SFP

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  • Lysiuj

    Well this is lovely.

  • w1ll20

    look at all those cuties

  • Abel Undercity

    What’s appropriate montage music here?

  • AdamBombTV

    …I wonder where Rita is moving to.

  • Wahahaha

    Why is she paying someone to move her stuff. Just put all of it into a big box and carry across the city. Save your stupid money what kind of college student are you

    • juleslt

      We saw her moving her own boxes in the previous page, so the moving company is probably for the others.

      I notice that those box must be really strong, too, considering how localised the force to lift all that weight must be (Al’s hands)

      • Lysiuj

        I think they’ve already established that when she lifts things it’s an extension of her TK field, so it doesn’t matter where she holds it. Remember how she lugged around Lisa’s big-machine-thingy by its corner in chapter 5?

        • zarawesome

          It would still be like carrying a big open umbrella.

          • Lysiuj

            Huh?

          • Weatherheight

            This is someone clearly expecting normal physics in a situation where they don’t apply – i.e. action / reaction via TK, not understanding that TK nearly always violates this aspect of physics, even in a situation when it appears that would apply.

            It takes practice to set aside those expectations.

          • Lysiuj

            I assumed as much, I just didn’t understand the example. (I think I do now, though – that if you hold a large umbrella by the tip of its handle it’ll be hard to keep it balanced. But yeah, in this setting physics are, if not completely disregarded, then at least played with.)

          • Lisa Izo

            Most superpowers violate the laws of physics. Superstrength beyond a certain amount, superspeed beyond a certain amount, flight without the need for lift or thrust, etc 🙂 It’s one of those things where you just try to have a suspension of disbelief as long as the story has some sort of internal logic to which it stays consistent (the speed force, the biomatrix, telekinesis, etc).

        • martynW

          Yeah, it’s kind of a universal trait in superheroes. It’s why Superman can lift a battleship without simply punching right through it.

          Or catch somebody falling from a building by standing on the sidewalk and catching them, which in real life would be like falling from a building onto two steel bars.

          Extra credit to original Superman movie where Lois falls from a building and Superman flies downward with her for a bit to slow her down. Yeah, moviemakers, one guy out in the audience noticed. Nice work.

          • Weatherheight

            Two, at least. 😀

          • Lisa Izo

            Actually I think with Superman it’s not TK, but it’s something called the Kryptonian Biomatrix, which does pretty much the same thing. Cadmus was unable to duplicate the biomatrix so instead they did the next best thing, which was ‘tactile telekinesis.’ There’s a great webcomic called GrrlPower where one of the main characters, Maxima, does something similar as well, but they call it Zero point telekinesis (telekinesis only for stuff that she’s directly touching) in order to keep things together or to be able to pick up a truck by just the bumper without it getting torn off from the weight of the truck.

            And I think The Big Bang Theory had a whole big argument about Superman catching Lois 🙂

          • martynW

            We nerds work so hard to avoid the word “magic,” don’t we?

          • Dwight Williams

            You aren’t wrong on that.

          • Kid Chaos

            “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a completely ad hoc plot device.” 😜
            –David Langford

          • “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.”

          • Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

          • Lisa Izo

            I will never say the reason is ‘A Wizard did it’ unless we’re talking Harry Potter-verse. 🙂

          • Grrl Power just did the girl falling off a building thing with Harem catching Krona – who got a sore shoulder out of the deal.

          • Lisa Izo

            Yes but Harem has a little ‘cheat’ for dealing with momentum that she describes to Sydney so that all that Krona got was a sore shoulder instead of anything worse 🙂 She just has to catch Krona a few times while falling to slow her momentum. I think DaveB might have also described that in his little blurbs.

          • Eric Meyer

            Look, if you ever want to get into the REAL nitty gritty of superpowers, check out Whateley Academy. The fan-community (and the main authors, as well) really dive deep into all aspects of superpowers.

          • Lisa Izo

            I LOVE Whateley Academy.

  • Tylikcat

    Everything is better because Amanda is here.

    • Weatherheight

      This is so much better at expressing my delight with the return of Amanda than anything I could have said.

      • Arkone Axon

        I still want to see Amanda go back into superheroing. You don’t need to punch bad guys to do heroics – and there’s a LOT you can do as an aquatic hero. Especially with all the fracking and the crap that companies are doing offshore. I met a very interesting fellow at a party a few weeks ago who used to work as a diver for the oil rigs. He actually worked on that BP oil rig that exploded a few months before it went boom. (and he agreed that the problem is the oil company executives are total jerks towards the employees. There are safety regulations and procedures… and the standard instructions are “ignore them, or we’ll employ some other subcontractor who’s willing to do it.”)

        • Static Actual

          You’re totally right, but the argument could be made that she IS in the process of superheroing, just using her finely-honed skill with the Ancient Art of Accounting instead of her anomaly.

          • Lisa Izo

            Yes I will have you know that accountants are superheroes. All accountants are superheroes. I know many. They wear capes when no one is looking. When they engage in audit battles with the IRS, it’s like Marvel’s Civil War. But less infuriating.

          • Dogwood

            I’m being reminded of this Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic. http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3840

          • Lisa Izo

            I see your SMBC and raise with another SMBC.

            Although yours is much better and I would never want to run into Speedsheet in a dark alley.

            http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20070423.gif

          • Arkone Axon

            This is why I miss City of Heroes. They had one NPC in particular who had the same power set as Cypher from the X-Men (1980s, before he was killed). Except instead of getting sent into battle and dying because “translate any language or code” isn’t quite going to cut it against “super strength and energy blasts,” this guy worked in a nice office where, when he wasn’t giving assignments to more violently inclined heroes, was deciphering ancient texts, decrypting intercepted transmissions, and all kinds of useful and valuable things.

            Of course, CoH really demonstrated just what superheroes can achieve when they cooperate and work with responsible authorities. Their portrayal of police was just awesome (some were armed with just pistols… and some had powered armor and some were metahumans with badges, and they had no problems teaming up with licensed and registered members of Hero Corps…)

          • Lisa Izo

            Never actually played City of Heroes. I got the game, then just kept it on the shelf until the MMO stopped running. I was sort of busy playing games like Asheron’s Call.

            To be fair, one of my favorite superheroines is someone who only has the power of being a genius hacker, information broker, expert escrima fighter … and librarian skills. Technically speaking, Barbara was far more important as Oracle, doing things that usually required no action at all, than her entire time as Batgirl.

            And she wound up doing stuff like beating Brainiac and, for a while, running the Justice League.

            Oracle, ladies and gentlemen. Oracle :). Probably DC’s best hero ever, even if the rationale behind how she becomes one is actually one of my LEAST favorite comics ever – The Killing Joke.

            I don’t care how much people rave about it. I found it awful and the ONLY good thing that came of it is Oracle. I hate the comic itself more than any comic except Marvel’s One More Day series and DC’s collective Cry for Justice series – which are the ones I hated the MOST (why did they have to kill Lian for no good reason?)

          • Arkone Axon

            Gonna make two posts here:

            City of Heroes had a fun aspect where you could choose your origin from one of five options: Natural, Mutant, Magic, Science, and Technology. It had some influence on game mechanics, but it also had a big influence on the roleplay aspects of the characters. Here are some of the characters I made that you might have liked:

            Mui Thai: Natural Origin, a retired kickboxer who became a superhero because he was bored. Eventually developed powers as a result of interactions with various entities, giving him a Dragonball Z kinda feel.

            Bezek: Science Origin, an electrical engineer working for Union Electric (the utility company) who competed in their annual invention contest and won a second job as the corporate mascot with his electrosuit. Which he further upgraded with antigravity+jets+wings for exceptional flight ability, various gadgets, and of course the things he could do with electricity (most of them involving many Megajoules of offensive force)

            Buttersting: Natural Origin, a lady boxer who was working out in a gym when some metahuman bank robbers on the lam broke in to take hostages. Police arrived in time to save… the robbers, who were cowering in a corner as she beat the crap out of them. Then Bezek built her a suit to further augment her abilities.

            Tubal Kain: Magic Origin, a young black genius who made his own magic sword and armor, like a mystical Iron Man. Or like a Skyrim character who maxed out Smithing and Enchanting.

            Mountebank: Natural Origin, a stage illusionist who would use sleight of hand to trick bad guys into ending in prison, in custody and disarmed, and a stunned expression, “…How did he do that!?”

            Cthulhuspawn: Magic Origin, the result of the events featured in a documentary/hentai. Her mother’s family fled Japan for America, her eldritch sire followed, the California Supreme Court awarded the mother full custody and ordered Cthulhu to pay child support. Eighteen years later Daddy’s little girl would skip her merry way into a building full of bad guys… and screams would be heard…

            Goblin Girl: Magic Origin, an archer with a magic quiver full of an unending array of trick arrows. Claimed to be a special operative sent by Kris Kringle, because the coal in the stockings wasn’t cutting it anymore.

            I had others… I’ve forgotten most of them, actually… but those were some of the ones whose backstories I was proudest of.

          • Arkone Axon

            Second post:

            Regarding Oracle… I agree. In fact, I wish they’d kept her as Oracle instead of having her go back to being Batgirl. I do NOT mean that she should have stayed in the wheelchair, mind. I mean that, even if she was swooping around fighting bad guys, she should have continued to do so under the identity of Oracle.

            Batgirl was just a Batman ripoff, a fangirl’s creation that was very much a… Batmanette, a Batman-lite. Whereas Oracle… imagine how she could have played that up. With a cape with high tech feathers to give her optimal lift to enable gliding and limited flight, more agile than Batman ever was. Imagine her glaring at crooks while they cower before the all-seeing gaze of Oracle… while she’s secretly running a facial recognition program, before she addresses them by their names.

            “Marley Kroger…”

            “Oh, gawd!”

            “What would your daughter say, if she found out you’d gone back to the life?”

            “Oh gawd… please, don’t… she doesn’t know, please, I just… I needed the money to pay for her school… please, don’t tell her, I’ll tell you anything, just don’t let her find out…!”

            Seriously. Batman can pull off the scary threatening interrogations because he’s absolutely deranged and they know he genuinely WANTS to follow through on his threats. Oracle… it’s like with Patrick. Imagine Oracle interrogating crooks just by threatening to tell their families…

          • I think she should have stayed in the wheelchair. Do you know how many of my friends who are mobility-impaired really loved Oracle BECAUSE she was a superhero in a wheelchair? Well.. like one. But other of them loved her for other reasons, but ALSO because she was a superhero in a wheelchair. Having a handicapped hero was really important to a lot of people.

          • Arkone Axon

            That is a good point. But… Batman also had HIS spine broken, and yet he was able to recover. It was considered a double standard to let her remain crippled when her male counterpart was on his feet again by the end of the story arc, in a world filled with magical and technological curatives for spinal injuries.

            Though that could be an interesting way to play it, if Oracle were to regain her mobility in the same fashiong as Mantis – a short lived superhero from the 1990s with his own TV show that just didn’t do the concept justice. He was a brilliant black scientist and medical researcher specializing in neurological injuries… and a paraplegic. But when he put on his special M.A.N.T.I.S. suit of his own devising, he could not only walk but had superhuman strength and agility, coupled with his wrist mounted dart launcher that fired a paralytic neurotoxin (a deliciously nonlethal alternative to the gory and murderous methods used by too many 90s characters during the X-treme! decade).

            Of course there was also Iron Man – Tony Stark spent much of the 90s as a paraplegic who hid the truth using cybernetic implants coupled with his suit’s technology. It was a return to the original concept of him as an arms dealer who seemed every inch the rich, successful, untouchable paragon of the elite, but was secretly filled with pain, weakness, and compassion for others. (As Stan Lee put it, the idea was to make a character who embodied everything the hippies hated, and make them love him. “The shrapnel in his heart… he literally had a bleeding heart…”)

          • Merle

            I just miss City of Heroes, period.

            Part of my heart will always reside in Paragon City.

          • Mackenzie Dotson

            I read superman’s dialogue in kronk’s voice

        • Tylikcat

          Back home (Puget Sound generally, but I’m thinking of Seattle from when I was living on a house barge* in particular) there was a pretty big community of kayakers who took advantage of the maneuverability of their craft to keep an eye on *everything* that was going on along the coastline. (Illegal dumping being the one that stands out in my memory.) We’d also get schools of kayakers coming around at the holidarys singing carols – all of us on the wharf communities would give them cookies and cider. One of those weird, magical things that you kind of have to be there for.

          All that being said, I support Amanda in choosing whatever path she wants, personally.

          * http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/tylik/492442/1979/1979_original.jpg
          Yes it’s very pink. Hey, I was renting it from a Taiji student 🙂 I miss the housebarge so much.

          • Lisa Izo

            That is an incredibly pretty and precious looking houseboat.

          • Tylikcat

            Isn’t it just? I really hope I have a chance to live on one again. Really, no place has suited me better.

          • Jac

            Yoooo, I just moved to Capitol Hill!

          • Tylikcat

            I was born and grew up on Capitol Hill!* I’m off in Cleveland for science at the moment, but will probably make my way back eventually 🙂

            * Though it was a different Hill then!

        • I think there’s a strong case for establishing that biodynamics are normal people and don’t have to be superheroes. Valkyrie is pretty much about establishing people have a right to live a normal life without fear.

          • Lisa Izo

            I can’t agree with you more on this :). Sort of wish Alison had the same mentality though, with how she rags on the bird girl reality star for never putting on the cape, or what happened with Max.

          • Weatherheight

            One of the things I love about Anne McCaffrey is her “Pegasus” books – they take enhanced ability and explore its marketability.

          • twenty_fifth_night

            Have you read her Damia/Rowan books(The Tower and the Hive series)? They’re all about the commercialization of telepathic and telekinetic abilities, it sounds pretty similar. I think the Pegasus books are the only ones of hers I haven’t read yet…

          • Weatherheight

            Indeed I have – It’s been so long since I’ve read the Tower & Hive series and the Pegasus books. I *think* there’s a link between them, but as it’s been so long, I’m willing to believe I’m wrong on this. I think the Pegasus books introduce the concept of using generators for more power for TK, which is the core mechanic for the Tower & Hive series.

      • Lisa Izo

        Maybe Amanda, having actual practical knowledge of accounting, figured a way for them to be in business without the ‘We have no money auuuugh’ worries 🙂 I like the character…. a biodynamic person who also has practical knowledge that does not, in any way, rely on being biodynamic (unlike most of the biodynamics we’ve seen in the comic so far). It’s a nice twist.

    • Markus

      My favorite ship is Amanda + a pleasant life we get to watch unfold.

    • Jac

      I didn’t realize how much I liked her until she reappeared. <3

  • JohnTomato

    It’s officially sign hanging day. See Questionable Content for their sign.

  • martynW

    If Lisa made that sign, I can’t wait to see it at night.

    • Weatherheight

      Some girl with psychic powers, she said “T-bone, what’s your sign”
      I blink and answer “Neon,” I thought I’d blow her mind.

      You ask so many questions, what answers should I choose?
      Is this really Butte, Montana or just existential blues?

      • Lisa Izo

        Okay, I commend you for that.

      • martynW

        Ah, a refreshing and welcome “Dr. Demento” flashback…

  • Loranna

    Huh, Lisa and Alison match, color scheme wise.

    I hereby declare, using the full power of this armed and operational WMG Station, that “grey and off-white” is meant to be the Official Valkyrie SuperGroup Color Scheme, to be worn by any and all members of this nascent organization! Amanda’s Color-Coded Waterproof Armband, clearly, is still in the mail – or else it’s in her carry case and she just hasn’t gotten around to putting it on yet, due to entirely-reasonable worries that some other commuter would attempt to pinch it so they could sell Authentic Former Superhero Memorabilia on E-Bay.

    Loranna

    • Lisa Izo

      For a second I thought you were talking about me and checked my clothes…

  • Hiram

    That nail is going right in someone’s foot.

  • Jac

    I like her little necktie. Cape throwback <3

  • Anne Onymous

    So why is she using a name that has strong nazi connotations?

    • Darkoneko Hellsing

      uh, what ? it isn’t.

      • It has weak Nazi connotations: not strong ones, but not utterly obscure ones, either. The Nazi command had a strong preference for Wagner as a symbol of Aryan civilization and, through him, were a bit fixated on Norse and Germanic mythology. They liked Valkyries in particular as embodying the feminine Aryan ideal. It was a thing.

        The current crop of neonazi fascists seem to like Norse mythology even more: the Sons of Odin are a real group of active neonazis. And Bannon, as an example of someone a tiny bit more mainstream than Stormfront types, calls the team of young women who work for/with him his Valkyries. (I’m not sure that was public knowledge before SFP used the name, though.)

        But I think it’s a stretch to imply, as Anne Onymous does, that the Nazi connotations overwhelm all of the many other cultural significations that the Valkyries concept evokes. The Nazi connotations of the swastika definitely put that symbol off-limits in non-Buddhist communities, but Valkyries have too much history in Western culture, I think, for the concept to be lost to fascism.

        • Tylikcat

          Especially since it’s pretty hard to get past the male supremacy in Nazism.

          • Arkone Axon

            …Uh… no, they killed plenty of men alongside the women and children. They were definitely quite progressive and fair-minded when it came to their genocide.

            Or if you’re talking about their chain of command… they were actually about as progressive in that regard as the United States was at the time. Yes, they were expected to be homemakers… much like in the United States. But they still got plenty of stuff done:

            http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2432620/Hitlers-Furies-The-Nazi-women-bit-evil-men.html

            “Their defence was often to play the helpless woman card and blame the men. ‘I was just a secretary,’ pleaded Johanna Altvater… Her speciality — or, as one survivor put it, her ‘nasty habit’ — was killing children. One observer noted that Altvater often lured children with sweets. When they came to her and opened their mouths, she shot them in the mouth with the small pistol that she kept at her side.”

        • Dwight Williams

          A lot of freelance talent drawing cheques from Marvel went to a lot of effort to pry the Valkyrie name loose from that madness. Some did it consciously, others not so much, but the result – I hope – remains…

        • Lisa Izo

          I thought Operation Valkyrie was the July 20th plot to assassinate Hitler that failed because the desk was SLIGHTLY thicker than they expected and they put the bomb on the wrong side of the table leg or something.

  • That necktie – I was wondering how it meshed with the rest of Allison’s outfit, especially because looking at Lisa and the interior design of Valkyrie for comparison it’s pretty obvious that Al dressed to match. And then it hit me. It’s a teeny, tiny red cape. Look how it moves with her when she flies. Accessory as a metaphor (or as a nod to the connection she just felt with her past-dream-self).

  • ConspiroBot

    Something fishy about this whole situation.