See, as a child, her dad attempted to teach her the “Dad-Fist” (a powerful, secret, fatherhood-based martial arts technique) by throwing her into a pit full of enraged dads.
“Okay, don’t panic. They’re not actual dads. They’re just hyper-dimensionally divided intersections of a monster outside of time and space. That’s all. You can fight that. You have fought that. It’s not dads.”
I didn’t notice. But thanks… and now looking at the ones that aren’t Indiana Jones references and back-editing “snakes” back in make THEM all the funnier. (Snake-Girl: I wonder what her super powers are?)
I still don’t know the fucking purpose of the rope. She already had the suction cup thing, literally the only thing the rope does is prevent Becky from getting out of her door in the event of an accident.
Literally everyone in the arc except for Dina forgot their brains.
Good point. With just the suction cup, her arm would probably be wrenched from it’s socket by now.
Also, it occurrs to me that Becky should not be exiting the car anyways until it has slowed to a near stop, at which point Amazi-Girl can just let go of the rope.
wait, Dina? The girl who weighs 90 pounds soaking wet and jumped on a gun-toting mammoth who had obviously had a psychotic break? Im not sure ANYONE so far has had their thinking caps on today. Maybe Danny, I’m not sure what he’s up to today.
Well, the original purpose of the rope was to let her get onto the car. The current purpose of the rope is to help her maneuver, I think. It anchors her in place better than grabbing, I dunno, the windshield wipers or something.
Good question. Especially since a traditional caltrop(4-spikes in the shape of a pyramid) could be made with stuff you buy at Home Depot. Amber is going overboard for this, as you’d expect.
Of course, all the top-tier players buy from bespoke providers.
There’s this little Hungarian guy in East Gotham who supplies all the Bats and most of the Top League Rogues. Friday pick-up hour can get… odd, what with Robin, Batgirl, Harley Quinn, Query and a dozen other Sidekicks all there to pick up their respective bosses’ new toys! Ever listened to Batgirl and Harley Quinn awkwardly discussing their favourite boy-bands while waiting for their money transfer to be verified?
Anyway, Amber is nowhere near that sort of power player so she has to make do with stuff from “Huntin’ Shootin’ ‘n’ Fishin’ On-line”, the ‘Net’s greatest paranoid hiker supply portal.
Unfortunately, if you look where the red car’s headed, it looks like it’s seconds away from T-boning right into Toedad’s car’s driver’s-side seat, which is where Becky probably is if she’s grabbed the wheel to try to stabilize the car.
True, but Toedad’s car looks like it should be starting a roll right about now, given that he’s been travelling at high speed this entire time, and now with the flat and the swerve to the side. . .
It won’t, though, because then Monday we’d have Amazi-Goo and Toestain.
If Red Car Lady is on the ball, she’ll be able to brake in time. Modern ABS is a wonderful thing. What I’m worried about is the Toemobile is in a spin with a flat tire. It wouldn’t take much for it to start rolling.
Famous joke. Batman and Superman go camping. In the middle of the night Batman wakes up and nudges Superman.
Batman: “Look up. What do you see, and what does it mean to you?”
Superman: “I see the stars, beautiful and infinite. Around some of them worlds surely orbit, worlds like this one, perhaps even worlds like the one that birthed me. To me it means endless possibilities. It means hope.”
Batman: “Clark, you idiot, it means someone has stolen our tent.”
Normally told as Sherlock Holmes and Watson sharing a tent — as such the joke won a competition (in England of course) as the funniest joke ever told a few years back.
The winner of the U.S. competition involved a New Jersey 911 operator receiving a cellular call from a panicky hunter: “I accidentally shot my hunting buddy and I think he’s dead!”
“OK, sir, keep calm. It’s important to be sure, though. Is your friend dead?”
(sound of gunshot), then:
“OK. Now what?”
I thought it was the one about the hunter that accidentally shot his hunting partner and carried him to the hospital. As he carried him in, he asked the doctor “Will he be alright?” The doctor looked at him and said “Probably not, but he’d have had a better chance if you hadn’t field gutted him first.”
I dunno, I mean, Superman has X-Ray vision, it’s possible that, having just been woken up from a sound sleep, he looked straight through the tent without realizing it. Batman just doesn’t get it.
He’ll probably try to fight her hand-to-hand, assuming that he gets out of the car conscious (which, given current events is now even money). He’s large, strong and probably fairly tough but Amber is smaller, more agile and, from what we’ve seen, a trained martial artist in several disciplines. Even with her injuries, she’d be hard for a big, slow moving guy to fight.
You can see the cracks in the windshield. Also the motion lines on toedad’s car indicate it was recently travelling the same direction as the red car is now.
Also from a narrative standpoint, if it wasn’t the same car, it would be REALLY confusing for it to be the same color…
It’s possible the red car will get into an accident with Toedad’s now that he’s spinning out. Just imagine the sweet, sweet irony of the person in the hospital being someone who would’ve been a bystander if Amazigirl hadn’t asked for her help.
Plot convenience not!Maggie will be able to tell the cops everything in delicious detail. Not only does Ross end up with a string of felony charges but the local chief of police gets to make a statement that “There is no such person as Amazi-Girl! If there was, we would find her and arrest her!” Meanwhile, finding this well-intentioned lunatic in a mask before she kills herself or, worse, some innocent, becomes Bloomington PD’s #1 priority.
Meanwhile, Sal will be tending to Amber’s injuries after she and Joyce found her passed out in the woods and wondering how the hell she gets herself into these messes.
Cars slow down quickly when they turn sideways. I experienced this first hand close to 30 years ago and it’s still burned into my memory. I was on the highway with four cars in front of me. They tangled and I was suddenly driving through a debris field. One of the cars turned sideways and all I could see was the terrified passenger. I hit the brakes and locked the tires. I couldn’t stop fast enough and had just enough time to steer to the left and drive into the ditch. I was driving an old, large, Dodge pickup. My youngest was in a car seat beside me. She slept through the entire event. The passenger in the car banged her head against the window when the car turned. That was the worst injury, which has always seemed pretty amazing to me. It’ll be interesting to see if the cars tangle, or if Maggie’s (I think it’s only right to call her that) reflexes are quick enough to avoid making a speed bump out of Fundie.
Me too, not that Amber needs any more angst, but Sal saving the day would have conflicted with Amber’s very black and white worldview. How can the person who held her best friend hostage and make her feel so helpless actually be a good person?
The only marginal ‘good’ thing he did was help from the Justice League: Antarctica (along with the rest of the Injustice Gang: Major Disaster, Big Sur, Multiple Man, Clock King, along with The Scarlet Skier and G’Nort-and no, I’m not making this up. It happened.)
No real Contest of the Dads prize winner there either.
I was going to make that same comment. Amazi-Girl is ACTUALLY a female Batman. Aside from no supernatural powers, her jumpsuit is basically the same thing as Batman’s utility belt from the spoofy 80s series. She really IS prepared for ANYTHING. (How does she afford it all?)
I really hope that Amber gets some help after this, because climbing on top of a car and taking on a maniac with a gun is not even close to — well, Amazi-Girl was never a healthy coping mechanism. But this has reached the point that it’s downright dangerous for Amber.
If she succeeds, maybe feeling like she accomplished something really good and was brave in the face of danger will be therapeutic in and of itself. Like “Yeah, I really am badass! That shows my dad was wrong!” and then she can get on with healing.
Yeah, but holy shit, she is turning out to be really, really good at this. She could have –should have– been taken down hard two or three times already (getting slung around a corner on a skateboard, boarding at =/-50mph, getting hit by a car, jumping from one moving car to another), and yet she’s still going strong.
Of course, I figure she’s going to collapse the instant Becky’s safe, but she’s really doing the superhero thing effectively here.
(I do wonder who’s steering the car, though. Is Ross somehow holding the wheel with his left leg, or has Becky grabbed it? I’m assuming Ross set the cruise control, because pretty much every late-model car has it, but that only means you can take your foot off the gas–it doesn’t steer for you.)
She’s obsessively driven to be the best at everything, by the little Blaine voice in that back of her head.
“Pssh. Look at that. Couldn’t even stop a moving car. How pathetic.”
“Pssh. Look at that. Couldn’t even stop a man with a gun. How pathetic.”
“Pssh. Look at that. Couldn’t even stop a kidnapping. How pathetic.”
“Pssh. Look at that. Couldn’t even save a kitten from a tree. How pathetic.”
Aside from the spikes, all the rest are equally useful for climbing buildings (like into and out of her multistory dorm room). Tire shredding spike balls are just standard super hero kit. Why would you not have them?
Amazi-Girl is proving to be increasingly badass and surprisingly competent for a teenager improvising everything. You’d think she’s been training in secret for years!
Always ready to stick it to asshole dads!
And Ross…way to be over-posessive like an jerk! I really hope he learns from this and can make up with Becky, once he’s out of jail, seem like it would suck for her to essentially become an orphan. Amber at least got her mom :/ I still don’t think he’s as bad as Blaine quite yet.
There is some indication that Amber’s encounter with screwed-up teen!Sal was her ‘Crime Alley’ moment. Knowingly or otherwise, Amber has been trained and has been training herself to be Amazi-Girl ever since then.
Her right arm should literally be popped out of its shoulder right now.
Also what direction is this car spinning out, because the fourth panel makes it seem like it’s going counterclockwise, but the fifth one has her acting like she’s being thrown counterclockwise as well. Shouldn’t the momentum have her going the complete opposite direction?
Why did she tie up Becky’s door? If they get into a wreck how the hell is she supposed to get out in a hurry?
The physics are pretty screwed here, tbh – a right front tire puncture should cause the car to veer right, not left. And, a spin would not be likely unless this were on ice. And, because of that, the car’s direction of travel would change along with it veering, rather than continuing in the lane.
It depends on the scrub radius of the car in question. If the geometry is such that the scrub radius is severely negative (like most FWD cars this century) then the car is going to the left if the right front blows out. As a former race driver of this kind of car I see this as plausible.
Hmm, didn’t think about negative scrub radius doing that, although I had assumed that modern designs weren’t that severely negative, because power steering meant that you could be closer to a zero scrub radius.
Actually they wouldn’t, unless the car was accelerating. Before popping a tire, the car is if anything deccelerating (if toedad is off the gas pedal) or moving at a constant speed (if toedad used cruise control).
I’m assuming the caltrops are made of some dense metal. They won’t meet much wind resistance. So before Amazi-girl throws them, they are already moving at the speed of the car (and of Amazi-girl)… so when she does throw them, this adds *extra* forward momentum that allows them to get ahead of the wheels.
If you want to see this in action, walk at a constant speed holding a pen beside you and drop the pen while continuing to walk forwards. The pen will hit the floor next to your feet even though your feet have moved forwards from where they were when you dropped it.
I used to do this as a kid riding in the back of a pickup truck.
Your eyes play tricks on you. Throw a rock off the back and you watch it arc away from you like you’d expect, then hit the ground, reverse direction and bounce back towards you.
Didn’t really reverse of course, it’s just that when you see it hit the road, your mind switches the frame of reference so rather than see it moving away from you in your frame of reference, it’s now moving towards you in the ground’s frame of reference.
Yeah, at this point she’s more batman than batman – as one person said a few strips ago when this was less ludicrous, suspension of disbelief only takes you so far.
Are you kidding? Batman would just swing down on to the hood, blinding Ross with his cape. Not using a suction cup or anything to hold on, but still able to reach through the driver’s window, breaking it if needed and haul Ross out one handed and still somehow bring the car to a halt safely.
All in a page one opener before getting a call to go fight the real bad guy.
Are you trying to get everyone killed, Amber? Becky and innocent-but-ridiculous tailgater included? Because it’s hard to tell what you’d do differently if you were.
The characters with the top five most appearances don’t pop up on the poll by virtue of being the most major characters and thus of course we will see more of them.
I think someone is going to come out of this broken and bruised and that’s besides Ross going to jail (illegal discharge of a firearm, assault, attempted assault, reckless driving, attempted murder in the second degree, endangering the public).
And I’m not sure about Indiana, but in the jurisdictions I’m familiar with, if anyone dies for whatever reason as the result of butthole dad’s commission of a felony (take your pick…), it’s felony murder, which is equivalent to first degree murder.
Actually I believe the charge would be considered “aggravated kidnapping,” which includes things like kidnapping at gunpoint (“with a deadly weapon”). I looked this up a few pages ago, and in many states the charge includes life in prison, while in Indiana I believe it carries up to 30 years with a minimum of 6 years.
But, vigilantes rarely press charges or offer evidence or witness testimony. Amazi-Girl has done some things that, to certain eyes, could be construed as felonies, as well. She avoids cops more thoroughly than most criminals.
Pressing charges is for civil infractions, where the plaintiff is wronged, and the court awards damages if they prove their case. Here we are talking about criminal charges, In that situation the county prosecutor brings the charges and has to prove to a judge that Ross violated criminal statutes (kidnapping, etc.) Given the discharge of a gun on a campus, and this car chase, terrorism charges would not be far off the mark. This is going to get the media’s attention, and no prosecutor would avoid bringing charges against Ross with this kind of exposure. The most likely issue the prosecutor would face is a (potentially) uncooperative witness in Becky, but the lady in the red car seems like she’d testify, which keeps Amazi-girl out of having to be a witness in order to put him away; Dina would likely testify to Ross’ initial kidnapping attempt and battery.
Also, I imagine vigilantes would be best off carrying general-purpose equipment, that could be used in multiple ways. That suction-cup thingy, for example – good for climbing buildings as well as riding speeding cars. Or, to provide a convenient anchor point. For rope. That might be tied to someone… i’ll be in my bunk
Amazi-Girl carries her own stop sticks, awesome. Amber’s really doing a superhero number on Ross and she’s about to kick him in his toe face. If she can get out of this one with her identity not revealed it’ll be a small miracle.
Note: AG has a grip on the suction cup AND note the rope wrapped around her other arm. She’s a hell of a lot more stable than Ross is.
PREDICTION: Ross is about to be ejected centrifugally. Becky will not be, because seatbelt. If the car flips, though, Becky MAY be okay. AG…not so much.
The car’s about to get T-boned by the red car, which really does not look good for Becky, especially if she’s moved over to the driver’s side to try to grab the wheel.
This keeps coming up…why on earth would you need to move over to grab the wheel? In an emergency type situation, with the driver’s seat taken up by ToeDad’s legs, I’d imagine anyone would be far more likely to simply reach over than to unbuckle their seatbelt (during crazy shenanigans), climb over the center console, sit on ToeDad’s feet/squeeze real close to his legs/groin, and sit in front of the wheel. You only need to move over if you also plan to handle the gas/brakes as well. In a sedan like that, though, the passenger has access to the wheel, the shifter, and probably the E-brake, all without leaving the (relative) safety of their own harness.
In other news, AmaziGirl is doing an incredible job of managing not to kill anyone (yet) despite taking actions that make that outcome 85 bajillion times more likely. She should probably be arrested at this point.
Look at the Red Lanterns. The Red Ring of Rage lets them tap into that power, but it takes over from your heart and turns your blood into a napalm-like substance. Pretty damm powerful weapon, but f you lose the ring, you die.
This situation does hit awfully close to home for Amber.
I’m impressed that she managed to get the gun away from Toedad — for the time being anyway. I really hope he doesn’t have any bullets left.
Amber’s on a powerful adrenaline rush for now, which makes it difficult to gauge what her physical condition is right now. She did just get hit by a car.
He probably does have more bullets. He reloaded after firing at the fountain, which means he was carrying at least one extra round. If he was carrying one, he’s probably carrying more.
However, they’re not so useful now that he’s reduced to having to throw them at Amazi-Girl.
.That’s still a big strong sunuvabiscuit. His forearms are the size of Amber’s thighs. Not that raw strength translates to fighting ability, but it is a factor. It can be a deciding factor if they have comparable skill.
I can’t be the only one feeling this, but I hate to say it anyways…
Nothing that awful is happening like I expected… Good is beating evil almost too efficiently… I guess it seems like the Willis suddenly stopped trying to torture us like he had been threatening to for strip upon incredibly ominous, intensely foreshadowing strip, and my disbelief is losing its suspension a little. Amazi-girl is known to have weaknesses, and as much collective wish-fulfillment it is for all of us that she’s actually able to rise to the occasion with unprecedented badassery, it feels a little tiny bit forced. Not quite right for any of the characters.
Please don’t shoot me for that. Surely I’m not alone in thinking it?
Everyone has at least a few moments when they do things that 99% of the time they wouldn’t do, especially when adrenaline gets involved. Lucky for us, Amber, and Becky that this seems to be one of those times for Amazi-girl.
The physics of the whole scene have been absurd ever since Joyce+Sal rode a motorcycle down the stairs; people’s personalities have been wonky ever since Dina attacked Toedad instead of going catatonic.
But this is a comic strip; if I can tolerate a boneless cat over in Something Positive, I figure I can tolerate a bit of AmaziGirl having titanium bones (and everyone being still not dead.) 🙂
Why would Dina go catatonic? She’s gotten pretty angry in defense of her friends before. (I think she even referred to it as unleashing the raptor). I mean there’s a difference between snarling at Danny and attack Ross, but Dina being aggressive isn’t necessarily out of character.
In fact, Dina’s aggressive defense of her friends is even explained. She did nothing when Blaine bullied his way into their dorm room, and she’s felt guilty about it ever since. She’s consciously devoted herself to this behavior.
The only thing about all of this that makes me a bit grumpy is that I normally think of this as a pretty grounded comic. Sure, Amazi-Girl was a crimefighter before, but she was fighting pretty low-level crime like campus bullies. Now all of a sudden she really is full-blown batman-tier. It feels rather dramatically out of place.
Well, not really “full-blown batman-tier”. This is a half-page opening scene for Batman, with no injury or risk to bystanders.
This is definitely a step up for Amazi-girl, but she’s paying for it. Nor is it at all clear it’s all going to work out cleanly.
Eh, I feel the same way. At this point I’m rolling with all the cool action sequences, but I’m kind of just tuning out until the interesting stuff happens again. And that’s not how I’m supposed to feel, right? This should be the escalation to the next big dramabomb and instead it’s like we’re in a completely different story arc with a wildly different tone and character actions.
I mean, it’s not my comic; if people are loving all the action then more power to them, but I think it would have been a lot better if it had stayed more tonally consistent.
Between the problematic Danny/Ethan stuff and now this weird cartoony interval to what was an incredible compelling and serious story, this is really turning out to be one of the poorer arcs in the series, which is still pretty cool since the only other arc I’ve ever disliked in the entire 5-year run was the Shoes arc.
Well, tomorrow is another day and only tomorrow will tell if Amazi-Girl has saved the day. She’s going on adrenaline and, when it wears off, is going to feel all the broken ribs from hitting the windshield. I think there is still room for Joyce and Sal to help this come to an end. (Ross goes to jail, of course).
WHY?! WHY DID I READ THIS AT FRIGGIN 12:32AM!? (EST) Now I have to wait until MONDAY for the continuation of this most epic arc! Also, sweet kick at the shotty Amazi-Girl…now sweep the Toehead…Clean. Off!
I hate to be that person, but – how does the rope go from being above/in front of her to being behind her? There’s no way she could have pushed her body in between her arms to achieve that in this situation, certainly not as part of a quick attack or using momentum from the car rotation.
(Because *thats* the part where my suspension of disbelief breaks down in this awesome storyline…)
I see it as, it’s attached by the grappling hook to the undercarriage on Becky’s side. When she was talking to Becky it was in front of her. Then she throws the caltrops, and the car swerves, spinning around to lash out at Toedad. So now she’s facing him, and the rope is now behind her, still attached on Becky’s side. Willis is actually usually pretty careful with physics.
No, I’m with Fneb on this one. I see how the rope could have gotten under her, after she swerved and flipped, but not how it could get under her *and* inside the arm holding the suction cup… Not unless she threaded her legs and butt over it, which would seem impossible to do as quickly as this is happening.
I swear. You people seem to be incapable of reading between the panels. Yesterday Amazigirl was talking to Becky. The grapple was in her right hand. The end of the rope trailed loosely down the car. She was not in a position to kick Ross or reach his gun. When the tire went, Ross wasn’t expecting it and accidently fired the gun before he was ready. Amazigirl was expecting it and using the suction device as a pivot let her forward momentum carry the central mass of her body out over the windshield, as is clearly shown in the next to last panel and then back around to where she could kick the gun out of his hands. The grapple is still in the same hand with the rope still around her arm and the end trailing away.
Where do you see any evidence of flipping? Sheesh!
She turns while she’s suspended over the windshield to be in position for the kick, but in no sense is this a flip. Also the rope is not attached to the carrage on the underside and never has been.
It is attached to the undercarriage. In yesterday’s strip, you can see the grapple in her hand in panel 3. By panel 5, she’s hooked it to the undercarriage below Becky’s door. You can see one hook part under the car, plus the rope is taut between there and her hand.
In today’s strip, the rope is still taut between there and her hand in panel 4 and you might be able to see the grapple still, though it’s smaller.
The only way that move (between today’s panel 4 & 5) works is if she folds up, bringing her knees up between her body and the rope, then kicks out over the rope.
The only car we saw in the oncoming lane should be past them by now and, especially if the driver of the red car hits her breaks, Toedad’s car should continue the spin into the oncoming traffic lane it’s in the middle of and avoid colliding with any cars we know about. The worry at this point is trees. It’s going to be slowing down from the tires going, and depending on if he had it on cruise control or not from Toedad having his foot off the gas so with Becky’s seat belt and Amazi-girls suction cup and grappling hook the girls should be banged up all to hell but in need of at most casts not caskets.
Toedad on the other hand . . . hanging out of the window like that I don’t see him surviving a collision with pretty much anything.
I believe they’re generally legal to own, and most likely legal to use on private property. They’re certainly not legal to use on public roads, and best of luck to the people who hit the ones that toe-dad’s car didn’t take out.
Huh… Unless the car flips, I think Toedad (given that it looks like his balance is gone and he’s about to either fall to one side or fall /under/ the car) /actually/ will come out of this the worst off as far as pre-police arrival injuries… Nice!
Toedad to Toejam, coming up from the looks of it. And red car lady may not be happy she is still so close behind them, as chances are she’s going to run the Hell right over him. IF he falls out of car from AG’s kick.
It appears that their car has a good chance of rolling, at least up on its side. That would put Amber and Toedad on the upside of it.
If he doesn’t fall out/off with that kick, he will have a great chance to grab her, and then God help her as he will kill her with his bare hands. Maybe she will continue her swing out of his reach though. I hope.
Looks like Sal and Joyce are going to miss the whole thing unless they get there in about 2 seconds.
I get so sick of people regurgitating that. Capes can be really useful offensive and defensive tools if you know what you’re doing with them – and Amazi-Girl does – (see also: matadors) and all of those problems can be neutralized just by making them tear-away.
I feel almost like this is some kind of weird daydream or dream sequence – between the unquestioning villiany of Ross, Amazi-girl’s comic book-esque chase and fight with Ross, the odd display of physics and people’s reactions in the last few strips…
It’s just suspending too much sense of belief in an otherwise grounded universe.
huzzah! now it’s only slightly likely that anyone we like will die! toedad might be screwed, though. as for a potential fist fight, amber clearly has way more fighting experience than toedad who clearly, up til this point, has relied on his size to get his way. assuming he’s not killed by the momentum of being flung from the vehicle, dude’s probably gonna get his ass kicked.
It’s an Indiana Jones reference from a character who has a pretty well-established history of dealing with a fucking awful father. I think calling this projection is one hell of a reach.
Okay. I’ll be honest. I had to reread it to see that Amazi-girl was throwing spike balls, and that she did not suddenly pull out a mac to fight of this person.
Caltrops? I didn’t see that one coming, but I’m still waiting for to pull a Dad repellent or at least a pepper spray . Anyway, there’s a world full of pain coming for Ross in the next strips.
I like to imagine this is all happening at ten, twelve mph, and that nothing worse happens than a fender bender and any exposed skin hitting pavement getting left behind.
(Anecdotal experience: I stupidly thought jumping out of a slow-moving car was a good idea as a teenager; it was not. It is amazing I do not have scars, but obviously it was not a deadly experience. Then again, slipping on ice resulted in broken bones, so I’m sure a lot is down to how one falls.)
Another Back to the Future reference. I’m just waiting for a frizzy-white-haired dude in a lab coat to be wandering around in the background of one of the panels. Maybe ducking behind a billboard.
AND now you are disarmed by a teenage girl 😛 Congrats…
But seriously, this is NOT gonna end well ;;; Though I can see Amb-I eman Amazi-Girl, likely opening the door so she can get Becky out of there once the car is at a place where getting out would be safer for them ;;;
I guess I was too in shock that he actually brought a loaded gun to a school full of kids to remember that extremely fundamentalist Christians like himself would turn a blind eye to that. It just seems ridiculous that he’d ignore a commandment and focus on a mistranslated line. But I mean nothing else he’s done up to this point has been rational, either.
In my experience growing up with fundie Christians,they have no problem with killing people they think deserve it. They discuss the possibility enthusiastically.
People don’t often actually get their morality out of the Bible (or any holy book). More often they search the text until they find what they were looking for.
I know, right. HMMMMM. THAT PERSON MY DAUGHTER’S AGE IS AN INCONVENIENCE TO ME. I SUPPOSE THE BEST THINK I CAN DO IS SHOOT HER DEAD WITH A GUN. I’M CLEARLY A VERY, VERY GOOD PERSON.
Fudge you Ross. Fudge you all the way to Heck, not that you need any help to get there.
Actually, it could quite literally be Stick as well as a host of other teachers in the comics multiverse. Remember: Ethan told Danny that Amber is a total comic-book superhero nerd!
Watching Amazi-Girl be completely super badass like this is so great that it makes me completely dread what’ll happen when the other shoe drops and Sal’s prediction of her making everything worse comes to fruition.
Considering the car seems to have swerved in front of the red car and is now likely slowing down or stopping, I fear we may be in for a potential collision.
Oh! Hey! I called it! Three or four days ago, I said that Amazi-Girl would use spiked jacks to blow out the car’s tyres and immobilise it! Go me!
Go Amazi-Girl too! What’s the bet that she knew that Ross was there from the moment he stuck his head out of the window? It should be interesting to see if he’s still so tough without his rat-killer rifle and whether he has the confidence to take on someone who has demonstrated mad physical skills hand-to-hand!
By the way, I’d say the answer is ‘yes’ and that Amber is going to be massaging his face with her knuckles for a while.
That would be interesting but not likely, since he’s obviously still strong and loopy; he could probably toss her around like Dina. Also hard to imagine breaking her own conditioning against attacking him.
Can I just say how much I love the fact that amazi-girl is an actual superhero rather than just a messed up person who fails at the first sign of trouble? I mean, she is just a messed up person, but she SUCCEEDS like a superhero.And a much more entertaining and interesting one than pretty much any going on in Actual Comic Books right now. And the fact that she fits so well into a very non-superheroic world makes it even better, because so few comics have even attempted to make super heroes genuinely believable, and none have done as well as this i think
Am I the only one who read’s Ross’s declaration in today’s strip like a spoiled brat of a child screeching: “My toy! MIIINNNE!“? This guy simply doesn’t see Becky as ‘people’. He probably never has; her mum neither!
Yep, he’s not even trying to justify his actions as “saving his daughter” anymore. This is just about regaining control of an object that is no longer behaving as he feels it should.
Women are for “standing by their man” and making babies for him. After they’ve been properly married off, that is.
This is Ross’s world. And I really have to wonder at the age of the people reading this strip, because until very very recently this was every woman’s reality, and yet, stunningly, few of you seem at all aware of that.
Not every woman’s. My grandmother started her own clothing factory and built up a successful business that employed two dozen people during the Great Depression, my mother was a (locally) prominent activist and community organiser in the Sixties and Seventies, and served over twenty years in elected office as a councillor and deputy mayor.
They were exceptions, yes. They probably couldn’t have done it if my father and grandfather had not been decent men and supportive of their ambitions — also yes. But there were exceptions and there are exceptions, and one of the problems that the exceptions have to struggle with is erasure by generalisations like “every woman’s reality“.
Amazon has plenty of grappling hooks and caltrops, and there’s all sorts of specialists stores online:
armstar.net
zprepared.com/zblog/category/zdefense/protection-zdefense
And some superheroes make their own stuff, or get it custom made, like these guys:
gizmag.com/real-life-superhero-gadgets/16862
Super cool action sequence, but… Willis, please, PLEASE don’t make the car get into an accident and some other, totally innocent bystander gets killed or crippled for life. Because that is something that would totally occur with an out of control car on a public road.
I’m not sure Amazi-girl could live with herself (and rightly so) if she ended up causing the death or permanent disability of someone whose only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Just a thought about the look on Ross’s face in the last panel. I don’t think that he’s ever actually been in a situation when he’s had someone use force right back at him. It’s one thing being willing to ‘fight for my family’ but I don’t think that he was ready for someone who will fight back and fight back so aggressively.
I got that feeling too – especially for someone to successfully do so. Becky has repeatedly showed that she isn’t cowed and has tried to engage him verbally, but his response at every turn has been to step up his intimidation tactics: get angry, raise your voice, assert authority, threaten violence. Get your way by being bigger and stronger than the other person.
This might well be the first time that hasn’t worked out for him. He’s going to regret bringing a gun to this particular fist fight.
Interesting thought – what we’re seeing here is how Amazi-Girl handles the rescue and abusive dad beatdown, rather than Amber. There’s a lot more technique and superheroics, a lot less ‘walk straight up and beat the crap out of him’. I wonder how she actually intends to finish this, given that she won’t have Amber’s red rage to call on as she did for Blaine.
Yep, it’s bouncing down the road a few dozen yards away from him right now and has probably been damaged (misaligned barrel and broken trigger mechanism) due to the impact with the black-top.
I don’t think that’s a rifle. I think is is a pump action .410-gauge shotgun. Oh, and I also am the victim of a caltrop, which wound up in the tire of my 1994 Chevrolet Caprice. It had been thrown on a street in downtown Columbus, Ohio.
It’s been pretty conclusively identified as a rifle – Ruger 1V, IIRC – from earlier strips. A bit by-the-by I suppose, since the salient points are that it was (a) pointed at AG and (b) no longer in Ross’ hands.
I like the idea of that “SWEEEEEEE” sound being the collective audience breaking through the fifth wall and recording their reaction (“sweeeeeet!”) to Toedad’s disarming onto the comic page itself.
I haven’t read any comments over the last months in this comic. There are simply too many and I don’t have enough time. (I say this, because what I’m about to say may have been said many times here, but I don’t/can’t/won’t know it, so it’s fresh, from me to Mr. Willis.) I read about 20 webcomics regularly. There have only been one or two that pull me in, so to speak. This was not one of them. I like it, don’t get me wrong. I find the characters (fairly) believable and sometimes wonder if some character could possibly be a real person (a real person would do whatever the character has done, I mean) and then I realize sure, there are so many of us that someone somewhere has done it. But it never really hooked me.
All of that being said…. this story line here…. oh my fucking christ. I cannot believe how well it’s being done. I wake up in the morning, and before I leave the house, I check out what is going to happen next, it’s got me that hooked. Normally I wait and read them all after noon. Not this one.
Well done David. VERY will done, indeed.
On the plus side, Toedad is without his weapon, there are many multiple witnesses to his fuckitude, his car is disabled, and Amber already needs to go to the hospital. No further need for cast injury.
What’s sad is that while Amber is a fucking badass, she’s also the exact product that her dad wanted. A tough son of a bongo who has no problems solving situations with extreme violence. Parental moulding is just the kind of shit that’s hard to move away from.
She may be more like her dad than is good for her, but she’s sure as hell not who her dad wants. He wants something that makes him feel big by needing him to control every part of its life and believing every word he says to criticize and belittle it.
Would that Amber could disown him and be replaced by a voice-controlled Tamagotchi.
I don’t think Blaine really wanted anything from Amber other than the ability to constantly tear her down and the kind of control that gives you over another person.
It was at that precise moment, wrestling with a school shooter and a kidnapper on top of a moving car Amazi-Girl stopped being a superhero. When she kicked the gun out of the would-be killer’s hands, before he could manage to shoot anyone, she became a hero.
What concerns me is that the Toe’s skull is very close to the pavement. Smearing someone over the asphalt is going to screw our favorite vigilante up, even (especially?) if it’s by mistake.
I dunno, I think being attacked by an unhinged vigilante who’s actively endangering you, your passenger and every driver around might warrant a self defense claim.
And that’s basically the only time I’ll defend Toedad for anything.
Given that he is in the middle of committing a felony kidnapping, the legal way to try to stop her from spinning his car into traffic is to bring his car to a stop and surrender. Anything else, particularly any attack on her, is not self defense, because you can’t claim self-defense while you’re committing a felony – (possible exception for cases where your life is immediately in danger and there is no other way to protect yourself. For example, if you’ve already surrendered and you’re still being attacked. Check your state laws. IANAL.)
She might well be charged with reckless endangerment or even more serious assault charges. But Ross has no legal right to try to kill her at this point.
The easiest way to keep the car from not spinning into traffic would be to slow down carefully and stop over on the side of the road. It is NOT to go out of your window and start firing a shotgun.
Has DoA crossed the line? Not yet. Today the line is a double yellow line. Yesterday it was a dashed white line. With an oncoming red car in the other lane. Today the red car we see is “Freckles” still following them. (Willis would have done better to make yesterday’s red car another color, but hey, I’m not the one drawing this.)
So Toedad’s car will slide into the bushes. Police sirens. Amazi-Girl will make herself scarce. Sal and Joyce will appear as Toedad and Becky are crawling out of their car. Joyce will glomp Becky. And then she will give Toedad the chewing out of his life, using cuss words never heard before on land or sea.
I don’t think this fight is decided yet. If they manage to come to a non-crash stop and Ross manages to dismount, this is a fight that grows far more even. Now, if Joyce and Sal turn up… that fight becomes much more in the Forces of Good’s favor.
Yesterday’s car was more of a burnt orange, or maybe beige (before you question that, I’m old and have cataracts, colors aren’t what they used to be), but it’s not red. If it’s a concerned parent on their way to the university after hearing the news about shots fired on campus, there could be an interesting 911 call being made. If it’s someone that hasn’t heard the news, they’ll just pass it off as college kids being college kids.
Yesterday’s car was in the other lane coming towards them. The perspective was from behind & diagonal of Toedad’s brown POS. Two days ago, Freckles’ care, which AG launched herself from, was most definitely red. Please consult your ophthalmologist about your cataracts.
We agree, yesterday’s car wasn’t Maggie’s red car. My response was directed at the above reference saying that the oncoming car shouldn’t have been red. It wasn’t. I can’t be sure of the exact color, but it wasn’t the same as Maggie’s. As for the cataracts, they won’t “ripen” for a few more months.
For what it’s worth, I figure that Amazi-girl, depending on the information that the cops get on all this, better lay pretty low for a *while* afterwards. She may be a hero, but cops take a dim view of anything vigilante-like. Not to mention IU.
Amazi-girl is at least sporting a concussion, probably bruised if not broken ribs and a sprain wrist. Boy I don’t want to be here when the adrenaline wears off.
Man, I know shes the (way) lesser of two evils, but I’m having a hard time not remembering what Sal said to Joyce earlier: “She’ll escalate that shit. someone’ll get hurt, ah GUARANTEE it.”
I just want to take this time out and think about the first time I seen Amazi-Girl/Amber up until now and finally just say how much of a freakin badass human being she is.
CONVENTION APPEARANCES
probably not anywhere for a while 'cuz the world is covered in death
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“There’s a big dad in the car, Becky!”
“Oh, that’s just my stupid dad Ross.”
“I hate dads, Becky! I hate ’em!”
“Come on! Show a little backbone, will ya!”
Ooh, Toedads. Very dangerous. YOU go first.
She was better when she was little.
“It’s just a dad.”
Then she fell into a whole bunch of them.
“Don’t call it a dad. Tell me to grab the rope.”
Now I’m disappointed she isn’t Dad-Girl
Why do you dress like a dad Master Amber?
Dads frighten me, It’s time my enemies shared my dread
And instead of superhero quips, she speaks entirely in terrible Dad jokes.
Wait, I think that was Captain Planet.
Oh. My. God.
*bundles internet up with wrapping paper*
Here, this is for you.
She’d better be careful, otherwise she might end up dad…I mean, dead. xD
you either die a young adult, or live long enough to see yourself become a dad?
(I apologize ten times)
I’m neither a young adult man anymore, nor a dad. So what does that make me, then? xD
That makes you Yet_One_More_Idiot.
Oh dear, if Captain Planet and Toe-Dad’s powers combined… would we wind up with Captain Plantar Fasciitis?
More like daddy’s girl.
why this
Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
Though I guess I should expect nothing less than purrfection from you, hey?
“Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot. I shall adopt a costume that strikes terror into them, Dad-Girl!”
Just as a Dad comes crashing through the study window.
See, as a child, her dad attempted to teach her the “Dad-Fist” (a powerful, secret, fatherhood-based martial arts technique) by throwing her into a pit full of enraged dads.
Was she wrapped in well-marinated barbecue meat before she was thrown in?
Hehe, Genma Sao-TOE-me.
Urgh!… dat pun.
She used to not be a superhero. Then she took a dad to the childhood.
You, Gentleperson, win an Internet.
weird most girls with daddy issues become strippers instead of superheros.
unless that explains the skimpy costumes?
Really, who can say what the difference is between a stripper and a superhero?
Strippers get leered at and get money thrown at them,
Superheros do not get money thrown at them.
Heroes get jeered at and get weapons thrown at them.
Strippers do not get weapons thrown at them.
Stan Lee’s Stripperella
http://www.imdb.com/video/user/vi3573653785
Well, except for that one!
Well, that was kind of disturbing.
Well that’s not a totally creepy thing to say.
“Okay, don’t panic. They’re not actual dads. They’re just hyper-dimensionally divided intersections of a monster outside of time and space. That’s all. You can fight that. You have fought that. It’s not dads.”
I am happy that the first comment thread is Indiana Jones references.
I didn’t notice. But thanks… and now looking at the ones that aren’t Indiana Jones references and back-editing “snakes” back in make THEM all the funnier. (Snake-Girl: I wonder what her super powers are?)
haha Bloomington Indiana Jones
If I take your daughter away, will you die?
It would be extremely painful.
You’re a big toe.
For YOU!
See you tomorrow, Indie-Ana Chronistic!
In defense of dads, most of us aren’t the kidnapping-their-own-kids-at-gunpoint type.
Dad jokes and bad puns are more our caliber.
maybe she wants a gun-wielding mom for a change for once?
Like Ma Barker? I have a new head-canon!
or Cybersix.
yikes, what if Toedad took off his camo and underneath was TOEMOM
*remembers need to finish Adrian Seidelman cosplay*
… Suddenly, I love you. >_>
How have I gone my whole life not knowing that there is an anime character with my last name?
Seidelman’s not really anime tho? (Argentinian)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersix
Well, the comic’s Argentinian. The cartoon is Canadian/Japanese.
Sarah Conner?
22 appears to be his caliber
I guess you could say he is a low caliber dad,
“Not ALL dads!”
Beat me to it. I was even gonna add a hashtag.
You mean like Father Brain?
Best troll boss ever.
Hahahhaaha wuuut
bad puns, you say?
well, looks like they’re finally going… toe-to-toe
It looks like the toe is on the other foot now!
Nailed it.
I think that’s part of her frustration. “Why do the rotten ones keep turning up? This is statistocally improbable!”
#NotAllDads ? 🙂
I’d really like to see Amazi-Girl take on Ethan’s mom, Naomi.
YES AMAZIGIRL
STRIKE HIM DOWN WITH ALL OF YOUR HATRED
SHE WILL BECOME MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE
I THINK YOU HAVE THAT BACKWARDS
Wrong Harrison Ford movie.
Or maybe wrong harrison ford, as they were seeing an alternate harrison ford.
So, if she’s in a plane, and there’s a dad in it, will she freak out, Indiana Jones style?
Okay but what if like half the passengers are dads. “Dads On A Plane”. *shudders*
“I have had it with these motherfucking dads on this motherfucking plane!”
She then proceeds to punch all of the dads.
Well one would hope they’re fucking mothers, otherwise that could get very awkward when private investigators get involved.
Are we getting Samuel L. Jackson in for this spin-off, Dads on a Plane?
I am tired of all these mother loving dads on this plane
It actually works with the whole sense thing
But how good are dads at fighting monkeys on Monday-to-Friday planes? Inquiring Mendos want to know!
I guess the majority of dads have probably fucked mothers at some point.
It better have the ridiculously hilarious bad censors or no dice.
Is he a dad?
I think so. If not, his reading of Go the Fuck to Sleep is enough to warrant honorary Dadhood.
He’s said that he read that to his daughter.
“Go the fuck to sleep, Daddy?”
“Go the fuck to sleep, sweetie.”
Dads on a Plane
Dammit, everybody realized that Indy’s fear on a plane would be Snakes on a Plane
Great minds think alike, but fools seldom differ, as they say
Speaking of which: https://goo.gl/SqIlii
just be glad she didn’t have a blue shell
She really got the caltrop on him!
nod
Holy shit Amber that is incredibly dangerous but it does explain what she was doing on the last page.
I still don’t know the fucking purpose of the rope. She already had the suction cup thing, literally the only thing the rope does is prevent Becky from getting out of her door in the event of an accident.
Literally everyone in the arc except for Dina forgot their brains.
Isn’t that the rope from the hook that she used to ride the car with the skateboard?
Too bad the rope doesn’t prevent exit via windshield. And Amazi-Girl should know that windshields hurt.
Becky buckled up when she first noticed Amazi-Girl in the mirror. That should keep her in the car
ifwhen they crash into something.You need two stabilisation points or you spin around like a stick on a hinge. The rope is Amber’s second stabilisation point.
Good point. With just the suction cup, her arm would probably be wrenched from it’s socket by now.
Also, it occurrs to me that Becky should not be exiting the car anyways until it has slowed to a near stop, at which point Amazi-Girl can just let go of the rope.
wait, Dina? The girl who weighs 90 pounds soaking wet and jumped on a gun-toting mammoth who had obviously had a psychotic break? Im not sure ANYONE so far has had their thinking caps on today. Maybe Danny, I’m not sure what he’s up to today.
Well, the original purpose of the rope was to let her get onto the car. The current purpose of the rope is to help her maneuver, I think. It anchors her in place better than grabbing, I dunno, the windshield wipers or something.
It also currently keeps the passenger door of Toedad’s shitty car from flying open and chucking out Becky during this spinout.
Amazi-girl really -is- prepared for anything. *face of awe*
Also holy shit I hope that bullet he fired lands in like a tree or some grass or something.
I love your Mark avatar!
Eheh. ^^ Chibi Mark is the cutest.
I always knew she had balls of steel.
Maybe it’s just the angle, but it sure does look like she’s about to break his back.
With her CROTCH.
Go get ‘im, Amber.
Somewhere on campus, Mike heads for his bunk.
ah, so that’s what Amazi-Girl meant by “Hang tight”
Whoa, where does AmaziGirl buy this stuff?
What, they don’t have a Vigilantes-R-Us where you live?
My caltrop guy delivers through third parties. He prefers not having an identifiable location.
Well, he has a point.
Lots of them, in fact.
+1
Bah, that place is a total rip-off. CapeCo has all the best deals, with Bruce’s Club being a close second.
Sure, drive the small dead-mom-and-pop shops out of business, real nice.
… Here, have an internet.
In fact, take two.
Make it three.
of course 50 percent of those internets are porn
so you now have 1.5 internets of porn
Four.
Didn’t I read about something like this on Tv’Trops?
“where does she get those wonderful toys?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZrbW9UT1vE
Or you can use tubing to make them work really fast as demonstrated this season.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA5II5AlO7w
Good question. Especially since a traditional caltrop(4-spikes in the shape of a pyramid) could be made with stuff you buy at Home Depot. Amber is going overboard for this, as you’d expect.
bouncy balls and half inch brad nails, hit the whole thing with gray spray-paint to make it look not half-assed.
The Internet. Looooottt of stuff on that Internet…
<Timmy Turner>Internet?</Timmy Turner>
Inheritance?
She inherited the internet.
Her father’s not dead in this universe.
…sadly.
Amazon. No, seriously!
http://www.amazon.com/Set-of-10-Caltrops-Tashibishi/dp/B001785YZ0
Walmart
A red state like Indiana? You just get ’em at Walmart.
Only way to stop a bad guy with caltrops is a good guy with caltrops.
Of course, all the top-tier players buy from bespoke providers.
There’s this little Hungarian guy in East Gotham who supplies all the Bats and most of the Top League Rogues. Friday pick-up hour can get… odd, what with Robin, Batgirl, Harley Quinn, Query and a dozen other Sidekicks all there to pick up their respective bosses’ new toys! Ever listened to Batgirl and Harley Quinn awkwardly discussing their favourite boy-bands while waiting for their money transfer to be verified?
Anyway, Amber is nowhere near that sort of power player so she has to make do with stuff from “Huntin’ Shootin’ ‘n’ Fishin’ On-line”, the ‘Net’s greatest paranoid hiker supply portal.
*hands you a couple of internets*
Please. Batman makes his own. BECAUSE HE’S BATMAN.
Why’s it always dads you say? Iunno, maybe for the same reason that it’s always snakes.
And that that the rum is always gone.
Also, femurs
Snake dads are the worst.
Snake dads who drank all the rum are arguably worse, because they blame it on the alcohol in the morning. :/
Also, show of hands. Who read that in an Indiana Jones “I hate snakes” kind of way?
I heard it as Samuel Jackson.
Yeah, definitely Indy.
Same here.
Most satisfying page to date.
Oh my god she is really awesome I don’t even expect that.
*plays Jan & Dean’s “Dead Man’s Curve” on the car stereo*
You gotta give that red car lady credit. She’s still keeping up with her destroyed windshield.
She’s having her moment. Most people don’t even get a chance to be a side character in an action movie.
Unfortunately, if you look where the red car’s headed, it looks like it’s seconds away from T-boning right into Toedad’s car’s driver’s-side seat, which is where Becky probably is if she’s grabbed the wheel to try to stabilize the car.
True, but Toedad’s car looks like it should be starting a roll right about now, given that he’s been travelling at high speed this entire time, and now with the flat and the swerve to the side. . .
It won’t, though, because then Monday we’d have Amazi-Goo and Toestain.
Toestain sounds like a nasty fungal infection.
If Red Car Lady is on the ball, she’ll be able to brake in time. Modern ABS is a wonderful thing. What I’m worried about is the Toemobile is in a spin with a flat tire. It wouldn’t take much for it to start rolling.
Maybe now he’ll get pinned between his car and Maggie’s? *crosses fingers*
at least there’s no truck this time
Somewhere, Danny’s pitching a tent and he doesn’t know why.
Somewhere, Batman is pitching a tent too.
He’s taking Robin camping a few hours from home.
You know, at the other end of the Wayne Manor yard.
Famous joke. Batman and Superman go camping. In the middle of the night Batman wakes up and nudges Superman.
Batman: “Look up. What do you see, and what does it mean to you?”
Superman: “I see the stars, beautiful and infinite. Around some of them worlds surely orbit, worlds like this one, perhaps even worlds like the one that birthed me. To me it means endless possibilities. It means hope.”
Batman: “Clark, you idiot, it means someone has stolen our tent.”
Polite golf clap.
Normally told as Sherlock Holmes and Watson sharing a tent — as such the joke won a competition (in England of course) as the funniest joke ever told a few years back.
Yeah, it doesn’t work as well with a character who has x-ray vision.
The winner of the U.S. competition involved a New Jersey 911 operator receiving a cellular call from a panicky hunter: “I accidentally shot my hunting buddy and I think he’s dead!”
“OK, sir, keep calm. It’s important to be sure, though. Is your friend dead?”
(sound of gunshot), then:
“OK. Now what?”
I feel so bad that I laughed at that.
I thought it was the one about the hunter that accidentally shot his hunting partner and carried him to the hospital. As he carried him in, he asked the doctor “Will he be alright?” The doctor looked at him and said “Probably not, but he’d have had a better chance if you hadn’t field gutted him first.”
Actually, the funniest joke ever told has never been told and remembered.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ienp4J3pW7U
I heard it with Tonto speaking to the Lone Ranger.
I dunno, I mean, Superman has X-Ray vision, it’s possible that, having just been woken up from a sound sleep, he looked straight through the tent without realizing it. Batman just doesn’t get it.
“Why did I decide to go camping out here in the woods, anyway? Oh. Hi, Dina.”
She has some seriously cool toys. At least Fundie’s lost the rifle. Now he has to rely on his wits, God help him.
Hopefully God passrs on this one
Well, his wits and his ridiculously overdeveloped neck muscles. That boy’s got some beef on him.
That won’t help here, though. He’s got a high center of gravity and has to rely on his scrawny little legs to keep him from falling.
AND he’s leaning out of a car window. Seriously top-heavy, and with very little leg to counterbalance. One push, and he’s biting pavement.
He’ll probably try to fight her hand-to-hand, assuming that he gets out of the car conscious (which, given current events is now even money). He’s large, strong and probably fairly tough but Amber is smaller, more agile and, from what we’ve seen, a trained martial artist in several disciplines. Even with her injuries, she’d be hard for a big, slow moving guy to fight.
Yeah, but a single mistake on her end would be devastating.
Why is red car still following so closely? This feels like a very bad idea.
That’s not the same car. This is oncoming traffic.
You can see the cracks in the windshield. Also the motion lines on toedad’s car indicate it was recently travelling the same direction as the red car is now.
Also from a narrative standpoint, if it wasn’t the same car, it would be REALLY confusing for it to be the same color…
It’s possible the red car will get into an accident with Toedad’s now that he’s spinning out. Just imagine the sweet, sweet irony of the person in the hospital being someone who would’ve been a bystander if Amazigirl hadn’t asked for her help.
Plot convenience not!Maggie will be able to tell the cops everything in delicious detail. Not only does Ross end up with a string of felony charges but the local chief of police gets to make a statement that “There is no such person as Amazi-Girl! If there was, we would find her and arrest her!” Meanwhile, finding this well-intentioned lunatic in a mask before she kills herself or, worse, some innocent, becomes Bloomington PD’s #1 priority.
Meanwhile, Sal will be tending to Amber’s injuries after she and Joyce found her passed out in the woods and wondering how the hell she gets herself into these messes.
Cars slow down quickly when they turn sideways. I experienced this first hand close to 30 years ago and it’s still burned into my memory. I was on the highway with four cars in front of me. They tangled and I was suddenly driving through a debris field. One of the cars turned sideways and all I could see was the terrified passenger. I hit the brakes and locked the tires. I couldn’t stop fast enough and had just enough time to steer to the left and drive into the ditch. I was driving an old, large, Dodge pickup. My youngest was in a car seat beside me. She slept through the entire event. The passenger in the car banged her head against the window when the car turned. That was the worst injury, which has always seemed pretty amazing to me. It’ll be interesting to see if the cars tangle, or if Maggie’s (I think it’s only right to call her that) reflexes are quick enough to avoid making a speed bump out of Fundie.
Why did it have to be dads? I hate dads
I know Sal is basically batman, but Amazigirl is actually batman.
See, I was kind of hoping Sal would be the one to save the day, as the angst it would’ve caused Amber would have been delicious.
Me too, not that Amber needs any more angst, but Sal saving the day would have conflicted with Amber’s very black and white worldview. How can the person who held her best friend hostage and make her feel so helpless actually be a good person?
You actually assume that the day is already saved? How I envy your faith
Huntress was who came to mind when I started thinking about a comic equivalent, but that might be just me.
I’m thinking Batgirl. The Cassandra Cain version.
Yeah her dad was a real dick too.
Stephanie Brown’s dad was Cluemaster.
The only marginal ‘good’ thing he did was help from the Justice League: Antarctica (along with the rest of the Injustice Gang: Major Disaster, Big Sur, Multiple Man, Clock King, along with The Scarlet Skier and G’Nort-and no, I’m not making this up. It happened.)
No real Contest of the Dads prize winner there either.
I was going to make that same comment. Amazi-Girl is ACTUALLY a female Batman. Aside from no supernatural powers, her jumpsuit is basically the same thing as Batman’s utility belt from the spoofy 80s series. She really IS prepared for ANYTHING. (How does she afford it all?)
I really hope that Amber gets some help after this, because climbing on top of a car and taking on a maniac with a gun is not even close to — well, Amazi-Girl was never a healthy coping mechanism. But this has reached the point that it’s downright dangerous for Amber.
If she succeeds, maybe feeling like she accomplished something really good and was brave in the face of danger will be therapeutic in and of itself. Like “Yeah, I really am badass! That shows my dad was wrong!” and then she can get on with healing.
true, but then you get the spider-man effect, where you start to feel irresponsible/selfish for no longer superheroing.
Yeah, but holy shit, she is turning out to be really, really good at this. She could have –should have– been taken down hard two or three times already (getting slung around a corner on a skateboard, boarding at =/-50mph, getting hit by a car, jumping from one moving car to another), and yet she’s still going strong.
Of course, I figure she’s going to collapse the instant Becky’s safe, but she’s really doing the superhero thing effectively here.
(I do wonder who’s steering the car, though. Is Ross somehow holding the wheel with his left leg, or has Becky grabbed it? I’m assuming Ross set the cruise control, because pretty much every late-model car has it, but that only means you can take your foot off the gas–it doesn’t steer for you.)
For someone who did not plan to chase a car, her gadgets are awfully specific: Grappling hook, suction cup, and now spikes. Because she’s batman.
Amazi-Girl has practiced to be the best at everything. Even real-life Mario-Kart.
She’s obsessively driven to be the best at everything, by the little Blaine voice in that back of her head.
“Pssh. Look at that. Couldn’t even stop a moving car. How pathetic.”
“Pssh. Look at that. Couldn’t even stop a man with a gun. How pathetic.”
“Pssh. Look at that. Couldn’t even stop a kidnapping. How pathetic.”
“Pssh. Look at that. Couldn’t even save a kitten from a tree. How pathetic.”
Actually, all three are pretty useful in a variety of situations.
“Amazigirl is prepared for anything. She had amazi-condoms; it makes sense that she has a suction cup and car stoppers.
-tries very hard to not think about the situation that requires all three of those things-
Admit it. It’d make for an interesting story at least.
Danny is into some kinky shit.
Climbing a vertical concrete wall. Ethan once pointed out to Danny that Amber enjoyes being up high, mostly because of her height disadvantage.
What concrete walls have you been climbing that require condoms?
Simple. She has a microphone on a cord somewhere on her person, but it isn’t waterproofed. Condoms are a tried and true way of doing so on the cheap.
The suction cup is good for climbing glass surfaces and the caltrops likely entered her arsenal when Sal ran away on the bike.
Aside from the spikes, all the rest are equally useful for climbing buildings (like into and out of her multistory dorm room). Tire shredding spike balls are just standard super hero kit. Why would you not have them?
Amazi-Girl is awesome, that is all
Some days you just can’t get rid of a dad.
Alternatively: Becky! Hand me up the Dad-Repellent Amazi-Spray!
Which is basically a mixture of pepper spray and Axe Body Spray.
“No! Anything, but not Axe! No”(and that was the last time we saw Ross)
I see that I am not the only one who remembers Adam West in the original ‘Batman’ movie.
Amazi-Girl is proving to be increasingly badass and surprisingly competent for a teenager improvising everything. You’d think she’s been training in secret for years!
Always ready to stick it to asshole dads!
And Ross…way to be over-posessive like an jerk! I really hope he learns from this and can make up with Becky, once he’s out of jail, seem like it would suck for her to essentially become an orphan. Amber at least got her mom :/ I still don’t think he’s as bad as Blaine quite yet.
I hope not because I am a terrible person. I hope Toedad is on way to becoming Toejam.
So does that mean Blaine would change his name to Earl?
…honestly i kinda think that her dad was training her to take over his business.
Blaine was training Amber to be a professional dickbag?
There is some indication that Amber’s encounter with screwed-up teen!Sal was her ‘Crime Alley’ moment. Knowingly or otherwise, Amber has been trained and has been training herself to be Amazi-Girl ever since then.
Her right arm should literally be popped out of its shoulder right now.
Also what direction is this car spinning out, because the fourth panel makes it seem like it’s going counterclockwise, but the fifth one has her acting like she’s being thrown counterclockwise as well. Shouldn’t the momentum have her going the complete opposite direction?
Why did she tie up Becky’s door? If they get into a wreck how the hell is she supposed to get out in a hurry?
Why is
AmberAmazi-Girl so fucking insane?!The physics are pretty screwed here, tbh – a right front tire puncture should cause the car to veer right, not left. And, a spin would not be likely unless this were on ice. And, because of that, the car’s direction of travel would change along with it veering, rather than continuing in the lane.
It depends on the scrub radius of the car in question. If the geometry is such that the scrub radius is severely negative (like most FWD cars this century) then the car is going to the left if the right front blows out. As a former race driver of this kind of car I see this as plausible.
Hmm, didn’t think about negative scrub radius doing that, although I had assumed that modern designs weren’t that severely negative, because power steering meant that you could be closer to a zero scrub radius.
Is that with or without someone behind the wheel?
Jesus took the wheel.
Agreed- and if you threw caltrops /forward/ they’d fly back in your face if you were on a car.
Not to say that everything must be 100% believable at all times, but ………
yeah.
That depends of how far you throw them, I’m assuming she compensated for the back-track when throwing.
Actually they wouldn’t, unless the car was accelerating. Before popping a tire, the car is if anything deccelerating (if toedad is off the gas pedal) or moving at a constant speed (if toedad used cruise control).
I’m assuming the caltrops are made of some dense metal. They won’t meet much wind resistance. So before Amazi-girl throws them, they are already moving at the speed of the car (and of Amazi-girl)… so when she does throw them, this adds *extra* forward momentum that allows them to get ahead of the wheels.
If you want to see this in action, walk at a constant speed holding a pen beside you and drop the pen while continuing to walk forwards. The pen will hit the floor next to your feet even though your feet have moved forwards from where they were when you dropped it.
I used to do this as a kid riding in the back of a pickup truck.
Your eyes play tricks on you. Throw a rock off the back and you watch it arc away from you like you’d expect, then hit the ground, reverse direction and bounce back towards you.
Didn’t really reverse of course, it’s just that when you see it hit the road, your mind switches the frame of reference so rather than see it moving away from you in your frame of reference, it’s now moving towards you in the ground’s frame of reference.
Yeah, at this point she’s more batman than batman – as one person said a few strips ago when this was less ludicrous, suspension of disbelief only takes you so far.
Are you kidding? Batman would just swing down on to the hood, blinding Ross with his cape. Not using a suction cup or anything to hold on, but still able to reach through the driver’s window, breaking it if needed and haul Ross out one handed and still somehow bring the car to a halt safely.
All in a page one opener before getting a call to go fight the real bad guy.
Nice Indiana Jones reference!
Are you trying to get everyone killed, Amber? Becky and innocent-but-ridiculous tailgater included? Because it’s hard to tell what you’d do differently if you were.
…not kick the gun out of Ross’s hands?
Amber isn’t listed as an option in the poll.
Neither are Joyce or . I think (read:hope) that all of the people not in the poll are those who are staying in the comic no matter what.
Dorothy. Joyce or Dorothy dammit.
The poll idoesnt include people who up until recently aren’t seen as much. Joyce, Walky, Dorothy and Billie aren’t on it either.
Neither is Joyce, Walky, Dorothy, or Billie.
They’re all gonna die and they’re not even there!
That bullet’s gonna fall and strike all 4 of them.
The characters with the top five most appearances don’t pop up on the poll by virtue of being the most major characters and thus of course we will see more of them.
I think someone is going to come out of this broken and bruised and that’s besides Ross going to jail (illegal discharge of a firearm, assault, attempted assault, reckless driving, attempted murder in the second degree, endangering the public).
Kidnapping too. Seems a big one.
You left kidnapping off the list.
And I’m not sure about Indiana, but in the jurisdictions I’m familiar with, if anyone dies for whatever reason as the result of butthole dad’s commission of a felony (take your pick…), it’s felony murder, which is equivalent to first degree murder.
Simultaneous kidnapping high five!
Actually I believe the charge would be considered “aggravated kidnapping,” which includes things like kidnapping at gunpoint (“with a deadly weapon”). I looked this up a few pages ago, and in many states the charge includes life in prison, while in Indiana I believe it carries up to 30 years with a minimum of 6 years.
But, vigilantes rarely press charges or offer evidence or witness testimony. Amazi-Girl has done some things that, to certain eyes, could be construed as felonies, as well. She avoids cops more thoroughly than most criminals.
Pressing charges is for civil infractions, where the plaintiff is wronged, and the court awards damages if they prove their case. Here we are talking about criminal charges, In that situation the county prosecutor brings the charges and has to prove to a judge that Ross violated criminal statutes (kidnapping, etc.) Given the discharge of a gun on a campus, and this car chase, terrorism charges would not be far off the mark. This is going to get the media’s attention, and no prosecutor would avoid bringing charges against Ross with this kind of exposure. The most likely issue the prosecutor would face is a (potentially) uncooperative witness in Becky, but the lady in the red car seems like she’d testify, which keeps Amazi-girl out of having to be a witness in order to put him away; Dina would likely testify to Ross’ initial kidnapping attempt and battery.
She will present him, suitably trussed up, with a sign reading “Courtesy of your Friendly Neighborhood Amazi-Girl”.
Sometimes it’s The Whiteboard Dindong Bandit.
The Whiteboard Dingdong Bandit is on her way for a team-up.
At least it’s not Bodegas Bandit. He’s just the worse.
Caltrops. Suction cup. She’s outfitted nicely!
(I mean that in a double entendre way, too!) 😉
Amazi-Girl is always prepared. For ANYTHING.
Also, I imagine vigilantes would be best off carrying general-purpose equipment, that could be used in multiple ways. That suction-cup thingy, for example – good for climbing buildings as well as riding speeding cars. Or, to provide a convenient anchor point. For rope. That might be tied to someone… i’ll be in my bunk
This has been a lot of motion lines.
Amazi-Girl carries her own stop sticks, awesome. Amber’s really doing a superhero number on Ross and she’s about to kick him in his toe face. If she can get out of this one with her identity not revealed it’ll be a small miracle.
Well, they were going to throw the book at Toedad, but by this point he’s getting a set of encylopedias by air drop.
Sadly, Amber may be getting a couple of appendices and indexes chucked her way for this business.
Some Dad’s gonna get they ass kicked…
Some Dad’s gonna get they wig split…
Some Dad’s make me lose my mind
Up in here, up in here
Some Dad’s make me go all out
Up in here, up in here
Beat him up! Beat him up!
Break his neck! Break his neck!
Beat him up! Beat him up!
Break his neck! Break his neck!
Becky, take the wheel!
Amber looks so epic in that first panel. Please make a print we can buy.
amazigirl, second best next to batman cuz reading this comic strip all I’m thinking is batman epicness!
her badass level…. it’s over 9000
How badass is she?
This badass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeUMCgZdEyU
ggwp
I kinda feel like she should have kicked the gun before he fired.
Boy, I hope that gun doesn’t come crashing through the other lady’s windshield…
#notalldads
Really? Why hasn’t the media told us?
So, good news: Ross has lost the gun.
Bad news: Car is spinning.
Note: AG has a grip on the suction cup AND note the rope wrapped around her other arm. She’s a hell of a lot more stable than Ross is.
PREDICTION: Ross is about to be ejected centrifugally. Becky will not be, because seatbelt. If the car flips, though, Becky MAY be okay. AG…not so much.
The car’s about to get T-boned by the red car, which really does not look good for Becky, especially if she’s moved over to the driver’s side to try to grab the wheel.
This keeps coming up…why on earth would you need to move over to grab the wheel? In an emergency type situation, with the driver’s seat taken up by ToeDad’s legs, I’d imagine anyone would be far more likely to simply reach over than to unbuckle their seatbelt (during crazy shenanigans), climb over the center console, sit on ToeDad’s feet/squeeze real close to his legs/groin, and sit in front of the wheel. You only need to move over if you also plan to handle the gas/brakes as well. In a sedan like that, though, the passenger has access to the wheel, the shifter, and probably the E-brake, all without leaving the (relative) safety of their own harness.
In other news, AmaziGirl is doing an incredible job of managing not to kill anyone (yet) despite taking actions that make that outcome 85 bajillion times more likely. She should probably be arrested at this point.
I am very concerned for the safety of the other road users here.
I have never been so tense ever
How is she such a fucking badass?
Rage. Jedi are liars, it makes the perfect warrior.
Point of view and all that. Rage is useful, but it can be turned against you.
Look at the Red Lanterns. The Red Ring of Rage lets them tap into that power, but it takes over from your heart and turns your blood into a napalm-like substance. Pretty damm powerful weapon, but f you lose the ring, you die.
WOO! The gun is down. I’m choosing to focus on the positives.
Also, the alt text is perfect.
The battle continues!
This situation does hit awfully close to home for Amber.
I’m impressed that she managed to get the gun away from Toedad — for the time being anyway. I really hope he doesn’t have any bullets left.
Amber’s on a powerful adrenaline rush for now, which makes it difficult to gauge what her physical condition is right now. She did just get hit by a car.
He probably does have more bullets. He reloaded after firing at the fountain, which means he was carrying at least one extra round. If he was carrying one, he’s probably carrying more.
However, they’re not so useful now that he’s reduced to having to throw them at Amazi-Girl.
Has anyone identified the cars? Fundie’s car is sliding sideways and appears stable. So far.
Remember, kids, don’t bring a gun to an Amazi-girl fight.
You bring a SAL to an Amazi-Girl fight.
Without his gun he is just a big, italian stereotype looking man that Amazi-girl can tottally kick the shit out of
Wait where are we getting the Italian stereotype from?
Yeah, he doesn’t wear any plumber suit.
.That’s still a big strong sunuvabiscuit. His forearms are the size of Amber’s thighs. Not that raw strength translates to fighting ability, but it is a factor. It can be a deciding factor if they have comparable skill.
I was going to express doubt, but he did remove Dina pretty handily…
If they have comparible skill? You’re joking, right?
Wow, someone in the comments section totally called it. I betcha she got them at areadenialweapons.com
Nice Archer reference
For all of Sal’s talk that she’d get them all killed, she’s defusing the situation pretty nicely.
Yeah, so far nothing even vaguely dangerous has happened.
Sal’s a bit biased when it comes to Amazi-Girl. Amazi-Girl is a LOT biased when it comes to Sal. Neither would evaluate the other as competent.
Not so much that she’s biased, but that the only time Sal met Amazi-girl, she attacked for minimal reasons and didn’t actually fare so well.
From what Sal’s seen, she’s not competent and her judgment isn’t to be trusted either.
Give it some time. They ain’t out of the woods yet. A biffo with the toe could turn against her in a hurry if she’s incautious.
I can’t be the only one feeling this, but I hate to say it anyways…
Nothing that awful is happening like I expected… Good is beating evil almost too efficiently… I guess it seems like the Willis suddenly stopped trying to torture us like he had been threatening to for strip upon incredibly ominous, intensely foreshadowing strip, and my disbelief is losing its suspension a little. Amazi-girl is known to have weaknesses, and as much collective wish-fulfillment it is for all of us that she’s actually able to rise to the occasion with unprecedented badassery, it feels a little tiny bit forced. Not quite right for any of the characters.
Please don’t shoot me for that. Surely I’m not alone in thinking it?
Everyone has at least a few moments when they do things that 99% of the time they wouldn’t do, especially when adrenaline gets involved. Lucky for us, Amber, and Becky that this seems to be one of those times for Amazi-girl.
The physics of the whole scene have been absurd ever since Joyce+Sal rode a motorcycle down the stairs; people’s personalities have been wonky ever since Dina attacked Toedad instead of going catatonic.
But this is a comic strip; if I can tolerate a boneless cat over in Something Positive, I figure I can tolerate a bit of AmaziGirl having titanium bones (and everyone being still not dead.) 🙂
Why would Dina go catatonic? She’s gotten pretty angry in defense of her friends before. (I think she even referred to it as unleashing the raptor). I mean there’s a difference between snarling at Danny and attack Ross, but Dina being aggressive isn’t necessarily out of character.
In fact, Dina’s aggressive defense of her friends is even explained. She did nothing when Blaine bullied his way into their dorm room, and she’s felt guilty about it ever since. She’s consciously devoted herself to this behavior.
I’m just enjoying the superhero craziness while it lasts, while waiting nervously for the other shoe to drop.
Oh, how cute, YOU THINK IT’S OVER.
The only thing about all of this that makes me a bit grumpy is that I normally think of this as a pretty grounded comic. Sure, Amazi-Girl was a crimefighter before, but she was fighting pretty low-level crime like campus bullies. Now all of a sudden she really is full-blown batman-tier. It feels rather dramatically out of place.
Didn’t Amazi Girl zip line onto a moving truck before?
Well, not really “full-blown batman-tier”. This is a half-page opening scene for Batman, with no injury or risk to bystanders.
This is definitely a step up for Amazi-girl, but she’s paying for it. Nor is it at all clear it’s all going to work out cleanly.
Eh, I feel the same way. At this point I’m rolling with all the cool action sequences, but I’m kind of just tuning out until the interesting stuff happens again. And that’s not how I’m supposed to feel, right? This should be the escalation to the next big dramabomb and instead it’s like we’re in a completely different story arc with a wildly different tone and character actions.
I mean, it’s not my comic; if people are loving all the action then more power to them, but I think it would have been a lot better if it had stayed more tonally consistent.
Between the problematic Danny/Ethan stuff and now this weird cartoony interval to what was an incredible compelling and serious story, this is really turning out to be one of the poorer arcs in the series, which is still pretty cool since the only other arc I’ve ever disliked in the entire 5-year run was the Shoes arc.
AmaziGirl? More like AwesomeSauceGirl, amirite?
She. Is. So. Cool!
‘Amazi-Sauce’ would be a great hot sauce name.
Well, tomorrow is another day and only tomorrow will tell if Amazi-Girl has saved the day. She’s going on adrenaline and, when it wears off, is going to feel all the broken ribs from hitting the windshield. I think there is still room for Joyce and Sal to help this come to an end. (Ross goes to jail, of course).
WHY?! WHY DID I READ THIS AT FRIGGIN 12:32AM!? (EST) Now I have to wait until MONDAY for the continuation of this most epic arc! Also, sweet kick at the shotty Amazi-Girl…now sweep the Toehead…Clean. Off!
Daylight Savings Time! wait… does that mean we will see it an hour earlier or later? *shakes fist* I’m, so confuzzled.
Well the US is getting an hour back so for people who don’t have DST ending tomorrow the comic will be an hour later than normal.
Hah, why are you so late ? We ended our daylight savings a week ago over here!
Rifle, not a shotgun.
I hate to be that person, but – how does the rope go from being above/in front of her to being behind her? There’s no way she could have pushed her body in between her arms to achieve that in this situation, certainly not as part of a quick attack or using momentum from the car rotation.
(Because *thats* the part where my suspension of disbelief breaks down in this awesome storyline…)
I see it as, it’s attached by the grappling hook to the undercarriage on Becky’s side. When she was talking to Becky it was in front of her. Then she throws the caltrops, and the car swerves, spinning around to lash out at Toedad. So now she’s facing him, and the rope is now behind her, still attached on Becky’s side. Willis is actually usually pretty careful with physics.
No, I’m with Fneb on this one. I see how the rope could have gotten under her, after she swerved and flipped, but not how it could get under her *and* inside the arm holding the suction cup… Not unless she threaded her legs and butt over it, which would seem impossible to do as quickly as this is happening.
I swear. You people seem to be incapable of reading between the panels. Yesterday Amazigirl was talking to Becky. The grapple was in her right hand. The end of the rope trailed loosely down the car. She was not in a position to kick Ross or reach his gun. When the tire went, Ross wasn’t expecting it and accidently fired the gun before he was ready. Amazigirl was expecting it and using the suction device as a pivot let her forward momentum carry the central mass of her body out over the windshield, as is clearly shown in the next to last panel and then back around to where she could kick the gun out of his hands. The grapple is still in the same hand with the rope still around her arm and the end trailing away.
Where do you see any evidence of flipping? Sheesh!
She turns while she’s suspended over the windshield to be in position for the kick, but in no sense is this a flip. Also the rope is not attached to the carrage on the underside and never has been.
It is attached to the undercarriage. In yesterday’s strip, you can see the grapple in her hand in panel 3. By panel 5, she’s hooked it to the undercarriage below Becky’s door. You can see one hook part under the car, plus the rope is taut between there and her hand.
In today’s strip, the rope is still taut between there and her hand in panel 4 and you might be able to see the grapple still, though it’s smaller.
The only way that move (between today’s panel 4 & 5) works is if she folds up, bringing her knees up between her body and the rope, then kicks out over the rope.
The only car we saw in the oncoming lane should be past them by now and, especially if the driver of the red car hits her breaks, Toedad’s car should continue the spin into the oncoming traffic lane it’s in the middle of and avoid colliding with any cars we know about. The worry at this point is trees. It’s going to be slowing down from the tires going, and depending on if he had it on cruise control or not from Toedad having his foot off the gas so with Becky’s seat belt and Amazi-girls suction cup and grappling hook the girls should be banged up all to hell but in need of at most casts not caskets.
Toedad on the other hand . . . hanging out of the window like that I don’t see him surviving a collision with pretty much anything.
Caltrops? Are those even legal? Or even quasi-legal?
I believe they’re generally legal to own, and most likely legal to use on private property. They’re certainly not legal to use on public roads, and best of luck to the people who hit the ones that toe-dad’s car didn’t take out.
Huh… Unless the car flips, I think Toedad (given that it looks like his balance is gone and he’s about to either fall to one side or fall /under/ the car) /actually/ will come out of this the worst off as far as pre-police arrival injuries… Nice!
Gun gone? Check. Car disabled? Check. Police called? Check. Now AwesomeCarDriverLady just needs to pin Tosses car to a tree or something
Damn, Amber you are Amazing.
Toedad to Toejam, coming up from the looks of it. And red car lady may not be happy she is still so close behind them, as chances are she’s going to run the Hell right over him. IF he falls out of car from AG’s kick.
It appears that their car has a good chance of rolling, at least up on its side. That would put Amber and Toedad on the upside of it.
If he doesn’t fall out/off with that kick, he will have a great chance to grab her, and then God help her as he will kill her with his bare hands. Maybe she will continue her swing out of his reach though. I hope.
Looks like Sal and Joyce are going to miss the whole thing unless they get there in about 2 seconds.
He’s not incapacitated yet. There’s still plenty of time for things to go to hell again.
I’m just waiting for that cape to do something stupid. You know what they say about capes.
They get caught in bank revolving doors?
*ducks*
something something stuck on a rocket
Metaman, express elevator!
Dyna-Guy, snagged on takeoff!
Splashdown, sucked into a vortex!
NO CAPES!
I get so sick of people regurgitating that. Capes can be really useful offensive and defensive tools if you know what you’re doing with them – and Amazi-Girl does – (see also: matadors) and all of those problems can be neutralized just by making them tear-away.
Sucked through the intake of a jet engine…
Aamzi-girl : you Dads are the snake to my Indiana Jone.
I feel almost like this is some kind of weird daydream or dream sequence – between the unquestioning villiany of Ross, Amazi-girl’s comic book-esque chase and fight with Ross, the odd display of physics and people’s reactions in the last few strips…
It’s just suspending too much sense of belief in an otherwise grounded universe.
Tomorrow, Bob Newhart wakes Suzanne Pleshette up “Emily, I had a dream…wtf?!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgdUWXf8jJk
Don’t worry, in a few more strips Danny will wake up to find Patrick Ewing in his shower.
http://mansut.fotomaps.ru/patrick-ewing.php
So… at this point, Toe Dad has fired a rifle in the air twice… is anyone else worried about where those bullets might fall
Not really. Big world, small bullets; the chances of them hitting anything significant are statistically insignificant.
Look at it this way. There are a large number of birds flying overhead too. When’s the last time one of them shat on you?
Now there’s hoping Red can brake in time ^^;
Please do not kill Ruth in again…
Hey, it’s not their fault she was taking a walk alongside the highway.
Turns out she’s driving the truck this time.
huzzah! now it’s only slightly likely that anyone we like will die! toedad might be screwed, though. as for a potential fist fight, amber clearly has way more fighting experience than toedad who clearly, up til this point, has relied on his size to get his way. assuming he’s not killed by the momentum of being flung from the vehicle, dude’s probably gonna get his ass kicked.
If ever there was an “Oh, SHIT!” expression, Toedad’s expression in the last panel is it.
LIKE A BAWWSSSS!!! thats all i can say right now.
Coming soon: AMAZIGIRL in “Dads on a Plane”
“Why does it always have to be dads?”
Holy Freud Willis, if you were projecting any harder you could open a movie theater.
It’s an Indiana Jones reference from a character who has a pretty well-established history of dealing with a fucking awful father. I think calling this projection is one hell of a reach.
Oh good, he fired the gun again! That’s just what the situation needed.
First you were all like “whoa”, and we were like “whoa”, and you were like “whoa…”
If a you drop a… caltrops. And you go away. Enemy is sneaking up on you. AUGH! Hurt their foot! Then you know where they are! Heh heh heh.
God I love Amber.
Okay. I’ll be honest. I had to reread it to see that Amazi-girl was throwing spike balls, and that she did not suddenly pull out a mac to fight of this person.
Oh dear. I really hope the car doesn’t roll while he halfway out of it.
Did she just kick his eyebrows off?
Caltrops? I didn’t see that one coming, but I’m still waiting for to pull a Dad repellent or at least a pepper spray . Anyway, there’s a world full of pain coming for Ross in the next strips.
Hopefully she’ll wait on the bear spray until they’re stopped (and possibly off the car), or she’s likely to get a lot of it too.
Dad-repellent Amazi-spray?
Aw, Spencer got there first.
Expect a call from my lawyers.
I like to imagine this is all happening at ten, twelve mph, and that nothing worse happens than a fender bender and any exposed skin hitting pavement getting left behind.
(Anecdotal experience: I stupidly thought jumping out of a slow-moving car was a good idea as a teenager; it was not. It is amazing I do not have scars, but obviously it was not a deadly experience. Then again, slipping on ice resulted in broken bones, so I’m sure a lot is down to how one falls.)
Another Back to the Future reference. I’m just waiting for a frizzy-white-haired dude in a lab coat to be wandering around in the background of one of the panels. Maybe ducking behind a billboard.
I’m worried that rope around her arm is going to end badly… Please I hope not.
not unless Willis wants to draw Amber in a cast or something until halfway through the Malia Obama Administration
That should’ve had a Beverage Alert tag.
AND now you are disarmed by a teenage girl 😛 Congrats…
But seriously, this is NOT gonna end well ;;; Though I can see Amb-I eman Amazi-Girl, likely opening the door so she can get Becky out of there once the car is at a place where getting out would be safer for them ;;;
Just when you thought he couldn’t get any douchier! New and improved! With realistic rifle action!
I hereby ask my fellow readers to petition Willis to change Amazi-Girl’s name to AMAZI-NINJA-GIRL 😀
I’m in!
Hi Amazi-Ninja-Girl, I’m Dad.
HOLY CRAP ROSS ACTUALLY FIRED THE GUN. HE WAS LEGIT GOING TO SHOOT A PERSON. DOES MURDER NOT COUNT AS A SIN ANYMORE ROSS??
I thought is was pretty well established that Christians view that commandment as a suggestion – unless they’re Quaker.
I guess I was too in shock that he actually brought a loaded gun to a school full of kids to remember that extremely fundamentalist Christians like himself would turn a blind eye to that. It just seems ridiculous that he’d ignore a commandment and focus on a mistranslated line. But I mean nothing else he’s done up to this point has been rational, either.
In my experience growing up with fundie Christians,they have no problem with killing people they think deserve it. They discuss the possibility enthusiastically.
Also a lot of christians believe the old testament doesnt apply to them anymore.
People don’t often actually get their morality out of the Bible (or any holy book). More often they search the text until they find what they were looking for.
And in the case of the Bible, it’s in there.
Since when has it ever been a problem for a religious fundamentalist to kill in the name of their boneheaded beliefs?
>Since when has it ever been a problem for a
religious fundamentalisthuman being to kill in the name of their boneheaded beliefs?Fixed that for ya.
I mean except this was in response to someone saying a religious extremist should be unwilling to kill. So…. yeah, your edit was not necessary at all.
I know, right. HMMMMM. THAT PERSON MY DAUGHTER’S AGE IS AN INCONVENIENCE TO ME. I SUPPOSE THE BEST THINK I CAN DO IS SHOOT HER DEAD WITH A GUN. I’M CLEARLY A VERY, VERY GOOD PERSON.
Fudge you Ross. Fudge you all the way to Heck, not that you need any help to get there.
Root out the evil amidst yourself, sugar plums.
maybe we’re getting an origin story for an amazi-sidekick…
“Once, just once, let it be moms”
*Enter Linda Walkerton*
http://walkypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Linda_Walkerton
Check out the first line in the DOA section…
You made me snort.
I can see the conversation after this craziness is over.
Amazi-girl: it’s always dads.
Sal: let me introduce you to my mother.
Shooting guns at superheroes now… sure, perfect plan. What could possibly go wrong?
YOU GO AMAZIE-GIRL!!!!!!!!!
While Ross goes NUTS, oh wait he did that already.
Now I have to wonder who taught Amazi-Girl how to be so damn awesome.
It has to be the Willis-verse version of Stick.
Actually, it could quite literally be Stick as well as a host of other teachers in the comics multiverse. Remember: Ethan told Danny that Amber is a total comic-book superhero nerd!
Attempted and failed murder? Tsk, tsk. Ross, you’re sooooooo</b? going to Hell (and the prison cell). Go, Amazi-Girl!
‘Sokay, Nick, we all have bad HTML days.
Whatever happens now, at least the gun’s out of the picture. Now, where the hell is Dina?
Sorry for the prison-environment thing. My brain was using less than 70 IQ at the moment.
Watching Amazi-Girl be completely super badass like this is so great that it makes me completely dread what’ll happen when the other shoe drops and Sal’s prediction of her making everything worse comes to fruition.
Considering the car seems to have swerved in front of the red car and is now likely slowing down or stopping, I fear we may be in for a potential collision.
Given the fact that the driver in the red car is no doubt watching this, she’s likely braking this very moment. We’ll see how it goes, though.
Dat alt text tho.
Amazi-girl has MOVES!!
Oh! Hey! I called it! Three or four days ago, I said that Amazi-Girl would use spiked jacks to blow out the car’s tyres and immobilise it! Go me!
Go Amazi-Girl too! What’s the bet that she knew that Ross was there from the moment he stuck his head out of the window? It should be interesting to see if he’s still so tough without his rat-killer rifle and whether he has the confidence to take on someone who has demonstrated mad physical skills hand-to-hand!
By the way, I’d say the answer is ‘yes’ and that Amber is going to be massaging his face with her knuckles for a while.
Caltrops. Learn the word.
XD!!! “Learn the word?!!”
Who has to say that more than once in a decade?!!
I tend to use it multiple times a week.
“I will pepper your driveway with caltrops because [losing at video game]” does not count…
Gamers, military historians, adventure writers and readers…
That would be interesting but not likely, since he’s obviously still strong and loopy; he could probably toss her around like Dina. Also hard to imagine breaking her own conditioning against attacking him.
Mutha
Fuckin
Radical
(This comment would have happened 2 hours 28 minutes earlier if I had not been at work; sadly, this may be the new norm)
Work? My condolences!
Ross’ line reads to me like “GET YOUR OWN DAUGHTER” and I like it.
Can I just say how much I love the fact that amazi-girl is an actual superhero rather than just a messed up person who fails at the first sign of trouble? I mean, she is just a messed up person, but she SUCCEEDS like a superhero.And a much more entertaining and interesting one than pretty much any going on in Actual Comic Books right now. And the fact that she fits so well into a very non-superheroic world makes it even better, because so few comics have even attempted to make super heroes genuinely believable, and none have done as well as this i think
Am I the only one who read’s Ross’s declaration in today’s strip like a spoiled brat of a child screeching: “My toy! MIIINNNE!“? This guy simply doesn’t see Becky as ‘people’. He probably never has; her mum neither!
More like Gollum — “My precioussss…….”
Yep, he’s not even trying to justify his actions as “saving his daughter” anymore. This is just about regaining control of an object that is no longer behaving as he feels it should.
Women are for “standing by their man” and making babies for him. After they’ve been properly married off, that is.
This is Ross’s world. And I really have to wonder at the age of the people reading this strip, because until very very recently this was every woman’s reality, and yet, stunningly, few of you seem at all aware of that.
I’m 58. Yes, I remember when this was what women were supposed to do. But even then most men didn’t react like Ross when crossed.
Not every woman’s. My grandmother started her own clothing factory and built up a successful business that employed two dozen people during the Great Depression, my mother was a (locally) prominent activist and community organiser in the Sixties and Seventies, and served over twenty years in elected office as a councillor and deputy mayor.
They were exceptions, yes. They probably couldn’t have done it if my father and grandfather had not been decent men and supportive of their ambitions — also yes. But there were exceptions and there are exceptions, and one of the problems that the exceptions have to struggle with is erasure by generalisations like “every woman’s reality“.
Why is she throwing a ball-shaped item instead of caltrops? They are sure to work, and a lot cheaper to make.
More utility (as they could also roll or trip people) maybe. (Not an expert on caltrops).
Also, having them ball-shaped makes them look like Spike’s attacks from Mario, that’s got to have some value to gamers like her.
Real-world caltrops like those are generally made to contain something to make things even more unpleasant when they’re trod on/ridden over.
Go, AMAZI-GIRL™, go!!!!
Becky will ditch Dina and will fall for Amazi-girl.
There I said it.
Did anyone else notice that Ross switches hands on his gun between panels 2 and 4?
One day, I hope, Amber will realise just how… amazing she is.
Where does she get those wonderful toys?
Amazon, apparently! 😮
Amazon has plenty of grappling hooks and caltrops, and there’s all sorts of specialists stores online:
armstar.net
zprepared.com/zblog/category/zdefense/protection-zdefense
And some superheroes make their own stuff, or get it custom made, like these guys:
gizmag.com/real-life-superhero-gadgets/16862
Hey, “Amazon” sounds like a superhero name. When you think about it Amazon is basically Batman.
Well, apart from the going out of his way to beat up the poor and mentally ill.
maybe that’s what was in the box she got awhile back?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/huntergatherer/
but it not be, the more I think of it.
Super cool action sequence, but… Willis, please, PLEASE don’t make the car get into an accident and some other, totally innocent bystander gets killed or crippled for life. Because that is something that would totally occur with an out of control car on a public road.
I’m not sure Amazi-girl could live with herself (and rightly so) if she ended up causing the death or permanent disability of someone whose only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Well, that’s the kind of occasion I’ve been saving this really great old bottle of suspension of disbelief for. Time to break it out, I guess.
She’s amazing!
Whoa, where’d she get little spike balls?…….I want some..
Just a thought about the look on Ross’s face in the last panel. I don’t think that he’s ever actually been in a situation when he’s had someone use force right back at him. It’s one thing being willing to ‘fight for my family’ but I don’t think that he was ready for someone who will fight back and fight back so aggressively.
I got that feeling too – especially for someone to successfully do so. Becky has repeatedly showed that she isn’t cowed and has tried to engage him verbally, but his response at every turn has been to step up his intimidation tactics: get angry, raise your voice, assert authority, threaten violence. Get your way by being bigger and stronger than the other person.
This might well be the first time that hasn’t worked out for him. He’s going to regret bringing a gun to this particular fist fight.
Interesting thought – what we’re seeing here is how Amazi-Girl handles the rescue and abusive dad beatdown, rather than Amber. There’s a lot more technique and superheroics, a lot less ‘walk straight up and beat the crap out of him’. I wonder how she actually intends to finish this, given that she won’t have Amber’s red rage to call on as she did for Blaine.
Whoops, HTML fail.
The situation has yet to reach a stage where a beatdown is even possible, so let’s see what happens when we get to that point.
Tie him to a lamp post, swing away with Becky, say a oneline. Something like that.
….Unless of course Amber takes over.
can amazigirl fight my dad next? he looks like a red neck wizard so itd be fun to draw~
In that last panel, Toe-Dad has lost the gun now right?
Yep, it’s bouncing down the road a few dozen yards away from him right now and has probably been damaged (misaligned barrel and broken trigger mechanism) due to the impact with the black-top.
Especially since this is on a ROAD. They’re in a car and if something fell out of the car iin the highway, it’s likely to be run over.
OK, that was freaking AMAZING 😯
I don’t think that’s a rifle. I think is is a pump action .410-gauge shotgun. Oh, and I also am the victim of a caltrop, which wound up in the tire of my 1994 Chevrolet Caprice. It had been thrown on a street in downtown Columbus, Ohio.
It’s been pretty conclusively identified as a rifle – Ruger 1V, IIRC – from earlier strips. A bit by-the-by I suppose, since the salient points are that it was (a) pointed at AG and (b) no longer in Ross’ hands.
Yeah, it’s a Ruger no. 1.
I like the idea of that “SWEEEEEEE” sound being the collective audience breaking through the fifth wall and recording their reaction (“sweeeeeet!”) to Toedad’s disarming onto the comic page itself.
Why dads? because they are the one that feel they have a mission.
I love Willis’s autumn trees! Great color!
WHERE DID SHE GET THOSE? did she make them in metals class? can you buy them on ebay?
ALSO I AM HAPPY THE GUN IS GONE NOW YAS
Hoo yes, this turdguzzler is about to eat boot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWkhaYzsxmY
I hope Mazda-Girl has a dashcam.
Maybe. Go back. Be objective.
Hmm…
I haven’t read any comments over the last months in this comic. There are simply too many and I don’t have enough time. (I say this, because what I’m about to say may have been said many times here, but I don’t/can’t/won’t know it, so it’s fresh, from me to Mr. Willis.) I read about 20 webcomics regularly. There have only been one or two that pull me in, so to speak. This was not one of them. I like it, don’t get me wrong. I find the characters (fairly) believable and sometimes wonder if some character could possibly be a real person (a real person would do whatever the character has done, I mean) and then I realize sure, there are so many of us that someone somewhere has done it. But it never really hooked me.
All of that being said…. this story line here…. oh my fucking christ. I cannot believe how well it’s being done. I wake up in the morning, and before I leave the house, I check out what is going to happen next, it’s got me that hooked. Normally I wait and read them all after noon. Not this one.
Well done David. VERY will done, indeed.
I see what you did there. Good show, old bean. Good show.
Random thought : the car is less likely to start flip over, seeing both Toedad and Amazi-girl are acting as counterweight.
Well, until it turns 180 more °, anyway. If it does. Kinda suspect it’ll stop before.
On the plus side, Toedad is without his weapon, there are many multiple witnesses to his fuckitude, his car is disabled, and Amber already needs to go to the hospital. No further need for cast injury.
As long as he’s upright, he’s dangerous – he’s got fists and a lot of muscle to drive them.
C’mon Amazigirl kick that foot’s ass and save Dina’s girl! Then we’ll get you checked out for possibly busted ribs.
What’s sad is that while Amber is a fucking badass, she’s also the exact product that her dad wanted. A tough son of a bongo who has no problems solving situations with extreme violence. Parental moulding is just the kind of shit that’s hard to move away from.
She may be more like her dad than is good for her, but she’s sure as hell not who her dad wants. He wants something that makes him feel big by needing him to control every part of its life and believing every word he says to criticize and belittle it.
Would that Amber could disown him and be replaced by a voice-controlled Tamagotchi.
I don’t think Blaine really wanted anything from Amber other than the ability to constantly tear her down and the kind of control that gives you over another person.
Those are quite the acrobatics to get the rope from one side of her body to the other.
Serious strength.
It was at that precise moment, wrestling with a school shooter and a kidnapper on top of a moving car Amazi-Girl stopped being a superhero. When she kicked the gun out of the would-be killer’s hands, before he could manage to shoot anyone, she became a hero.
Love the Indy reference.
Ross: Ack! I lost my grip (on the rifle)!
Sal was right, Amber is going to get someone hurt, or killed. That car is dangerously close to flipping.
Amber/Amazi-Girl may be wrong, but Sal obviously isn’t right.
Yet.
What concerns me is that the Toe’s skull is very close to the pavement. Smearing someone over the asphalt is going to screw our favorite vigilante up, even (especially?) if it’s by mistake.
Well, we can add “attempted murder” to Ross’ charges…
I dunno, I think being attacked by an unhinged vigilante who’s actively endangering you, your passenger and every driver around might warrant a self defense claim.
And that’s basically the only time I’ll defend Toedad for anything.
I think if the police ever turn up there will be plenty of charges to go around for the two of them.
You don’t get to claim self-defense while engaged in a felony. Like kidnapping.
Now, Amber might rack up a few charges of her own, but that doesn’t let Ross off the hook for anything.
Obviously not, but Amber is endangering everyone around her. It’s reasonable that Toedad would try to stop her from spinning his car into traffic.
Given that he is in the middle of committing a felony kidnapping, the legal way to try to stop her from spinning his car into traffic is to bring his car to a stop and surrender. Anything else, particularly any attack on her, is not self defense, because you can’t claim self-defense while you’re committing a felony – (possible exception for cases where your life is immediately in danger and there is no other way to protect yourself. For example, if you’ve already surrendered and you’re still being attacked. Check your state laws. IANAL.)
She might well be charged with reckless endangerment or even more serious assault charges. But Ross has no legal right to try to kill her at this point.
I see. I’m pretty sure you know way more about legalities than I do, so I’ll take your word for it.
…Though on reflection, this did come off “it’s perfectly fine for toedad to stick himself out the window and try to shoot Amber!” didn’t it?
The easiest way to keep the car from not spinning into traffic would be to slow down carefully and stop over on the side of the road. It is NOT to go out of your window and start firing a shotgun.
I agree, but it’s not a shotgun. It’s been identified as a Ruger no. 1 falling block rifle.
Has DoA crossed the line? Not yet. Today the line is a double yellow line. Yesterday it was a dashed white line. With an oncoming red car in the other lane. Today the red car we see is “Freckles” still following them. (Willis would have done better to make yesterday’s red car another color, but hey, I’m not the one drawing this.)
So Toedad’s car will slide into the bushes. Police sirens. Amazi-Girl will make herself scarce. Sal and Joyce will appear as Toedad and Becky are crawling out of their car. Joyce will glomp Becky. And then she will give Toedad the chewing out of his life, using cuss words never heard before on land or sea.
Joyce’s swearing will still be hanging in the air over Lake Michigan, like a tapestry, even after New Years day.
Oh yeah.
I don’t think this fight is decided yet. If they manage to come to a non-crash stop and Ross manages to dismount, this is a fight that grows far more even. Now, if Joyce and Sal turn up… that fight becomes much more in the Forces of Good’s favor.
Yesterday’s car was more of a burnt orange, or maybe beige (before you question that, I’m old and have cataracts, colors aren’t what they used to be), but it’s not red. If it’s a concerned parent on their way to the university after hearing the news about shots fired on campus, there could be an interesting 911 call being made. If it’s someone that hasn’t heard the news, they’ll just pass it off as college kids being college kids.
Yesterday’s car was in the other lane coming towards them. The perspective was from behind & diagonal of Toedad’s brown POS. Two days ago, Freckles’ care, which AG launched herself from, was most definitely red. Please consult your ophthalmologist about your cataracts.
We agree, yesterday’s car wasn’t Maggie’s red car. My response was directed at the above reference saying that the oncoming car shouldn’t have been red. It wasn’t. I can’t be sure of the exact color, but it wasn’t the same as Maggie’s. As for the cataracts, they won’t “ripen” for a few more months.
For what it’s worth, I figure that Amazi-girl, depending on the information that the cops get on all this, better lay pretty low for a *while* afterwards. She may be a hero, but cops take a dim view of anything vigilante-like. Not to mention IU.
We may not think it’s fair, but…
With her impending injuries, I’m sure she will have no trouble laying low.
Amazi-Girl snaps and beats the shit out of 99 dads.
Amazi-girl: kicking dads and taking names!!!
Amazi-girl is at least sporting a concussion, probably bruised if not broken ribs and a sprain wrist. Boy I don’t want to be here when the adrenaline wears off.
Man, I know shes the (way) lesser of two evils, but I’m having a hard time not remembering what Sal said to Joyce earlier: “She’ll escalate that shit. someone’ll get hurt, ah GUARANTEE it.”
Eeeyup.
Dads: Dumb as dog shit
I look forward to the possibility of Ross falling out of his car window and getting run over by Maggie, or a police cruiser.
But I’ll settle for him getting belted across the face with a boot and then beginning what is the rest of his miserable life behind prison bars.
Amazi-girl is back in the game. I think this is good. I’m still braced for something horrible.
I love the Indiana Jones reference in there…I have the Raiders March playing as I read this to add a little dramatic effect to it.
Is it just me or does this strip look a little different than it did 24 hours ago?
Clever title. I see what you did there.
I see now.. http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=463 I knew this was somewhere
I just want to take this time out and think about the first time I seen Amazi-Girl/Amber up until now and finally just say how much of a freakin badass human being she is.