Sidekick Girl

Saving the City: Sans-Spandex

whup.

Hey, self, finishing the comic on time doesn’t help you if you forget to upload it. Good job, self. Good job.

6 responses to “Revelation I”

  • Gamebook on August 29, 2019 at 1:39 AM

    Whoa, abs!

  • The Passing Critic on September 2, 2019 at 1:56 PM

    Girlabs are always relevant<3.Though shes probably used to this by now I can understand Val being pissed about this-Hope those pads Have got a sturdy backing cause it looks like Mr Bats in for a serious workout!.

  • Tay Schmidt on September 3, 2019 at 6:58 PM

    Question for the Creators: If Val heals from things that would normally incapacitate someone, does that mean that she is stronger than the average person? Like, does the healing factor aid in muscle growth and bone density?

  • Sidekickgirl on September 3, 2019 at 9:18 PM

    Simple answer: no. Complicated answer: probably.

    So if you try really hard to get into the “science” of powers (which we do fuss with sometimes, for the lols) you can come up with a lot of powers that someone would have to have in order for their “main” power to work. Like for Jasper to be super strong, he would HAVE to also be somewhat invulnerable so that the impacts didn’t damage his body, right? Or for Hazel, Laura came up with a whole fiction-physics thing here: https://sidekickgirl.net/hazes-hero-debut-iv/

    The problem is that whenever you try to delve too deep into hard science fiction, you will invariably come up against the fact that the science doesn’t actually work, because you’re describing impossible things. You can get kinda close, but it will fail. And then someone, be they a well-meaning pro trying to make good discussion, or a d-bag who wants to pretend they’re an expert in everything, will point it out. Sometimes this leads to fun discussion. Sometimes this leads to fights in the comments. Sometimes it just makes you wanna never want to try to get sciencey ever again and say “A wizard did it!”

    So sure, IF healing factor was a real thing, it would certainly affect more of Val than just healing wounds (previously at normal speed, just no dying from catastrophic injury, progressed to now, where she heals at a somewhat accelerated rate: https://sidekickgirl.net/check-up-iv/ ) Now, see there, we went into sciencey again, and mention bone density. So that bit of your question is a yes.

    But if we tried to really map out ALL the ways that powers would have to affect other powers, it would get really complicated and probably contradictory. So the most straightforward answer is that Val is at peak physical condition for a human female her age, and her power most likely contributes to that, but not in a way that she would be classed as being enhanced in any other way than “can heal self.”

  • Mike on September 4, 2019 at 2:06 AM

    That’s a good approach, one that too few superhero creators forget about. They’re doing things that break the current understanding of physics and (in most universes) they don’t understand where they came from so it’s OK for the character to just say “this is what we’ve observed about the powers”, if that doesn’t make sense based on real world scientific theories then the fictional theory of how they work has to change to match the observations.

  • DragonRage on September 28, 2019 at 2:51 AM

    Well, one thing worth noting is that Val doesn’t have to worry about stress fractures, repetitive motion injuries, and all the other things that can bedevil real life athletes. All those potentially career-ending things and she can just take it and keep going. If nothing else, that would contribute to her getting in excellent shape, because she basically never needs to stop before she’s ready to.

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