SFP

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  • Dean

    So Alison put too many power points into flight, and not enough into invulnerability?

  • rpenner

    Rodriguez, you know you can trust me until the wind changes — which as a professional fire fighter, that’s something you should always be on the watch for. Now what do you say let’s get this fire ended spit-spot. If we sing about it, it will hardly seem like work at all.

    • Bandersnatch

      Juuuuuuust… aaaaaaa….. spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down…

  • Lostman

    You know, I wonder how Alison would reacted if she meet someone who was a complete monster… and how she would deal with them.

    • Kid Chaos

      Good thing she’s a firefighter, not a cop.

    • Tsapki

      I assume we are looking at something like serial killers? The funny thing is that a good number of those types often chose their victims from people society tends to frown on such as prostitutes, runaways, homeless, etc. Though a roundabout way, they may actually believe they are doing society a favor.

  • Dartangn

    Oh boy, contact telekinesis. I’m having 90s flashbacks. Will Allison’s next outfit feature a trenchcoat and one of those forehead/sideburns protectors? Because that would be rad.

    So. What’s the telepath been developing in the meantime?

  • IgnatuStone

    I’m glad that she’s gone back to being a hero. I like seeing Alison like this

  • Rens

    Dat expression.

    “… Alison, please take this seriously. What are you, twelve?”

  • Blue

    Seems a similar theory to the one used in the abandoned web comic “The fellowship of heros” (http://www.rhjunior.com/comics/the-fellowship-of-heroes/)

  • JohnTomato

    Doc: “Serious science time is serious.”

    Alison: “I’m still a kid, flying is serious fun.”

  • Ralph, the Dire Opossum

    YAY! I think I saw Alison smile in that last panel.

  • danny in canada

    “Invincibility” is not the same as “invulnerability”.

    “Invulnerability” = cannot be harmed. “Invincibility” = cannot be defeated.

    So there.

    • Happyroach

      Has Allison really ever been defeated? Maybe one of her powers really IS “invincibility”.

  • Tylikcat

    This is a cup of good cheer.

  • You know, I’ve never liked this explanation for Alison’s powers … a telekinetic that can’t use their powers remotely to manipulate distant objects isn’t worthy of the title …

    • Huttj509

      “not in terms of application, but in terms of anomaly.”

      Alison wouldn’t describe her powers as TK to laypeople without being misunderstood, but they’re not worried about laypeople. They’re worried in figuring out how things work, and if Alison’s powers work as other applications of what they already have studied as telekinesis, they’re going to use that in their research rather than trying to say “but it’s not real TK so we should just work from scratch in understanding.”

    • Happyroach

      Why do you think she won’t learn to do that?

  • Joshua Taylor

    Okay, that last one made me chuckle.

  • ∫Clémens×ds

    Hopefully it’s just a draft and a serious rewrite to get rid of the over abundance of “I”s and “me”s is in order. There are hardly more telling examples of critical lack in writing skills than this one.

    • persephone_the_wanderer

      No. The “no referring to yourself” rule is just something some dude made up some time. It is perfectly acceptable to not pretend that you’re speaking with the voice of the universe in every sentence.

      …sorry to be so aggro! I have pet peeves about grammar and style.

      • Classtoise

        Isn’t it one of those “rules” like “never start a sentence with and or but”? I.e It’s an archaic rule that one person decided upon and no one really had a good reason WHY so they just ran with it?

    • Richard Griffith

      This is not a graduate paper. If there are no twitter-ism’s in there and most words are spelled correctly it is way above average.

      • KatherineMW

        It’s still a bit personal and definitely too informal, even for an undergrad paper.

        But I think that’s in order to convey Allsion’s real thoughts, not an academic-ized version of them, to the reader. We know that she can write well: her analysis of Greek mythology as applied to questions of how much our choices are really our own, at the beginning of the last chapter, was very strong.

      • ∫Clémens×ds

        …waow is the American system terrifying.

        • Kid Chaos

          And never end a sentence with a preposition!

          • ∫Clémens×ds

            That is something up with which I refuse to put.

  • Shjade

    “That Mary Poppins shit”

    Rodriguez, I like you already.

    I believe several points are in order for all the folks who called TK as the likely explanation for Alison’s powers as far back as at least the strip where she carried that enormous machinery through Paladin’s building? Cheers.

    • Oakreef

      I’m pretty sure Wildcards had a similar explanation of “lots of superpowers are just some version of telekinesis”

      • Zintlions

        I was just about to bring that up myself. A fantastic series.

      • Tsapki

        Mmhm, one of the most famous and possibly infamous Aces was Golden Boy if I recall. Super strong and invulnerable in the form of a golden tk aura his body gave off. Not sure if they explained what seems to be his ageless trait though.

      • Allen Knutson

        In some 1980s comic John Byrne had Superman pick up a building by its corner, as he is wont to do. A watcher notes that the building doesn’t crumble; therefore, telekinesis. But hey, if it’s working for Superman as is then don’t confuse him.

    • Insanenoodlyguy

      I ship them now. Why yes, he would like a ride. *eyebrow wiggle*

      • MrSokar

        Those are some wiggle-worth eyebrows.

    • Urthman

      Is there even any other option besides something like TK for doing a “realistic” take on explaining Alison/Superman-level super-strength and invulnerability?

      • Katrika

        Siberian from Worm has superstrength because of spoilery reasons. The reason she can pick up things without them crumbling realistically, unlike capes who only have strength, is that she can extend her invulnerability into objects and people she touches. She can pick up a car by grabbing the bumper because the car CAN’T be harmed by anything but Siberian at the point she decides to extend her power into it, but it’s not TK.

  • Guilherme Carvalho

    Someone is having way more fun than she thought she would. 😛

  • Pol Subanajouy

    Never stop flying like that. Perplex the evil doers with your inverted, off axis, slightly lazy style of flight. The bad guys will never know what him them. But yeah, I think a lot of us were close to the theory the doctor is laying down here. Diverting power while flying. Al only has so much tk to “spread” around, kinda sorta?

    Also, was that Al flirting with that other fire fighter? I never realized how many avenues of flirtatious word play have been closed to me for my sheer lack of flight and other superpowers. I want superpowers now so I can flirt better!

  • David

    I always like the pages when you get back to the lab and talk about the specifics of the biodynamics.

    Also, if you’re ever looking to bring in a consultant for writing, just let me know.

    Some examples of a character I’ve been writing about for years…

    http://primusdatabase.com/index.php?title=Vitality_-_Origins

    http://primusdatabase.com/index.php?title=Variant

  • Philip Bourque

    I don’t get how she could draw that conclusion.

    • Tylikcat

      It makes a great hypothesis though, doesn’t it?

      By which I mean, in part, that it’s testable and can be disproven.

      (And, in part, for a scientific study it’s a little vague – scope is super broad and all that. But I suspect reasonable for where she’s going with this.)

    • Oh, everyone thinks they’re doing the best thing for everyone. Humans are just really bad at making good decisions.

  • J.Crowe

    That makes a lot of sense, actually, having all her powers stem from psychic powers. I had a similar idea, though the way I outlined it, the powers were more like an exaggerated version of monk powers XD.

    • David

      It’s basically like superman from that one run…tactile telekinesis.

  • Oakreef

    I wanna ride!

    • telk

      The double entendre—intentional?

      (in the comic)

      • Ralph, the Dire Opossum

        Nah, Allison’s very wary about having sex, as she fears that she might accidentally crush her partner in the dance-with-no-pants. (Although to be fair, Rodriguez is quite a looker)

        • Ryan Gauvreau

          Being a TK should help to relieve that worry, in addition to the previous assurances from her doctor.

        • Pol Subanajouy

          “dance-with-no-pants.”

          You. I like you.

        • Kid Chaos

          She could always do it doggy-style.

      • habeasdorkus

        I think that could definitely be construed as in the same realm as flirting, regardless of Allison’s concerns about what would happen to her partner should she bone down.

  • Lucy

    That’s an odd conclusion to make after all that’s happened over the last chapter (re: Alison’s thesis). But, you know, I like it. I like her. I’m glad Alison seems to be having a good time after all that struggle.

    • lizasweetling

      what can we say? she’s optimistic

    • Oakreef

      The thing is everyone we went through in chapter five was trying to help, they just had completely different ideas on what constituted helping.

    • Shino

      Well, really? Because it turned out that everyone she met – Pintsize, Moonshadow, Feral, even Furnace – was trying to help humanity in their own way.

  • AtomicZeppelinMan

    I hear so many people, even those who should be smart enough to know better, who say that “people suck” or that humanity is some kind of uncontrolled plague. Anyone who actually deals with people on a regular basis, especially if it is a wide variety of people, knows that our civilization has done an amazing job of making us care. It took decades for women’s suffrage and civil rights, but only years to get to gay marriage being as popular as it now is. We even give a shit about the well being of cetaceans and great apes. There is a lot going wrong in the world today, but so so much more is going right.

    • Graeme Sutton

      Well yeah, women’s suffrage and civil rights require people to give up some amount of power and accept the material costs that come when you stop exploiting another group for your own gain. Gay marriage just requires that you stop caring about something that doesn’t affect you anyway.

      • AtomicZeppelinMan

        None of us were really gaining anything from the subjugation of minorities and women, we were just fooled into believing it. Same goes for The Gays, their rights do not infringe on anyone else, but to the Bible-Thumper it was important as white supremacy was to their parents and grandparents.
        Fundamentalist Christianity and White Supremacy were the tools the reactionary oligarchs used to keep the White Man from demanding his fair share. A Secular Liberal Democracy is a direct threat to their profits, but mostly a threat to their livelihood of sick addictions and wealth hoarding.

        • MrSokar

          Self gain is probably the biggest motivation in subjugation. There was a lot to gain and still is, just for a greedy minority. Its why slave labor is still used in prisons and incarcerations are so high.

    • Mechwarrior

      Actually, the gay rights movement has been an ongoing struggle for decades. Equal marriage rights are just the latest accomplishment- it wasn’t too long ago that homosexuality was a crime, and in many places “gay panic” laws still exist.

      • Huttj509

        Indeed, the pink triangle symbol dates back to, well, the Holocaust (from a German gay man who was freed from a concentration camp, then put in prison because homosexuality was still a crime).

      • AtomicZeppelinMan

        Which just proves my point on how fast the public has gone on progressive issues.

        • Mechwarrior

          It hasn’t gone any faster than women’s lib.

    • Stephanie Gertsch

      I deal with a wide variety of people at my retail job. I tend to up back and forth on that whole nice/scum thing. 😛 (“you spent the last ten minutes demanding an item be ten bucks cheaper because you misread the sign and the whole time you had a 50 dollar coupon in your purse??? Your total is less than five dollars!”)

    • Geary

      Queer been trying to get equal legal protections and rights in the US for the past sixty years, and we can still be fired for being queer in most states.

  • Shino

    Okay, so how many people called that her power is just TK applied to her body and object she touches? I know I did.
    … Hold on, wasn’t this explanation for Superboy’s powers in DC Comics, tactile telekinesis?

    • Pol Subanajouy

      Yep!

  • Shino

    Also – isn’t this kinda unsafe to make a speed test indoors, without ear protection? What if she breaks Mach 1, who will pay for the windows broken by sonic boom and ear treatment?

    • Ralph, the Dire Opossum

      They can stop her if she gets anywhere near M1, but she clearly isn’t, given that we her face isn’t just a blur.

  • Shino

    Okay, and another thing – if her powers are indeed TK, then she definitely needs to breathe and can suffocate, like, she can prevent smoke or water from entering her lungs, but she can’t magically conjure oxygen to saturate her blood.

  • So she’s got a Champions multipower, and she had to divert points away from the physical/energy defense slot to the flight slot.

    • Happyroach

      And at some point the player will realize “Hey, if I just converted it to a Universal Power Pool…”

      Damn it, don’t make me want to run Champions again!

  • Mechwarrior

    Sorry doc, I couldn’t hear you over the sound of how awesome flying like this is.

  • Prodigal

    It’s good to see her happy.

    • Darkoneko Hellsing

      It really is.

  • Classtoise

    I feel like tactile telekinesis is the laziest source of superhuman strength and invulnerability.

    “But how do you explain things not just snapping in half when they lift them!?”
    Why do you? We’ve already established we’re taking a dump on physics with self-powered flight and lifting several tons! Why do we draw the line at things supporting that much weight? Why is THAT the uncrossable line for so many comics nowdays? “Look I was fine with the dude who created fire that never hurt himself or the girl who mysteriously regenerated constantly without massive amounts of energy used up to do so or the one who could bend light but still see. But lifting heavy objects? Woah now!”

    It feels like such a copout answer. Like, they need a reason to “justify” that level of strength and all it does is look even sillier (“Your invulnerable because rather than ONE type of pseudoscience, we decided to invent a completely NEW pseudoscience!”)

    I dunno, it’s just always struck me as a really roll-eyes sort of power set.

    • Richard Griffith

      Lifting heavy objects but able to walk them up stairs without the stairs collapsing. Alison moved the heavy object across the lab. But there were times when all that weight would have been on just one or her fore-feet. That would have destroyed her footwear if not left footprints in the hardened concrete floor.
      You need the TK not to have to worry about the ancillary problems. They catch their fall on the railing, but the railing should rip out of the wall ….

    • Happyroach

      Why are we assuming it’s ONLY tactile telekinesis? I mean sure, Allison was brought up with the idea that she had superhuman strength and durability, and her TK ability matched it. But then she learned flight. Whose to say that she won’t learn a variety of other applications of telekinesis?

  • fairportfan

    Alison cheerful and goofing around is … kinda scary, actually.

    • David

      She’s clearly gone a bit crazy. Her “inescapable conclusion” after everything she has been through is “That people are nice and good and want to help”.

  • Philip Bourque

    That is one way to look at it. Another is to say they were either selfishly trying to reshape the world into something they wanted or satisfying their own ego. Moonshadow for example, spouted a lot of pretty recriminating words, but she could just be a socio-path/psychopath using those as an excuse to satisfy her desire to kill. It’s not like we have access to their internal monologues.

    • Peter Ebbesen

      It may be just “one way to look at it”, but it is Alison’s; Page 161 and 162 made clear that this was her takeaway revelation:

      Paladin, Feral, Menace, Moonshadow and she, herself, were, in her own words, all superheroes figuring out how to save the world singlehandedly.

      • Philip Bourque

        The comic may have a cynical leaning and bent on challenging Allison’s beliefs, but she remains steadfast in her perception that people are fundamentally ‘good’. I’m sure she’ll find a way to justify her beliefs.

  • lordswedish

    I interpreted it completely differently. The way I see it she didn’t become any less invulnerable because she was flying, she was pushing herself with her TK and when she loses control of it the TK field fluctuated and hurt her arm.

    The doctor says “You were manipulating the force that makes you invulnerable” which seems to imply tjat sje was hit by her own shield rather than her invulnerability weakening.

    • UnsettlingIdeologies

      Interesting! I can totally see that interpretation as well.

      I guess I read it as “You were manipulating the force that makes you invulnerable [instead of letting it do its dang job of keeping you invulnerable]”.

    • Happyroach

      This also implies that with training, she won’t be as vulnerable while flying…

  • Johan

    lol yes Alison, just fly like this XD

  • Kid Chaos
  • deebles

    We should probably do the maths. Fighter jets are built to have as small a cross-section as possible to reduce drag, and they still shatter windows over a wide area.

    • HanoverFist

      Actually, mythbusters disproved that one.

  • This is now my favorite page.

  • Happyroach

    Exactly what her TK is capable of, is an open-ended question.

    And here’s the thought that occurred to me- a child with huge amounts of TK, who’s exposed to her powers in the context of superheroism? It makes sense that she might think of them in simple terms- “I”m super strong, super invulnerable…”

  • MrSokar

    Does anyone else think that training outfit is a great color on Al?