PaRARGdox 26
No shower for the wicked: We now have the full complement of Force Magellan on deck… last panel shows left to right:
- The Hierophant (current team leader; able to summon the powers of the Greek Pantheon, but only one at a time);
- Go!Anna (joined last year; able to climb walls, etc; long distance leaps; kick arse fighter and tactician);
- Tros (six limbed Mlabban; very strong);
- Epoch (flying brick… flight, strength, invulnerable);
- Punchin’ Judy (rookie placement straight out of the Academy; strong and invulnerable);
- Ranger Bill (telepathically linked to his nanobot swarm – gives him flight and a multitude of gadgets at his disposal).
You may remember Punchin’ Judy from Lock(e)down… on page 6.198. It’s not uncommon for graduates to get a gig with Force Magellan (or any of the other Forces spotted around the globe), especially if there is a vacancy – in this case it is Vertigo and Hoodoo who are temporarily out of the picture. As we saw at the end of Lock(e)down, Vertigo needed to recover from a significant near fatal injury and Hoodoo decided to take some time to raise her newborn baby. Doesn’t mean we won’t see them this story… but they’re elsewhere for now. Check out the Cast page!
The detention facilities at Force Magellan HQ are clearly considered sufficient to contain Sista Superior… at least for a short while.
Patreon: By the way, should it be a thing that interests you, my Magellan patrons over at Patreon have been getting full previews three updates ahead of schedule. And you can too for as little as $1 a month… 😎
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Next update: Sunday, April 26, 2020: Massacre at Jupiter! Yes, we finally get back to the purpose of the story!! 😁
I really liked PJ’s attitude evinced in Lock(e)down. That sort of devil-may-care feeling probably comes easier when your main power is indestructibility.
Can someone please pay Punching Judy to punch Ranger Bill in the face a bit?
Please?
lol, she might even do it for free!
I don’t really get this. Why?
I suspect his tendency to be perceived as annoying…
I would rather Punching Judy punch the Man Full of Ham. Ranger Bill is a lot less annoying. Interestingly, I never knew that Man Who Can and Bill have similar power sets.
I wasn’t aware they did, except as they both have to do with technology.
TMWC has what amounts to technopathic abilities, whereas RB uses self-invented fantasy tech, but can’t interface with it, he’s just a skilled wielder of it. Though honestly, I have yet to see where Bill’s toys are “fantasy tech”. Everything seems to be pretty normal gear for a superhero world that has robo-mats that can copy superhuman abilities.
Now if he was pulling weird Zodon (a’la PS238) tech out of nowhere, I’d call that fantasy tech in Magellan-verse.
Vaguely similar – The Man Who Can can mentally interact with pretty much all electronic technology (technopathy) while Ranger Bill has a mental connection with a swarm of nano-bots that he can reconfigure to various shapes and uses (in case you’re wondering where they exist while not in use, they form part of his costume; they are capable of increasing/decreasing size as required – when not required they are very, very tiny indeed – more like pico-bots, they draw/release their mass from/into an alternate dimension… what effect that has on the alternate dimension is unknown!) .
That suddenly became LOTS more fantasy tech, thanks.
Grace, so can TMWC interface with Bill’s nano-bots?
Possibly – it’s a lot of bots though!!
Since some higher power decided to wire a constantly (over)active spellchecker into my brain when I learned to read, why not put it to use: colleagues.
Oh, and the department of redundancy department are asking a question about whether there ever are any other sort of briefings than emergency ones in the crisis room.
Oops, the second paragraph can be read as if that was also some sort of problem – not at all, that’s just funny! 😀 And a bit of a question about how the facilities are used, I guess.
Heh, I pondered that myself. But I didn’t want to say “a briefing in the Briefing Room”…
Good call.
I get a kick out of the Hierophant’s unswerving completeness, clarity, and grammar no matter what he’s saying. One of these days he’s gonna utter something like “Coitus between consenting adults but with the contradictory implication of wrongdoing!” as a surprised swear.
😀 I think that is the best swear I’ve ever seen! At the very least it is the most grandiose re-wording of the f-word. Also it is strangely similar yet entirely opposite Sydney’s infamous way of swearing… which seems very fitting, for some reason.
You know that one day PJ will look at an old photo of herself in that yellow and puce costume with the straps and face paint, and ask, ‘What the hell was I thinking?’
lol. They can’t all come top of the costume design class.
The panel on Punching Judy as a cadet had her already in costume as a sixth year cadet. What year do cadets graduate from uniforms to their own personalized superhero costumes? Only in sixth year?
From fifth year (there’s only colour coded uniforms for the first four years). They can add the Magellan insignia once they graduate. Years 5 and 6 are able to use code names, which the junior cadets are expected to use when those costumes are being worn, and faculty etc will usually use the code names too.
(This comment is provisional depending on who lives, dies, or whatevers in the current story.) It will be very, very interesting and significant when Kaycee chooses her code name. She got a good look at what her intended “Maverick” identity might be like when pushed too hard or hit with the right (meaning wrong) swerves. Maybe she’ll stick with it and seek a different meaning. Maybe she’ll choose something else based on different ideals. She was still psychically or emotionally committed to the outfit inside the psyche-scapes during Lock(e)down, but that was a year ago, and there’s still another year to go. So the question’s pretty open right now.
Inconsistency alert! 🙂 It has been previously stated, multiple times I do believe, that wearing costumes and using codenames happens on separate years. I think it was costume from fifth and codename from sixth.
So, as I now “understand” it… 5th year cadets can wear a costume and adopt a code-name, anyone junior to them is expected to use that code-name when they are in costume but that doesn’t mean anyone senior to them (including Faculty, etc) has to. For example, we saw that at work in Legacy, where 5th year Zac Breen tells Nadine he must address her by his code-name (see here) … but later on, when he encounters Jade Arrow she (very deliberately) just calls him “Cadet Breen” (see here). Similarly, during the beach battle in Lock(e)down Paradoximan refers to a 5th year cadet, who is in costume, as “Cadet Keyes” – we did see her previously as a (in mufti) 4th year cadet in Bad Karma on page 4.269. So, anyway, that’s the “in-universe” depiction of costumes and code-names. Sixth year cadets are also referred to by their code-name by Faculty, Council, etc… except maybe when they’re in trouble!!
Well, since it was the far-too-full-of-himself cadet Breen, I really didn’t listen to what he was saying! 😀 Probably should remember your comment under that page though. And I hope junior cadets wouldn’t get in any trouble for offending that rule, at least in that particular case. If it even is a rule – maybe the rules just state that you do not get to choose and use a codename until 5th year, whether anyone will call you by it may well be customary rather than required.
Great idea for a Superhero (or, possibly better, supervillain): If you’ve got subtle magical powers, call yourself Punching Judy. If you’ve got the typical superman package, go for Arcana Mystico or something. Your opponents will catch on eventually, but it’ll help you in the first few fights.
I’d like to see Punchin’ Judy put Lita in her place.
I have this feeling that Lita is the way she is because back on her world she’s a runt and spent her life being bullied for not measuring up. So now she’s on a world where she’s a bigshot and its gone to her head.
She’s certainly regarded as a failure in her own society for reasons alluded to in Lock(e)down.
Huh… Punchin’ Judy appears to be turning into the vector for curing social outrage… I had greater hopes for her, but I’m gonna blame her code name, and her direct nature 🤔😉
Poor Lyta! She’s got some issues, but I don’t think she’s the *most* problematic person in her class.
… So, why doesn’t Ranger Bill just have his nanobots clean him?
This is a possibility I guess… but maybe not the same as a post-villain encounter soaking! Ranger Bill just tends to say… stuff…
Is this because he’s from a parallel world where standards of behaviour are different? Or is he just hopelessly gauche on any Earth?
…any Earth. Might get to explain it in a side story… you never know! 😀
I approve this message!😉Developing less-used, or less often seen, characters is *always* a good thing IMO. ‘Course, that’s not so easily done in a cast of dozens.
gotta love a genuinely nice guy with a bad case of foot in mouth disease.