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Grrl Power #1305 - Save 50% on roller skates
🕑 Added 2024-11-18 11:00:11 +0000 UTCThank you for the support! You guys are awesome!
Is there anything a bossomy hug can't fix? Well, yes, but that's no excuse not to keep trying.
I struggled with the layout of this page because I really wanted to include the above group hug panel on it, but I just couldn't figure out how to fit it all without shrinking other panels to unacceptable levels. So it's a bonus panel. Still totally canon though.
I don't know how it works when you have a catastrophic accident and you require surgery and all that. Sure, in civilian life, the hospital would contact family members and presumably you'd probably have someone waiting there for you to wake up, assuming you weren't in a coma. But in the military, I don't know if they would assign someone to sit there so you get a SitRep the moment you wake up or not. If it's a busy day and there's people rushing around because there was an ambush or something unexpected exploded, they might not have the staff to have someone sitting at your bedside - and I don't even know how critical it is to do that, but I'd think that if someone is going to wake up missing a limb, finding a way to ease them into that new reality would be preferable.
Realistically, I assume in a military setting, you'd probably have a row of cots where a few people can keep an eye on multiple patients, but Maxima pulled some rank as the commander of a dark and mysterious special ops unit, and got Peggy a private room. She obviously didn't drop her off at a field hospital. Max flew Peggy back to Camp Bastion, and not some Combat Surgical Hospital, which is a big half-pipe tent. The modern version of a MASH unit.
I would also fully believe that the military would allow Peggy to wake up by herself, and the only explanation for her situation would be a clipboard with Form MF-40156-b, requisition to replace missing boot.
Of course you really only save 50% on footwear if you know someone missing the other leg. And they have the same taste in footwear. And the same size foot. Not for socks, but it wouldn't help Peggy if she knew a 6' 3" dude missing his left foot. Presumably he'd wear something within ±1 of a U.S. 12, and at 5' 4", Peggy's probably rocking a 6 - 8? Plus women have about a million times the shoe options that men do. Most of which are more painful than most men's shoe options, but still.
I suspect if I was a woman I would have a decent size collection of cool boots. Every time I google women's boots for Maxima reference, there are a ton of cool and/or sexy results. 90% of which Maxima would never wear, but they make me regret not being a transvestite.
Okay, not really. Is it weird that I think about my "if I was a girl" wardrobe? It just occurred to me one day how different most of my life would be if that 50/50 coin flip that determines our sex came up the other way. Not the broad strokes, of course. Me being a boy or girl wouldn't affect where my dad moved our family due to his job, or what schools I went to - at least not through high school. But would I have been into sci-fi and fantasy movies, video games and comic books and D&D if I'd been a girl? It's not impossible, certainly, and I might have appreciated the physique of my He-Man action figure in a different way, but it's probably a lot less likely. All of my drawing came from wanting to draw my own superheroes and Vallejo/Frazetta/Elmore/Parkinson/Caldwell style pictures. Would this comic exist? I think there's like a 10% chance. Of maybe it would be called Man Power, and it would feature a bunch of muscular, shirtless dudes with effeminate faces and dazzling cum-gutters. Sydney would still be named Sydney, but he'd be built like an 11 year old boy... Okay, Sydney wouldn't change much I guess.
Comments
tsukiouji
Reject gender norms for clothes, wear what you think is cool. And there are some amazing women's boots.
Justaguy
Yeah the stuff I'm thinking off is similar to what I had after my crash, though I didn't lose any limbs. It basically holds the sheet up off your limbs so you can't even see the outline of them. Which would have made the loss less initially obvious and made the reveal and impact much more complicated to do.
Michael Strödick
I can't unsee it, I'm sorry! Sydney must have a snake spine. How can she hug Peggy while standing behind her? ;-)
Mathew Aaberg
So not relevant to this page but am in the process of rereading and on page 811 Dabbler has a tail and it is never answered. Please it bugs me not knowing.
eddi_TBH
They couldn't be there, so they are getting in their hug now. And Peggy is under there somewhere smiling to herself.
eddi_TBH
Thank you for getting me to check that.
Mathew Aaberg
True artistic skill to capture raw emotion. And Dave has done it darned near perfectly. Even I was attacked by the onion ninja's
Mathew Aaberg
Panel 8 Captures the emotion perfectly. I suck at reading emotion most of the time and even I can feel the tears welling up. Well done
Merle Blue
The bonus panel is wonderful.
Churchill (formerly TeaBear)
Speaking as someone who has lost a piece of his body, Yes, the Phantom sensation starts at once. I woke up from surgery and couldn't tell it was gone until i looked. The weirdest part is, twenty+ years later, I still get weird "phantom" cramps in that foot.
Louis Richards
For the moment, anyway. There may be something in the skill tree that allows for 'hands free' activation of the orbs, but... definitely not soon.
Eric Loken
Hugs (even non-bosomy ones) are remarkably therapeutic. Why? Good question. Is it human contact when you want/ need it most? That someone is willing to pull you into their personal space in an expression of compassion? Warmth and expression of protection reminiscent of being in your mother's arms as a baby? Something else? Some combination of the above and more? No idea.
Eric Loken
LOL! I missed that, nice catch.
MaxBigfoot
After the sequence where Peggy finds out, I want to hug her too. That's a real heart tugger, Dave.
Terence Bryant-White
I'm imagining an infinite number of people hugging Peggy, and now you can't unsee it either *wholesome snickering*
William Elliott
Dammit, I might not be bosomy, but now I wanna give her a hug too
Dave Barrack
You're assuming that cylinder isn't vaporized creamsicles.
Richard Riley
She does have to have them in her hands, yes. There was a comic way back when where she tried all sorts of other contacts, including settling one in her butt. We do still wonder if some of the ways to give her four arms would allow additional control.
Tim
I am more inclined to wonder when the heavily implied by orb orbit encompassing Xochitl is going to be explored.
Hugh Eckert
I love the ending. And the bonus panel ending.
Sardines are us
FYI: the standard color for oxygen cylinders is green in the USAF (and most other places)
JasonAW3
As a complete aside; I just had a thought... Does Sydney ACTUALLY have to have the orbs in her hands to control their function? Could they not simply be touching her head? Minus any hats or other major obstructions, to a direct connection to her flesh, which might include hair? (Hair being part of her, that is...) Mind you, earlier she might have had that limitation earlier, but as she has advanced, I suspect those restrictions were likely eased off.
JasonAW3
Put simply; Peggy's "family" just grew to interstellar proportiond
Stephen Gilberg
Or a team of mermaids.
Christopher Upton
I have long lamented that women have all the best shoes/boots. to compensate, men get pockets, so we'll have to call that even, I guess?
Manuel Vasquez
If the bosomy hug isn't working, then perhaps you need to hug longer.
Techdragon
Not to undersell the emotional impact of the strip, but the sketch of Maxima punching Superman on the chalkboard in panel 1 made me spray water all over my monitor. Thanks, Dave.
IvyReed
In order for something to be fixed by a bosomy hug I think you need more bosom. Sydney is, as ever, the heart of the team and I love her for that.
Phoenix
In certain countries where limb loss is an unfortunately common occurrence in the military (mines, natch), the protocol is to have a temporary replacement prosthetic in place before the patient wakes up. To prevent exactly the trauma that Peggy is experiencing. It vastly helps the brain transition if you don't have that kind of shock immediately. edit: to emphasize- i say this because I am all choked up and in awe of the page. Its a masterful work of storytelling, thank you!
Zulu November
Not much has changed in the transport arena - had one of my guys get urgently evaced to Germany after an incident that required some pretty intense maxillofacial surgery.
Kizik Ucalegon
The problem with MrrPower is it sounds like a team of angry, crime fighting cats.
Paul Sparks
That's because Max is an officer. If it had been a Senior Non-Com, they would have been told they better be at PT the following day.
Paul Sparks
I can confirm. As medics, we didn't care about any of that. All we cared about was stabilizing and getting the soldier ready to evac. For being just a "civilian," Dave has done an excellent job of portraying what it was like. I can't say how it worked on the Spec Ops side of things, but usually, the casualty would be flown into one of the main hospitals, like Bagram or BIAP. Those hospitals had complete surgical suites. Once the casualty was stabilized for transport, they were flown to Landstuhl or Walter Reed. I was always at the unit level of care and never dealt with anything once the casualty was evacuated. Things may have changed since 2008, when I got out of the Army.
Czarzhan
Just what I was going to comment.
Czarzhan
That might've happened in the hospital after she woke up.
Stefan Schmiedl
It's not "Man Power", it's "MrrPower", see https://youtu.be/-ZVKQpNz0Co?list=PLyv4UuGykKa_6dohUDs6nOB3ZdoTXMWba&t=241
Greg Morrow
If it's like any hospital I've been in, the staff is far too busy to watch patients one-on-one. Peggy's nurse is at the bed of some corporal complaining that their three-inch scrape is a 10 on the pain scale. (There's no way that the military would fly a family member in-country, and there wouldn't have been time to move her to Landstuhl.)
Tie Toter
Her face in those three panels is perfect. Outstanding art.
Dave Barrack
I tried to make it look like there's a triangle tent thingy keeping the sheets off the bandages. But realistically they'd probably use something a little roomier in case the patient tossed and turned.
Michael Obert
It typed comedian instead of comedown
Wyrmhand
And at no point did Peggy say "Tis but a flesh wound"
Brett Peirce
Ok but now that you corrected it, I'm curious what autoincorrect thought you meant to type
Justaguy
They'd probably have a table/desk/tray type thing up elevating the sheet off the newly amputated limb in all likelyhood I imagine. But yeah that's harsh.
Michael Obert
Damn autocorrect, lol. Thanks
Simon Magid
Um. I think you meant 'comedown.' But I agree, it is beautifully done.
Simon Magid
Waking up from a coma in a regular hospital is about that much fun, too.
Jon Gibson
Can confirm that even if you aren't actually alone, being in a military hospital feels exactly like what Peggy is experiencing.
Torabi
Next page really could just be the finished bonus panel. I feel like we could all use a big group hug about now.
Michael Obert
The comedown from the adrenaline and reality setting in 😞. Beautifully captured.
Hephaestus Hugh
The three frames of Peggy are perfect. No words needed.
Zulu November
You might be joking about thw boot requesition form but we've actually had cases of soldiers being hit with FLIPL (Financial Liability Investigations of Property Loss) after being MEDEVAC'd following an IED Blast because they had thier body armor cut off by the medics while being treated..
blackshadow111
At no point did Max say 'Walk it Off' LIES WE HAVE BEEN LIED TO
