Sydney overdoes things
as usual.
I enjoy the way that the comic works with semi-realism. It's not hard sci-fi, and some things are inexplicable, but they also have physical consequences, like Sydney's force-shield trapping the sand in with her and the shrapnel being dangerous to the audience.
I'm mildly underwhelmed. They seemed to be building up to something spectacularly destructive with the preparations for Sydney shielding everyone and then... she just kicks it up in the air and throws it? Here's hoping next week involves her exploding it with her high-beams...
Ah. And Max follows up. The initial boot/throw was to get some distance just in case Sydney's shield didn't hold up. Her intent was to show such overwhelming power that no one will decide it's a good idea to make trouble.
As mentioned in the comments, this could have side effects in that people are likely to now start wondering if there's a way to stop Max and the other powerful members of the party should they decide they want their own slice of the pie.
edited 9th Dec '13 6:09:26 AM by FuzzyBoots
Fanatical Dabbler
Yuh. Arianna is likely to be thinking that Max is suffering from a bit of testosterone poisoning herself...
= Spindriver =
Two comics later, it's become obvious that Maxima is trying to go from Shock and Awe to Pant-shitting Terror and Arianna is very much unhappy with it.
^_^ Beautiful.
And then someone blows up a city to top her.
Urologist jokes never stop being funny.
Yeah, pretty much all I have to say. Unless they actually go somewhere with this, it feels like a bit of filler.
I'm rather curious as to what everyone is just now noticing about Sydney's orbs... welp, guess that's something to see next week.
The author has been better about occasionally updating on Thursdays, though.
Yeah. He covers that in today's news post. Double comics was a temporary thing he was trying to improve his productivity. Reportedly, it didn't work for him.
“VELOCITAS, INCURSIO, VIS” Yeah, that pretty much fits them.
Aggravatingly invulnerable... but his clothes aren't
Apparently Sydney's orbs employ a skill tree
Oh, and we will be getting double updates until the artist gets a new job.
edited 20th Jan '14 8:44:19 AM by FuzzyBoots
Never Trust
The skill tree also bears a passing resemblance to a Sephiroth.
Trump delenda est
The comments section brings up a lot of good points, such as the question of why some of the nodes are already lit up (is she using somebody else's save file?) and the two lights on the ring in the middle.
{nods} I haven't really studied it in-depth, but the two lit-up bits in the center correspond to the two powers she seems to employ at the greatest power, the force-shield and the flight (viz, how she didn't realize how fast she was flying until Maxima pointed it out, and how her force-shield has so far stopped everything that could be thrown at it).
Well, Sydney seems to be fitting in well. And the Orbs' UI is invisible to anything except for a living eye. Very interesting.
Oh, and he made his goal on Patreon! I had never even heard of this thing before he linked it, but basically he now has enough money to do two comics a week without worrying too much about getting a full-time job.
edited 23rd Jan '14 4:06:27 PM by Discar
Beat me to it! So that I seem vaguely relevant, I'll point people to the high-res version of the skill tree.
And Sydney apparently chose poorly. I think we've all done that when faced with a skill tree situation before. Of course, this could also turn out awesome. Maybe she can finally change what her illusory self appears like.
Huh. Just now noticed, but they actually acknowledged a Level Up when Sydney came to a realization about safeties and deployed the PPO at full blast. Makes one wonder if that's when she got her skill point, or if she already had one or more and invested them into the PPO during the blast.
I think blocking Maxima's blast is what got her the last few bits of XP, but it's hard to tell. My guess is that the orbs are intelligent enough not to bring up the level-up UI when she's "in-combat" (using the orbs, or having used them recently), so it could have happened pretty much any time during the demonstration, and then once Maxima left they were like "Okay, crisis over, here are your rewards."
Maxima some Chessmaster elements, and Dabbler is turned on by that. Of course, Dabbler is turned on by everything.
I'm still betting this blow up in Maxima's face when somebody blows up a city to prove how much more bad ass they are.
Love the series. I'm particularly amused at the commentary in the shower room where the artist indicates that he initially made the main character flat-chested because he was bad at drawing breasts. A friend then asked him why the hell he was doing a superhero comic then.