This page took forever. I miss the old days where each strip was two guys standing around talking about stuff. These multi-villain action sequences take much longer to draw. Also, there’s a lot of words packed in here.
So, no… Kickman was not “powering up” Succubus in the basement. He was cutting a deal with Tsunami so that she could preserve her street cred after lying to the rest of the inmates about how she got arrested (you may need to go back to the Criminal Minds chapter for a refresher course).
As for the water-splitting, combustion stunt… I have no idea how volatile a reaction you get from burning hydrogen. It may actually be just a weenie little pop. But, lungs are soft, so even Superior Tough Lungs are a bit tender, probably, right? Also, when you burn hydrogen it combines with oxygen and leaves behind mostly water as a waste product, so, there’s a chance that Tsunami will be fine after all that. Good to see I learned something in Chemistry class. Just enough to tip the odds in a super battle.
This battle is still escalating. Stay tuned.
more importantly, the combustion effect will strip the lungs of oxygen. He can hold his breath for six weeks, sure-but how much oxy is his blood carrying when it’s all burned up? you gotta HAVE the oxygen in your lungs to make holding your breath for, like six weeks, worth doing, and that reaction’s likely to also strip some of the O2 from his interior blood vessels. at best, unless he doesn’t NEED oxygen, he’s going to be weakened and disoriented if he isn’t suffering severe burns to lung tissue that reduces his endurance. If Tsunami had any pollutants in her water-form (like salt, or dust from the yard) she can also end up leaving him with debris trapped in the micr-sacs of his lungs, reducing his long-term oxygen intake (and thus, endurance) significantly, in a way his body won’t expel (similar to silicosis or black lung disease). He may end up LOSING his ‘superior endurance’ entirely off that stunt.
An excellent analysis!
Unfortunately, the water-splitting process beforehand produces oxygen as well as hydrogen (about half as much). Overall, it won’t really remove any oxygen from his body, just convert it back & forth.
You’re forgetting the ‘waste’ side-effects, Tsunami in this case is acting as a sort of catalyst-the process of converstion to H and O will include any water already present (such as blood near the uptakes in his lungs and sinuses), not JUST the water of Tsunami, and the combustion will include other effects since the water in the medium isn’t super-pure being as it’s inside his BODY. The inefficiency of the conditions means there’s more than just the supervillain’s water in there, there’s also atmospheric water, carbon (from dust), silicon, and as I mentioned, any pollutants he breathed in or were brought in (and there will be-to get that super endurance means no extra filtration kids). The concussion effects and heat-transfer will also be magnified by the container, and the inefficiency here HELPS do more damage.
The interesting question is whether it would burn, or explode- rapid reaction in a fixed volume which results in the creation of gas should be very explosive.
In addition, he should be suffocating from the inside- no free oxygen left. doesn’t matter if he can hold his breath if there’s nothing for him to aspirate…
I’m glad most people seem to think that the “Heartburn Combo Attack” is a legit move… 🙂
You do realize the Space Shuttle’s main engines burned hydrogen and liquid oxygen, right? That’s a rather energetic reaction, and in an enclosed space, the heat and pressure will be intense. The other commenters have already raised several good points, so all I’ll say is this is a good test of someone’s superior toughness. Ouch. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer *******.
Really? I thought rocket fuel was rare and expensive! You mean that it is literally “1” on the Periodic Table! The most common element in the universe! Defund NASA now!
The challenge isn’t getting the fuel, it’s keeping it under control with a sustained reaction, as opposed to one big BANG.
I’m loving the creativity (and hint of sadism) in the sheet variety of ways that you’re making Superior Man suffer/get educated.
If you want to get REALLY nasty, remember that liquids, when heated, convert to gas and expand. The Superior Loving might get… delayed by a reverse catheterisation followed by conversion to steam…
Matt, liquid hydrogen (LH2) is one of the more common rocket fuels in use, with liquid oxygen (LOX) as the oxidiser. That said, LH2 is difficult to handle and store, for four reasons: One, it requires cryogenic temperatures, and there’s extreme thermal shock when it goes from “cryo” to “lit” in a few milliseconds; that requires clever design to overcome. Two, H2 is a very small molecule and is therefore extremely prone to leakage. Three, “hydrogen embrittlement” is a thing; many grades of metal get very brittle when exposed. Four, it is very low density, and that means the tanks and pipes need to be very bulky. The huge tanks needed mean some rockets use denser fuels instead, especially for the first stage. If I had to guess, I’d say the three most common rocket fuels are LH2+LOX, kerosene + LOX, and UDMH + N2O4 (or MMH + N2O4, or other variations/blends of this). That last one is really nasty chemically… Though recently, there has been considerable interest in liquid methane + LOX, which is greener and safer…
(Sorry, you engaged my work brain. Guess who’s an aerospace engineer IRL?)
I always suspected that Kickman readers were highly educated. 🙂
Hey! Don’t dis the rest of us!
Yet we still can’t guess Superior Man’s weakness.
Hm. Tsunami is not going to like these memories – if she survives…
At least it was a “Heartburn Attack” instead of a “Colon Attack.”
could end up being one anyway, Matt. See, that sudden increase in pressure on the diaphragm might force it to squeeze on the intestines (which do NOT have voluntary muscles to resist that) resulting in ‘superior flatulence’ and if he’s got anything in his lower colon? the odds are the only thing keeping his superior wastes in would be his sphincter muscles, which if they aren’t tensed with superior strength, would fill his superior tights with aftermath of his last superior meal. (the alternative is that his rectum’s muscles are so superior he could literally eat coal and shit diamonds.) I actually imagine Blush might pick up some superior embarrassment if you let nature take its likely course.
I don’t seriously think this is it, but a guess is a guess. Superior Man’s weakness is being called Inferior Man, which brings him down to normal for a couple of seconds. And it can only be used once a year. Superior man, Superior Weakness.
Now for the meta. I bet Superior Man’s weakness is as Superior as the rest of his powerset. Does that mean hos weakness is really, really bad? Or is it Superior by being a tiny weakness? I can’t wait to find out!
Best get your guesses in before one of the heroes or inmates figures it out.
Ironhide, Azure Char and Thunderchief have all been introduced. is Dolt part of a team with Jolt, Volt and Bolt? Comic relief?
He just thought he was supposed to be there because of his name. And probably before they shut off the power dampers, he thought he had similar powers, maybe? Yeaaah… he’s just a dolt.
I gotta ask. Sear-E. Is that a reference to the blue fired Siri from Supervillainous? If so, I must say, I’m well pleased.
It wasn’t meant to be, but I LOVED Supervillainous. I had forgotten about Siri in that strip. I will however award Ladon 3 points for spotting the unintentional Easter Egg!
Also, anyone reading these comments should drop everything and go read through the series Supervillanous! https://supervillainous.spiderforest.com/?comic=comic-1-work-and-family
I too loved Supervillainous. Props for the unintentional Easter Egg anyway!
Hm. I’m going to guess on a tangent. Superior Man gets more powerful by being called more powerful, and his weakness is being called less powerful. So he metas his own power – calling himself Superior Man, becoming better than everyone else, and improving on himself.
The he calls himself Alpha Male, because Kickman has a Rochembeau alphabet advantage. He figures it’s still a win, but there are hidden factors. Alphas don’t take challengers well.
I don’t actually think Sidekick Matt, in comic, knows this. He just wants Superior to be slowed down by Heroic Banter. What if he slows down because the insults, just for a moment, weaken his Superior Branding?
I find myself wondering what would happen if he were called Superior Man the Embarrassingly Powerless. …
Generic Kung-Fu Superhero Sidekick thinks Tsunami can survive being atomised? Are those individual atoms still part of her? The implications! If the atoms are under her control, can she turn into steam and remain in control? Condensing water vapor can implode a steel barrel. I wonder what this could mean as a power.
I think I’m overthinking this.
Well, it remains to be seen if she survived. Assuming that most of the water left behind is still in Superior Man’s lungs, at least it won’t take her long to reform.
That’s pretty cold-blooded of GKFSS to use Tsunami like that, even if he’s ‘reasonably sure’ she’ll survive…
Well, they did mix her with cement once and she survived that…
Well, yeah. She did survive that. But she didn’t have her very substance converted gas, either. This seems a bit more methodical than that, though.
I’m not criticizing him for it. It’s good to see a hero who is *pragmatic* when the situation calls for it.
I’m sorry, I know we’re supposed to be talking about Tsunami and other such plot points. But I am not sure why the fat man in red ( Who I’m assuming is Buoy) is a part of this. Was he helping bluestreak carry Kickman or something.
Yeah, that’s Buoy. His job previously was making Kickman float so Bluestreak could move him around the battlefield. At this point in the Endgame, he’s in charge of the fire brigade and also contingency plan 36… One of the heroes has to be in charge of each group since it would tax PsiHawker’s ability to mentally link every bad guy in the prison.
Also has Buoy ever showed up before this chapter?
Nope. Never.
I got the idea for his name from one of the final lines from the movie “Throw Mama From The Train.” Billy Crystal describes Danny DeVito at the beach as “a buoy with hair.” Classic.