Well, looks like Malati had an eye opener! Maybe she should practice against gladiators as well on her off hours instead of throwing underwear at them? :D
Speaking of which, hope these guys either have really good medical insurance or have good life insurance!
Hmm, I'm starting to think that perhaps the stormtroopers would have been better served by dual-wielding pistol Uzis loaded with shattering AP flechettes and spraying out the full clips: They obviously didn't hit Maxus with stopping power so they needed more dakka.
I was wrong, the creators of this comic weren't feeling that audience hostile.
Say, question, is that sword literally making flaming cuts through dudes, or is that stylized artistic effect to render sword cuts in a static picture medium?
Could be a chemical effect too, like some compound that seeps out of the sword when it's handle is gripped, that combusts when it comes in contact with air. Or blood. Or both.
Such a sword would be relatively simple to make, even with todays technology.
It's the chemical compound that would be the biggest issue.
Never bring guns to a close quarters knife fight - especially if the guy with the blade really does know what he is doing.
Very nice art - like the concept of the bioreactive blade, a real showman's weapon, just the thing for the circus' pit. Also like the way you handled visual 'tunneling' in the first frame.
You know what's curious ?
A company nearby has more trouble with Win 8 than with Vista. It seems Vista has been patched so much that it's pretty stable nowadays.
It's still slow though, but stable.
I run 64 Bit Vista Home, and I honestly haven't had any issues. My mother has 32 Bit Vista Home on her computer though and it is nothing BUT issues.
I think it's just that Microsoft messed up the 32 bit version, since they were thinking that no one in their right mind would be buying a 32 it computer anymore.
Problem, humans are difficult to upgrade like that. Conventionally, it would require surgery and that's always hazardous and dicey at best with regards to how good your final results are. When dealing with something like improving your implementation of designer post-humans you're probably better off tearing down the old one for wear and tear data and making a fresh batch using what you've learned. Consider applying the logic of, "The parts that weren't injured are probably too fragile so reinforce and armour them more in the next batch." Applying basic iterative design principles for hostile-environment equipment like that would be a good chunk of what Setorious could do to improve on the model.
While biological upgrades makes more sense in an iterative format, we are talking about transhumans here, their regenration rate may just be high enough that extensive, and frequent, surgery might not be a problem.
Not to mention that this is in the future with medical facilities far ahead of our own.
We are, in the real world, centuries past the invention of surgery and have made many developments in its tooling and technique since it began to become part of standard western medical practice. We are poised, within the next century or two, to take direct human touch out of the process. Yeah, that probably could make surgery work better more often if we manage to lower the amount of dangerous incompetence in the process. Potentially that would make it easier to limit unintended cuts and other damage (and hopefully lower the incidence of the "did the wrong surgery" problem).
There are irreducible risks though, chief among them the human body has something like a hundred times as many parasitic cells in it as there are human body cells. Their mass tends to be about ten percent of an adult human. Their presence, and the fact that we can't get rid of them without risking worse problems than leaving them alone, means that no matter what we do infection will always be a severe problem with surgery which causes decidedly negative complications, including death. Because of this I'm not a fan of the idea of augmentative surgery: It would cause people to die, people would be crippled, people would lose years of their lifespan and gain other health complications from it. Maybe some future nanotech fabrication process beyond surgery might have fewer problems, but I remain skeptical that the, "Everyone is constantly living with a timebomb of bacteria that want to eat us," will be so easily solved.
Infection is highly dependant on the recovery ability of the person. And in this case we are looking at Transhumans, who may have straight up regeneration abilities akin to Salamanders.
With something like that, infections would be a LOT less severe.
Which is similar to the way A/C were upgraded in WW2, the logic went "these A/C are coming back with heavy damage to certain areas, but they're coming back' therefore the ones that didn't return must have taken damage in the areas that weren't hit on these ones so we'll armour those undamaged spots instead", and lo and behold, the loss rate dropped...
I forgot something.
The sight of intestines spilling out of a person's abdomen makes me ill.
Nothing against this page. I just... won't be looking at it much.
Nothing against those it bothers, but the intestines look great, just a touch of reality, most death in the entertainment media is over or underdone. Nicely done here. (imho)
Thank you .. I try to keep it reasonable .. but I often do actual research on injurys and such .. you know how hard it is to find " Body blown apart " and then actually look at the pretty and often color high rez pictures ..
the same with gunshots and knife wounds..
Hrist landed a pretty decent cut accross Maxus .. however his hyped up biology has already sealed the wound and is dumping massive amounts of endorphins into him and andrinals .. Hes as much a killing machine as Malati or Hrist.
Agreed CptK, bleh. That is VERY graphic demonstration of what a very sharp blade could do to a human body. Well done, but definitely not something I want to look at often (if ever again).
Panel three just over Maxus' right shoulder I detect 3 rather ominous red glows.
I WONDER what those could be.
:)
Edit: Ahhh it looks like it scrub bums blood RATS!!
Edit AGAIN: In panel two, We know Malati is overspeeding, but she looks like she is standing still, while Maxus looks like he is at Ludicrous speed. Which shows just how fast he really is. Or does it? Mayhap he has something faster than ludicrous speed?
Edit Three Why do I have the feeling the Prince Dou**imus is watching the monitors in his private rooms and gulping and getting extremely dry in the mouth?
While decimus might be betting on himself, TeeDee is betting on the MurderTurd .. just because it's awesome. :)
Even without it's legs, it's still a match for Decimus, now she just needs a plan on how to get the Murderturd into Decimus' throne room!
Her plan is a work in progress. >_<
Thinking the gene priest already regrew the MurderTurds legs. But yeah while seeing Teedee riding a MurderTurd into the throne room would be funny it lacks a certain realistic quality.
Thinking the gene priest already regrew the MurderTurds legs. But yeah while seeing Teedee riding a MurderTurd into the throne room would be funny it lacks a certain realistic quality.
Correct Sheela .. :D that biology is a lot of the reason the Transhumans were created by the church.. and Maxus is a Transhuman he may not be a animal hybrid but he is engineered within a razors line of being a actual superhuman.. he can already handle cyborgs and combat andriods .. as you can see here. There is NOTHING he is a afraid of.. he respects the Cassians for what they are .. and to a degree to the Pretorians.. but it is a careful respect. he knows one mistep and hes a dead man.
*Eyes shimmer with whimsy as I watch. Tail swishing madly* It makes fire and gore?!! Oh Joyous panels! I want that blade something fierce! (But he already has 6)
And that fantastic dodge! He's like a murderous ballerina! All "Leaf on the Wind" and shit.
This bunch is used to fighting 'ordinary' people and is waaay overconfident. Either they slept through the briefing on whom they were facing or embraced their badass image and thought this would be a piece of cake.
I like the decapitation and evisceration shots and the angles. You can hear the blade sizzle in your mind as it carves up his attackers. They don't even have time to scream. Of course, that's tough to do without a face or a head.
THe Royal Pretorians honestly have never been in a "losing fight" so this is rather a eye opener.. Many people know the Legend of Maxus.. but few of them have actually WATCHED him fight in the games.
Well, to be fair, they were not supposed to be on the frontline, the cassians were meant to do that - Meanwhile the guards were just supposed to stand back and fire into the mess with their guns.
Surprise, surprise - The first casualty in a fight, is the plan.
A good general makes sure of that, and Maxus is a very good general.
If he were a little bit better at exploiting chaos he'd probably want the prince's guard still alive and still shooting: Making them shoot at each other and the droids would be a legend renewer. He'll just have to settle for doing however well he does against the Cassians after he finishes dispatching the dudes shooting him to little effect.
Not injuring or killing Irene is a big, valid, reason to get them to shoot less, I grant you. She dies anyway if he dies, so I'd hope he's picking his tactics for maximum effect: You'd think logically that hanging close to the gunpeople where they aren't pointing their guns would make it harder for the blade-wielding combatants to have a good angle of attack without getting hit or risking friendly-on-friendly damage. If you could lead the hostiles into each others' attacks that would just be gravy.
I don't think the Cassians would mind all that much cutting the odd Praetorian or two to get Maxus.
The problem there more of lies in the Praetorians blocking attack lines or strikes that were meant for Maxus with their bodies.
Depends on the thugs, depends on their target. Yeah, bullies make a point of avoiding fights they think they could lose because they don't want to lose. When a fight looks tough like that they usually try to find some way to cheat and make sure the other guy either doesn't want to or can't fight back, like waiting until they are asleep or something.
No one... good And yeah vivisection girl really is probally kicking herself...though Honestly I think she's not really trying since she thinks this is total BS
I don't know about that, Rashala. we got a good enough glimpse at Malati's psyche to know that she takes pride in how she does her job, even if she can't take any pride in the jobs she's forced to do.
Once committed to the fight, I don't think she would hold back, even if she hates herself for it afterwards.
But at the same time, if she thinks that doing this job would ultimately be detrimental to Nova Roma as a whole, she would probably try to find ways to circumvent the orders.
Training, practiced skills and experience count for a lot of 'speed' in quick-moving situations, as anybody who does paintball regularly, plays FPS*, skateboards, plays a high-speed sport or what-have-you could explain. He might have dodged it despite not being faster than Malati--or perhaps even slower--through reading her position and movement to analyze intentions and act on them faster than she could change tactics effectively. She seems to have human proportions, and human comparable limb joints, which means that skill at recognizing the options of movement from a given position would carry over at least somewhat.
*"Cover based shooters" don't count for this, they're so slow and low-skill you can play them on a D-pad controller, bleh.
Also, lets not forget that Maxus is the genejoke based variation of a cyborg or android, he's basically the Nova Roma variant of what Marcus Ramsey is.
The chances of those two clashing later on, is higher than average! I don't think they will kill one another, but some fighting is definately possible.
Perhaps she is trying to double agent Prince Douchimus. That looks like she was aiming to sever the spine of someone who may actually be able to heal from that. Take him down, bring him to the Prince and be "surprised" that he recovered that fast.
If I were the guy monitoring the security cams, I would be making a copy specifically to sneak out and sell to whomever broadcasts the gladitorial games. Can you imagine what they'd pay for "Legendary Pit Champion vs. two Cassians and a squad of Prince's Own?"
Obviously, not much if this all comes through with Decimus still on the throne. But somehow I have a feeling that it'll come through in some other way.
Speaking of which, hope these guys either have really good medical insurance or have good life insurance!
as for the dudes in blue.. they are boned.
Did anyone remember to bring the mashed potatoes and gravy to go along with that?
It's slightly out of date, but that's allright, MurderTurds will eat anything. :)
I have no sympathy, and in fact wish a lingering death upon them.
And
Durka Durka Durka
Nothing could be father from the truth.
A bodybuilder might be slow, but a fighter will never be slow.
Say, question, is that sword literally making flaming cuts through dudes, or is that stylized artistic effect to render sword cuts in a static picture medium?
and nope we are staying on this until its finished one way or another :D
Such a sword would be relatively simple to make, even with todays technology.
It's the chemical compound that would be the biggest issue.
Very nice art - like the concept of the bioreactive blade, a real showman's weapon, just the thing for the circus' pit. Also like the way you handled visual 'tunneling' in the first frame.
glad you liked the "focus point" effect .. I try to not abuse effects like that..
You will have to make do with Windows ... Vista.
A company nearby has more trouble with Win 8 than with Vista. It seems Vista has been patched so much that it's pretty stable nowadays.
It's still slow though, but stable.
I think it's just that Microsoft messed up the 32 bit version, since they were thinking that no one in their right mind would be buying a 32 it computer anymore.
It never pays to underestimate your opponent, Malati, you should know that by now.
And Maxus' sword is NICE!!!!!
Probably by Setorius, and Setorius knows what he's doing when he builds a superior warrior.
Not to mention that this is in the future with medical facilities far ahead of our own.
There are irreducible risks though, chief among them the human body has something like a hundred times as many parasitic cells in it as there are human body cells. Their mass tends to be about ten percent of an adult human. Their presence, and the fact that we can't get rid of them without risking worse problems than leaving them alone, means that no matter what we do infection will always be a severe problem with surgery which causes decidedly negative complications, including death. Because of this I'm not a fan of the idea of augmentative surgery: It would cause people to die, people would be crippled, people would lose years of their lifespan and gain other health complications from it. Maybe some future nanotech fabrication process beyond surgery might have fewer problems, but I remain skeptical that the, "Everyone is constantly living with a timebomb of bacteria that want to eat us," will be so easily solved.
With something like that, infections would be a LOT less severe.
The sight of intestines spilling out of a person's abdomen makes me ill.
Nothing against this page. I just... won't be looking at it much.
the same with gunshots and knife wounds..
Hrist landed a pretty decent cut accross Maxus .. however his hyped up biology has already sealed the wound and is dumping massive amounts of endorphins into him and andrinals .. Hes as much a killing machine as Malati or Hrist.
I WONDER what those could be.
:)
Edit: Ahhh it looks like it scrub bums blood RATS!!
Edit AGAIN: In panel two, We know Malati is overspeeding, but she looks like she is standing still, while Maxus looks like he is at Ludicrous speed. Which shows just how fast he really is. Or does it? Mayhap he has something faster than ludicrous speed?
Edit Three Why do I have the feeling the Prince Dou**imus is watching the monitors in his private rooms and gulping and getting extremely dry in the mouth?
Even without it's legs, it's still a match for Decimus, now she just needs a plan on how to get the Murderturd into Decimus' throne room!
Her plan is a work in progress. >_<
All TeeDee's plans have explosives in them .. a LOT of explosives, actually.
And the murderturd doesn't need legs to eat Decimus, it just needs transporting to the throneroom. :)
...and I am glad that Malati did not hurt Maxus...
I wonder what they will do when it is only Maxus, Irene, Malati and Hrist are left...
Wouldn't be much of a Gladiator, if he was fragile.
A good physical recovery system, would be high on the list of wanted traits.
TeeDee wants to know!
And that fantastic dodge! He's like a murderous ballerina! All "Leaf on the Wind" and shit.
And it wasn't Maxus saying it either.
Doesn't mean he's all safe and certain to win. Just that it's all still undecided and could go all ways.
I like the decapitation and evisceration shots and the angles. You can hear the blade sizzle in your mind as it carves up his attackers. They don't even have time to scream. Of course, that's tough to do without a face or a head.
Surprise, surprise - The first casualty in a fight, is the plan.
A good general makes sure of that, and Maxus is a very good general.
Not to mention, he wants them to stop messing up his house.
The problem there more of lies in the Praetorians blocking attack lines or strikes that were meant for Maxus with their bodies.
the Idiot with the gun was the firt to die.....
Raise your hand if you were surprised?
No one... good And yeah vivisection girl really is probally kicking herself...though Honestly I think she's not really trying since she thinks this is total BS
Once committed to the fight, I don't think she would hold back, even if she hates herself for it afterwards.
But at the same time, if she thinks that doing this job would ultimately be detrimental to Nova Roma as a whole, she would probably try to find ways to circumvent the orders.
*"Cover based shooters" don't count for this, they're so slow and low-skill you can play them on a D-pad controller, bleh.
The chances of those two clashing later on, is higher than average! I don't think they will kill one another, but some fighting is definately possible.
Wait, did I accidentally just refer to her as the racial term for Dunmer? Shite.
Also, EW, WHY DID I READ THIS COMIC WHILE EATING?!
I daresay Maxus is indeed one of those who must.
Great work guys!!!
Obviously, not much if this all comes through with Decimus still on the throne. But somehow I have a feeling that it'll come through in some other way.