of brute force approach, since that's how she deals with most of her problems. The PR "blow up a tank" stunt showed that much. She wasn't trying to show off that Arc-Light can handle any problem. She was showing off that this group can overpower any problem. Which doesn't work when you run into things that can't be handled with raw power.

I can't say that I entirely disagree with your evaluation of the team. They tend a bit towards Shock and Awe in their powerset.

New comic, Let's get ready to rubble where Vehemance seems to be fairly readily fending off the team and he's unimpressed by Maxima. I'm willing to see where this goes.

Love Sydney's "tumbleweed"

One notes that someone as strong as Vehemence can apparently feed some momentum back to Sydney through the tentacle, even from the other side of her force field.

Given that the tentacle originates from just outside the field, and that she had no trouble throwing him or Anvil around before, I'm going to say that's less Vehemence throwing her off and more Sydney being Sydney.

A pratfall would be dramatically appropriate, after all.

Unstoppable force, meet Maxima’s face

*sigh* Not looking good for this battle to get interesting. Although, if Vehemence shows some smarts, I could see the possibility for forcing her to allocate her points elsewhere to lower her protection, then getting a shot in.

edited 16th Oct '14 5:08:51 AM by FuzzyBoots

Did we know Maxima's blood was blue?

No. Read the writer's notes below the strip for some details.

Dirty Pool

It's a clever ploy. Vehemence apparently has less bullet-resistance than Superman based on the recoil and the blood, but, unless he managed to squint at the last minute, the bullet seems to have bounced off of his eye. And Maxima is making a good choice of upsetting his footing so that he lacks leverage to apply his strength.

Adding Injury to Injury

Vehemence sees getting shot by a sniper-bullet as equivalent to a finger poke apparently, although he's still keeping that eye closed. Oh, and Sydney gets to call Maxima out for ignoring the prior advice about looking at what's behind the bad guy before attacking them. This might be where the "overwhelming force" aspect of the team starts to trip them up...

Maxima's hits are apparently winding Vehemence, but he's still snarking her. What are the odds that he gets to deliver a line like "My Turn" soon?

Except he already had his turn and she was unimpressed. This is basically a fight between the Grey Hulk and Superwoman.

Well, despite her bluff, he may have registered that he broke her nose. And her effectiveness is very dependent on her distributing her energies just right at any given moment. Meanwhile, he's nothing if not cocky.

We also don't know yet if he has any ancilliary powers that he hasn't chosen to mention. Bricks in this comic seem prone to that, what with Super Hiro's sonic absorption and Stalwart's density control.

edited 23rd Oct '14 3:17:58 PM by Spindriver

Pylon-Driver

Fillerish panel. Maxima has no issue hitting a downed opponent and canonically has the minor power to dramatically shade her face.

Anyone else thinking (and maybe hoping) that Vehemence may have a basic Hulk-variant power set; the more angry and excited he gets, the more powerful he gets? It kind of fits his name, and a large part of his attitude.

Well yes. I stand by the above theory.

Direct link to today's comic

Yay! Not so much of a squash match!

New strip is up. Not much plot development, but Vehemence is now looking less battered than max.

edited 3rd Nov '14 4:08:08 AM by Spindriver

Power tattoos have gone green. I'd hate to see what happens if some of the comments on the comic are right and he can shift further (to yellow, orange, or even red).

Today's strip is up. I think that I can say that I came close to calling that one.

And I like how Vehemence combines genre savviness with actual knowledge, and can slip some snark into the middle of his megalomaniac dialogue. His left eye still looks bad, though.

I knew it. In retrospect, his name combined with his urging them to keep attacking made it obvious.