431

Cuffed
Posted on July 10, 2025 by David M Willis

431 thoughts on “Cuffed”

  1. NGPZ

    Amazi-Girl to the rescue!!!

    holy fuck that’s tear gas isn’t it? 0-0

    *plays “Free Bird” but only the hectic part on hacked muzak*

    1. Charles Phipps

      I’d make a joke about how dangerous the obviously unarmed and compliant protestors are but sadly there’s no humor as anything I’d say is exactly the sort of things that got told about RL ones.

      1. Tan

        Teehee. It is funny because the cruelty is the point.

      2. Longshot97

        Willis is doing a painfully good job at conveying the frantic, incomprehensible sense of motion and reaction. It really is like watching a train wreck unfold. We can watch as everything details, be it ever so slow.

        1. DJTsurugi

          it’s the sad reality of probably roided up cops with superiority complexes (or inferiority) using their power over regular people because the can. ~<3

        2. Adept

          Seems like a good summary of (especially American) cops.

    2. Steamweed

      Tear gas is now standard issue when police deal with protests. 🙁

    3. Lilith Rose

      Amazigirl is awesome for this.

  2. Animedingo

    My Joycedar is tingling

    1. Zero

      Good job. You have correctly identified Joyce.

      1. Shade

        Personally I wasn’t sure, so its good to have confirmation.

        1. SillyGoose

          That’s why we have name tags, because we sure were in the dark about Citizen

      2. PhyrexianRogue

        It’s so hard to tell under that riot helmet.

  3. IntangibleMatter

    Okay I genuinely don’t know- are there any gas canisters that get thrown at protesters that are usually pink? Or is this an Amazi-Girl Brand Smoke Grenade™?

    1. Rose by Any other Name

      Her colors are yellow and blue. Why would she use pink smoke?

      1. Bodmans

        Pride month?

        1. Amós Batista

          AY

      2. Reltzik

        It’s a fake-out to hide her identity.

      3. Durandal_1707

        Is Amazi-Girl Ukrainian? I guess that could explain her seemingly implausible badassery.

        1. Li

          Continues to be weird how most people would accept “trained for years” as an explanation for exactly Amazi-Girl’s level of badassery, if only she were a boy.

        2. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Some of us accept it regardless of her gender. But her abilities are just beyond the bounds of reality (woman or man), but near enough for lightly suspending disbelief. Regardless, it’s not clear that Durandal’s comment was sexist, or merely based on a gender-ambivalent recognition that in universe heros’ powers are just beyond credible for IRL equivalence.

        3. Li

          Oh sorry I should have clearly indicated that my objection is to a long-term wide-ranging pattern of behavior from many commenters over time and not just this one comment from this one person…

          …huh that’s weird, I did do that. ? Oh well.

        4. Reltzik

          …. okay, now I’m imagining her employing drones in her vigilantism, and I can’t think of any practical reason why she wouldn’t.

        5. PedanticJerkass

          Drones and other gadgets seem like they’d be right up her alley. She’s already using phones to track people, after all.

    2. Switchchris

      Different Colored smokes are used by Military and Law Enforcement. Red usually means the situation is dangerous for anybody involved. So while I doubt that its Tear Gas, if its the Red Smoke being thrown they are trying to even further escalate the situation. Potentially signaling the sniper to start shooting.

      1. Nymph

        Alternatively, Willis picked a color that would contrast against the sky without looking like a cloud. Artistic license, general lighting in the area, need for contrast, etc.

        I very highly doubt it’s a signal to the sniper to start shooting when they all have perfectly functional walky-talkies to discuss that if they were going to.

        1. Li

          It’s pink in honor of red panels (being silly)

      2. yak

        Why would you throw target-obscuring smoke to signal to the sniper “hey, shoot stuff here!”?

    3. Throwatron

      They don’t throw them. They fire them out of grenade launchers. Usually at protestors’ heads. “Less lethal” my ass.

      1. Big Z

        Yep. “Less lethal” compared to actually getting shot with a military-caliber rifle, that’s about it.

        1. thejeff

          A lot less lethal, especially when used properly – which they certainly aren’t all the time.

          Though it’s not really “usually at protestors’ heads”. That’s definitely a thing that does happen pretty often, but it’s not the standard.

        2. Decidedly Orthogonal

          “official” Standard or not, any cop doing so should be behind bars. That they aren’t is just a signal that it’s acceptable to the powers above.

  4. butts

    i see Amazi-Girl gets the 1960s Batman-style cartoon fighting sound effects

  5. StClair

    nice “unsound effect”.

    1. Woop de doop

      Yesssss

  6. Tequila Mockingbird

    Hell yeah Amazi-Girl. ROW ROW, FIGHT THE POWER!

    1. NGPZ

      *plays “Fight The Power” by Public Enemy on hacked muzak*

      1. Sharizard

        Hell yeah! This is the one i was waiting for!

  7. Alongcameaspider

    And so Joyce learns the harsh lesson that simply being near a protest is enough for the cops to arrest you

    1. showler

      And now she’s officially “committed a crime” by “refusing an order from the police”.

      1. Proxiehunter

        And resisting arrest. Fun fact, it’s possible for “resisting arrest” to be the only crime you get charged with.

      2. Amós Batista

        She didn’t sign anything yet. So…

    2. Zero

      They didn’t arrest her, they assaulted her.

      1. Jay

        She assaulted their fist with her face, says right here on the charge sheet. ?

        1. Taffy

          If she wasn’t the aggressor, then how come after the cop cut its hand on purpose and smeared its blood on her face, she wound up with its blood on her face?

    3. Steamweed

      Freedom of assembly until not.

  8. ZombieKyrik

    Amazi-Girl continues to save people despite the very real possibility of prison time.

    On the bright side, Joyce just realized how bad things can get even when she follows the law. This will help reinforce the idea of ACAB in her life.

    1. Rose by Any other Name

      … that took me a minute.
      I was like “assigned what at birth?”

      1. Davus

        Shit you not, I kinda assumed that’s what ACAB meant. Assigned cop at birth.

        1. Amós Batista

          I knew ACAB as “All Cops Are Bastards”

        2. Giffem

          that indeed is one of the common use i have heard used for that in many youtube vids.

        3. JoeCovenant

          ACAB was a thing LONG before the internet was a widespread thing.
          Usually due to Neds with ACAB tattooed on their knuckles.
          (Less brave Neds had four “dots” tattooed there to stand for the same thing.)

        4. Axel

          a super embarrassing thing once was saying ‘ACAB has existed for at least 20 years’ in front of my (biker adjacent) dad once. I meant since at least the 80s, but my brain did the ‘it’s the 2000s so the 80s are 20 years ago’ thing (in actuality it is much older than the 80s, but I didn’t know that offhand at the time).

          I was talking to my aunt, who saw me wearing something with ACAB on it and she had never heard of it before.

        5. PedanticJerkass

          Yeah, ACAB has been a thing since the 1920s.

        6. Sharizard

          It’s basically a ‘dawn of time’ thing. You could argue it’s the modern day version of the critique that stems from, ‘Who watches the watchmen?’ and that’s originally 1st century.

          Do not trust those who apply for power to use that power for those who need their power the most.

        7. Zero

          The first time I ever saw it was someone complaining about “prejudice” against cops, and one commenter pointed out that being a cop is a job that people choose to do and can quit at any time and another one quipped “assigned cop at birth.”

          And then for the longest time that was my only reference for what it meant and I was terribly confused almost every time I saw it.

        8. Steamweed

          Reason #1 why ‘blue lives matter’ is a hateful joke. No such thing as ‘blue lives’. The purpose was solely to detract from the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement.

        9. Taffy

          Until and unless we get some hot Asari immigrants, “blue lives” are a myth and a self-report that somebody wants a free ticket for murder.

      2. ZombieKyrik

        I could have gone with 1312, but I figured ACAB is more widely known.

        1. Dave Van Domelen

          If you play the notes ACAB on the right instrument, it’s one of the stings from a classic Godzilla movie. (Specifically quarter notes on the ACA and a sustained B.)

      3. morleuca

        Every time! Every dang time! It always throws me for a moment, and makes me do a double take.

    2. Charles Phipps

      I’d make a joke that Sal would get arrested because the police would take Billie’s word she’s Amazi-Girl.

      But that would honestly be funny and be just as possible under this idiocracy.

      1. Proxiehunter

        Sal’s black enough they don’t need to think she’s AG to arrest her. So’s Walky.

        1. Charles Phipps

          Wouldn’t be funny.

          What a bad typo.

        2. John Campbell

          So is Joyce, evidently.

      2. Nymphie

        The police knows Amazigirl is Amber, if they dirty cop told the others after the kidnapping. Wouldn’t stop them though from grabbing Sal

        1. Clif

          How did the dirty cop know that Amazigirl is Amber? One of us is misremembering.

        2. thejeff

          From Blaine. Though Blaine seems to have both said and then denied it.

          It’s unlikely the dirty cop put that in the report. The mob’s more likely to know what Blaine said than the authorities are.

  9. Nono

    Amazi-Girl fighting riot police might actually be the second most dangerous for she’s taken on.

    No the first isn’t Blaine or Toedad.

    It’s that cat she had to rescue from a tree once.

  10. Sirksome

    Well I guess wasn’t the one we should worry about somehow.

    1. Sirksome

      I meant to put “Dorothy” in there somewhere. Which is probably a good joke now.

    2. Thag Simmons

      Dorothy very much still in the danger zone

  11. Pinkie

    Kicking the cops? That can’t end well.

    1. ZombieKyrik

      Nope, and something tells me the cops are going to find identifying Amazi-Girl easier than Jennifer/Billie does.

      1. Ravian

        Maybe, cops are dumb, though I do imagine they’re going to take the presence of a “dangerous vigilante” who stands up to them a lot more seriously than the school was previously.

      2. DailyBrad

        Maybe but I also sort of doubt it. I feel like it’s more likely Amazi-Girl gets trouble from Asher being on the scent.

        1. Davus

          I get the feeling that the mob won’t bother Amazi-Girl if they don’t have to. I think Blaine was behind the kidnapping, and the only reason that the mob wanted to kill Blaine was that he was too sloppy. Like, she doesn’t have much of value (Blaine’s alimony has dried up) and she’s a formidable foe, so I don’t see what the mob would do to her.

      3. Thag Simmons

        Didn’t Blaine already identify AG as Amber to the cop who ended up killing him

        1. Taffy

          Kinda? The cop that killed him asked if Amazi-Girl was his daughter, presumably based on the story he told it, but then he told it she wasn’t capable, but then he also told it they could try to say Amber was Amazi-Girl anyway if it thought she’d wind up in jail. It’s kind of up in the air.

        2. Clif

          So no, not really. As far as the cop knows, Blain’s answer was truthful. He has no reason to distrust it, as Blain was perfectly willing to see Amber sent to jail.

        3. DailyBrad

          Yeah, I’m inclined to think he would take that as a denial of the idea. I also think that the last thing dirty cops would want would be to bark up that tree when that’d just bring increased scrutiny to what happened with Blaine. It’s a no win proposition for no real gain.

      4. Steamweed

        Taking on trained riot cops is a whole different matter than taking on Blaine, et al.

        1. thejeff

          If only because numbers, reinforcements and the weight of law are on the other side now.

        2. Proxiehunter

          Also the riot cops have body armor that her previous opponents have lacked.

        3. PedanticJerkass

          Blaine was wearing body armor.

    2. mindbleach

      Nah, it’s a comic. Fuck ’em. Things can just work out.

      1. Purple Floof

        I mean, “things can just work out” when someone outside of the protest zone getting arrested without actually doing anything protest-related nor directed at police, Willis is on a “the police are cartoonishly fascist” on this one

        1. vlademir1

          And yet enough police absolutely will and have behaved like this when faced with such situations in the US.

        2. Embe13

          or that up in canuckistan we just had 4 members of our military arrested for creating a terrorist cell

        3. Clif

          Okay? That’s not really been reported so much this far south of the border. Maybe the BBC news we get will pick it up.

        4. Embe13

          they did, it was on bbc mainpage ytdy. also all over the cbc

        5. Embe13

          https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mcguinty-rcmp-militia-members-plot-1.7582071

        6. FlamestAndLight

          if willis is doing “the police are cartoonishly fascist” then we live in a cartoon world. They do this. This is real cop behavior. Cops are fascists like straight up. They straight up historically have been KKK members, these days are frequently part of fascist militias and are straight up trained by people with ties to said orgs.

          Reuters has an article called “Prevalence of white supremacists in law enforcement demands drastic change”

          These cops could have gone after her for fun, because she’s visibly queer, because she’s a woman, or simply out of hate for being associated with the protest (and thus she’s “the enemy”). Police in the real world have been caught on camera smiling as they shoot people. I cannot stress enough that “cartoonishly fascist” applies to the real world too.

        7. Sirksome

          This is also just based on a real event that happened last year where the Indiana state police did escalate a peaceful protest at IU unprovoked and beat up students and faculty. You can look this up. I googled it and the article showed up immediately. Thee cops and some of the university admins were highly criticized for the complete breakdown and firings were called for but I don’t know enough if anything actually happened. People still talking about it though and clearly remember.

        8. Proxiehunter

          Historically? My town has had cops found to own KKK memorabilia within the last decade.

        9. Steamweed

          Not even 1% ‘cartoonish’. We’ve got plenty of reports and video of them acting this way. When they start their violent activities, they stop being any form of civil about it, and they stop listening to civilians. They always follow the pattern of ‘arrest everyone; beat everyone; let the courts sort it all out later.’

        10. Serendipity

          These cops are realistically fascist.

          It just so happens that fascism is an absurd and omnidestructive ideology.

        11. Riley

          this is based on a real protest at IU and this shit did in fact happen. my friend was there. you may need to update your scale of just how evil the police in the US are

        12. mindbleach

          Yeah, and then a goddamn superhero gave him a flying knee. Realistic consequences are not necessary in fantasy. Not even fantasy as grounded as DoA.

        13. thejeff

          It’s unclear where things go from there though, without getting realistically dark or trivializing the protest and the problems by just having AG fight the cops until they give up and the story ends.

        14. Proxiehunter

          So far everything that’s been shown is the police being realistically fascist. You sound like the people who look at some weird shit Joyce used to say/think that’s normal for fundies and say it’s unrealistic.

    3. Svankensen

      In a small protest like this one? Yeah, bad idea. In a large protest? Oh, you’d be surprised. I’m not one for that, but I’ve been at a lot of protests, been knocked over by a riot horse (surprisingly gentle, I must say), been aimed at with rubber bullets. Choked on tear gas. People face off with the cops all the time in large protests. And our cops are not good. Not nearly as bad as US cops tho. I’ve seen cops draw guns (with normal bullets) only once, and it was visiting the US.

      1. Matthew Davis

        I was making the case that if I had to choose between the US Marines or National Guard and LAPD I’d pick the former every day of the week. I got a lot of pushback about that, but I stick to my larger point that we spent 20 years indoctrinating the military with rules of engagement for dealing with riots and insurgencies that LAPD has not received. Instead they received militarized police training (sometimes with Hitler quotes) and a bunch of equipment no strings attached.

        1. Throwatron

          The most common type of police officer who turns on their department, goes rogue, becomes a vigilante, etc, is actually an ex-military cop.

          They get into the police force, assuming it will be the closest thing in civilian life to being in the military…and they are often deeply disappointed at the operational corruption, incompetence, and lack of consequences for bad officer behavior.

          If you break a rule in the military, you get to go to military courts, where you have less rights than a normal citizen, and are subject to some of the harshest bureaucracy imaginable. If you break a rule as a cop, you get a 6 month paid vacation, and a new job in a town that’s 2 hours away from wherever you currently are.

          The military-industrial complex is bad, and many parts of the military are also corrupt in different ways, but if the police were subject to the kinds of scrutiny that soldiers were, every police station would shutter in a year or two, because there’d be no officers left. Cops shoot at anything that startles them; soldiers aren’t allowed to shoot at people who are actively trying to kill them, until they have been given proper clearance to return fire. That’s the difference in the level of discipline required, and the fear of consequences from that looming bureaucracy.

        2. Steamweed

          Hell yeah. Our trained full-time actual service members are very careful, discretionary, and precise with the use of force. Majority of cops are very much not.

        3. thejeff

          Differently, but that’s not really all that true. Especially when the military acts as an occupation force in foreign countries. The US military is relatively good as occupying militaries go, but discipline and training only go so far. An awful lot of bad shit went down in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

        4. Steamweed

          Absolutely lots of bad behavior happened in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Vietnam, Korea, all of them. Our military forces have never been saints. But generally, our military forces demonstrate greater behavioral discipline and accountability than the police forces.

      2. Dante

        Those so called “rubber bullets….” [Sigh] But we should be sparse with the details, Svankensen. There’s already a good portion of the commentariat scaring each other out of participating on protests due to the inherent risks (played up to 11), and no. Not everyone has the temper of a Primera Línea** And that’s ok! Many types of protests, and all. Some are even silent and peaceful, though that’s not what gonna happen here Many roles within a single protest, too. What consistently matters the most is participation.

        ———–
        “Vanguards, basically. It was no militia: Just a bunch of men and women showing up with shields to keep the cops away from the protesters

        1. Zero

          This protest is peaceful.

        2. Taffy

          Not anymore. The cops showed up to end that.

        3. Steamweed

          Escalating, as they’re trained to do.

        4. Riley

          Most protests are until the cops decide they aren’t

        5. Li

          Dante means that many protests are perfectly safe to be at, not that this protest didn’t have peaceful intents.

        6. Dante

          Yep. Thank you.

          I literally said “there’s many kinds of protests. There’s many ways to participate in these many kind of protests. Of those, a good deal are perfectly safe to be at.” I mentioned the Primera Líneas because it was something that happened here, and as far as civil resistance goes, they were pretty damn badass. But, again. I literally followed that up with a “not everyone has the temperament to be at that kind of protest, and play that kind of role.”

          This protest in particular started out peaceful, and the cops made sure it didn’t stay that way. Alright! This… Also doesn’t mean “do not participate ever.” The statu quo thrives in fear and obedience.

          Participating in a protest, like I also said last strip, is not suicidal. If I may be frank, it’s one of the very best y’all can do. I remember literally saying last year, not disrespectfully but appreciatively, “dude I’m so glad the USA kiddos are learning how to do this.” Because civil disobedience, down here, is a very normal part of life.

    4. deliverything

      To be pedantic, it’s less of a kick than a Sagat-style tiger knee.

  12. ZombieKyrik

    Joyce please get out of there; both Jocelyne and Dorothy are going to blame themselves if you get hurt and/or arrested. Please let there once be a “Smarting of Age” where Joyce goes back to her dorm immediately.

  13. Opus the Poet

    Amazi-Girl didn’t assault a peace officer, she prevented an assault on a citizen by a common thug. He ceased being a peace officer when he violated his oath to the Constitution.

    1. Kyulen

      Cops don’t care about the Constitution or the rights of citizens. They exist to protect the wealthy and their property.

    2. Torgamous

      Are you sure that pretending this is about individual cops going rogue is a worthwhile exercise?

    3. Shade

      Until the system starts punishing them accordingly we can only assume this behaviour is considered an acceptable part of their job.

      1. deliverything

        To continue my pedantry: Opus the Poet just said he ceased being a “peace officer”. Peace clearly isn’t a priority for these police officers.

    4. Nymph

      Yeah, I also wish this was how the world worked.

    5. Steamweed

      Most sadly, the hundred other thug-cops don’t see it that way. Them, and their ‘less-lethal’ and actual-lethal weaponry, and them and the courts, too.

    6. yak

      Thuggery is about 75% of a riot cop’s job description.

    7. PedanticJerkass

      Tell that to the judge and jury who will probably acquit him.

      1. PedanticJerkass

        Assuming he even gets charged with anything to start with, that is.

  14. Tenzhi

    I wish this were less believable.

    1. Mollyscribbles

      Imagine if, 10 years ago, this strip ran as a random flashforward.

      1. Svankensen

        It would’ve been the same. The US has always been this way. Not that cops aren’t like that almost everywhere.

        1. Kyulen

          I really hope more of my fellow Americans realize that the US has been like this for a very long time, and that we really need to replace this system with something better soon.

        2. Throwatron

          If you look at the 11 Signs of Fascism or whatever…even before Trump, before the Tea Party, before 9/11, The United States of America was probably checking off about nine of the eleven, and I promise I only realized how apt that would be as I was writing this post.

        3. Steamweed

          Generally speaking, surveys tend to show 1/3rd of Americans want more autocracy, law, and order. About 2/3rds don’t.

        4. thejeff

          Yeah, but that’s not what Kyulen means. He means we need to replace the whole system with communism.

          And that’s a lot less supported than even the 1/3rd who want more autocracy.

        5. Astariel

          And yet, the ones who want more autocracy keep getting chosen to run the country.

        6. Proxiehunter

          Gerrymandering and the electoral college are not helping with that.

        7. Steamweed

          Gerrymandering, electoral college, and billionaires spending dark money is definitely helping with that.

        8. PedanticJerkass

          And most of the ones who do ironically voted for Trump, the literal Criminal President. No matter all the worthless rhetoric about how Trump is “ToUgH oN cRiMe” or whatever.

          It’s funny (if one defines “funny” as “enraging”) because I sometimes drive by a sign from 2024 that is, still to this day, tacked onto a power pole, which reads “Trump Safety / Kamala Crime,” and I never fail to flip a middle finger at it as I go by.

          That and the “I’m Voting For The Felon” sign that’s still in a neighbors’ yard (along with their Trump flag and their half-and-half American/Gadsden flag.)

          Trumpanzees don’t care about law and order, even if they say they do. If they truly did, they wouldn’t be Trumpanzees and Trump wouldn’t be POTUS now.

        9. thejeff

          “law and order” in US politics has been code for “keep minorities in their place” since Wallace used it in the 60s. It made perfect sense for Trump to use it against Harris

      2. Torgamous

        You could run this comic a century ago and the only thing that’d change is the uniform.

        1. Steamweed

          I was gonna argue the technology of tear gas wasn’t used a century ago, because my mind is still stuck in 2000, apparently. But, yeah, WWI had tear gas. _More_ than a century ago. 😛

    2. Chiatroll

      Yeah, I was out at the local No Kings protest last month. I had to go home early because I’m older and it’s hot but not long after I left the police started their violence against them.

      1. Throwatron

        man its almost like if you train a bunch of coked up neanderthals with sub-standard intellect, hire them to do violence, and train them to do violence, they will constantly do violence?

        if only there was a better system for protecting private property, but alas, the poors have to be culled routinely.

        1. Tequila Mockingbird

          Oh c’mon, that’s not fair to neanderthals. I’ve heard scientists say that they were probably a lot smarter than we give them credit for, and there is even evidence for things like empathy (grieving their dead, nursing the wounded back to health.)

        2. PedanticJerkass

          If all you have is a sidearm and a nightstick, everything starts to look like a target.

        3. PedanticJerkass

          Or, in this case, sniper rifles and tear gas guns.

  15. Charles Phipps

    I wonder if we’ll see Frieda as a Far Right news commentator, talking about this.

    “Here we see the police subduing Far Left antifa radical, Joyce Brown, known for her role in the death local community man, Toedad…wait, that’s not his name? He looked like a giant toe.”

    1. Laura

      Frieda?

      1. Laura

        Oh, OK, yeah, got it. From the tags. Robin’s former aide.
        …Good memory!

        1. Charles Phipps

          Yeah, I honestly expected her back by now but I suppose Willis was wrapping up the political angl…oh right.

  16. Kristine

    At least it’s not the green gas…

    1. Lazuli

      green gas turns you into the joker

      1. Throwatron

        america could use some jokers right now i tell u hwat

        1. Ed Callahan

          The problem is we have the Joker already in the Oval Office; and he’s as bent as the Batman character but terminally stupid as well.

        2. Steamweed

          He _thinks_ he’s the Lex Luthor or Max Lord type. But he’s no Joker type, either; Joker is orders of magnitude smarter and planning than the boring, malignant crybaby we actually have.

        3. StarfighterVicki

          This is an insult to the Joker.

          If he were to become president just to destroy the country he was supposed to lead it’d be for the bit, not shameless greed and bigotry. Plus, he’d beat up Nazis.

        4. PedanticJerkass

          Remember that time when the Joker met the Red Skull?

    2. mindbleach

      Smoking on that shit that killed James Bond.

  17. AbacusWizard

    Best. Sound effect. Ever.

  18. Kristine

    Acab

    1. Proxiehunter

      He’s that guy who was obsessed with the white whale right? It bit off his hand and swallowed a clock or something and now he has a hook for a hand and can tell the whale is near by the ticking.

      1. clif

        Excuse me, I have a book to write.

      2. Andrusi

        And now he’s the captain of a submarine.

        1. Proxiehunter

          A yellow one.

  19. Sirksome

    Do these guys even have badges or identification of any kind? They look like storm troopers.

    1. Charles Phipps

      The cops in Ashland, KY have an APC as part of their militarization.

      An APC.

      I’m like, “What possible use could that be in our town?”

      1. Sirksome

        Doing some very quick research on this event and the officers do look pretty much exactly like the riot cops that were there minus the big shields that said “STATE POLICE” on them. Very concerning they seemingly don’t have to identify themselves at all as they force young women to the ground unprovoked.

      2. Matthew Davis

        They got it surplus for pennies on the dollar. That’s a policy from Bush that we never got around to fixing, because there weren’t any votes in doing so.

      3. Throwatron

        The use is that it’s a militarized vehicle that is combat-tested against real insurgency efforts.

        So, if you want to prepare for a fascistic takeover of a country, and a subsequent run-back of the holocaust, it’s a really good idea to give your front-line stormtroopers vehicles that will help them find and kill the undesirable types of Americans, without having to struggle against any real resistance.

        Good thing that what I just said is crazy, and could totally never happen, and totally isn’t happening with utter impunity, right before our eyes, as we currently speak and draw breath.

        1. Steamweed

          “We need all the guns so we can defend our country against tyranny” was said by those who brought us the actual tyranny.

      4. Steamweed

        Warrior cop mentality. Been a growing tendency for a while.

    2. thakoru

      It’s pretty convenient, from a character design perspective, that actual riot cops already wear de-humanizing face-plates and body armor; you have to do almost no work to make them look like evil goons.

      1. Proxiehunter

        That’s because they are evil goons.

        1. Mr D phone posting

          They are gooning, evilly.

        2. Taffy

          All gooning is evil. Pull your pants up. Look at what you’ve been browsing for the past four hours. Do you even remember the last picture or video you saw? The last six? I know it can take a few before you find the right one, but can we collectively get a grip here? Get dressed. Close the tabs. All of ’em, even that one. You’ll find it again another time, it’s fine. Fold your laundry. Vacuum or sweep your floor. Wipe the counter off, even if it doesn’t look like it needs it. You cooked fish yesterday and didn’t clean up, that’s a potential stomach pump you can’t afford. Just some isopropyl will do for now, maybe another pass later. Switch your laundry over. Make sure you put gas in your car. You said you’d do it today, so go ahead and do it. You can grab a snack or a drink, it’s fine. They have 32oz drinks for $1.79, you can nurse that all day. Buy a cabbage. You need to eat those potatoes, and you’ve got a kielbasa in the fridge. Slow cook all three in a pot with some salt and pepper, that’s dinner for at least two nights.

        3. Throwatron

          How…how did you know so much about my day today?!

        4. Steamweed

          An oddly specific sequence. :O

        5. Clif

          With an attitude like that, who’s going to blow up the world and save the Internet?

      2. Nymphie

        I might sound insensitive, but all of this makes me think of the skit in the Swedish comedy show “Hipp, Hipp!” about the Gothenburg riots in 2001.
        “So you can easily contact us, each baton has been embossed with our phone number!”
        Sadly no English subtitles though. Dunno if YouTube link is allowed but I’ll guess I’ll see if the comment goes through or not. https://youtu.be/oHEJAdJI_JE?si=yYorox6AFCaNzokk

    3. Tan

      Well of course they have badges. Badges that have been covered to prevent them from being identified.

      1. Kyulen

        A lot of them also have body cameras, which are always conveniently turned off when they’re about to do some really nasty stuff.

  20. Bittersweet

    I’m kind of shocked Amazi-girl is willing to fight riot police. Like I get that she has to be likable and have the right morals for the audience (us), but like… she’s been pretty hard lawful coded up to this point. Vigilantism aside, she literally has beefed with people for loitering and college students drinking before. Which is a huge gap between “20 year old having a beer” and “cops throwing tear gas and beating students,” but she wasn’t exactly sympathetic to the people she harassed. I don’t actually remember when the switch flipped for her and Sal, but Amazi-girl has a pretty long history of cop-mind behavior. I might need to reread that arc to see if Amazi-girl tackled her entire problematic mindset or just her hatred of Sal, I legit cannot remember rn.

    But also, hells yeah Amazigirl fight the police. Absolutely convinced Dorothy is gonna take a bullet for her though (reason I don’t see the reverse is because the “Linda knows Amber did a Bad” is still a hanging thread. Also because I’m pretty sure Dorothy would need inpatient if yet another person got severely injured and/or killed in front of her, and I’m not saying that derogatorily, I legit think that seeing that happen 3 times in 6 months would cause a mental break in almost anybody. I sure af would not be able to cope without significant intervention.)

    1. AnonGrouch

      Yeah but riot police violate civil statuettes and rules of engagement ALL. THE. TIME! If I were lawful good which I’m really not, I’d be fucking BONKERS CRAZY annoyed at the actual L.E.O.s doing shit on a regular basis. I’m more shocked that this hasn’t come up before especially with how corrupt the cops have been relative to Amazigirls own core storyline. That’s a lot of words to say I feel like if anyone in this comic is going to have a lot of negative feelings towards the police of this city she’s really high on the list.

    2. Charles Phipps

      I mean they’re beating Joyce.

    3. Yumi

      I do think she’s had some of those previous actions challenged in a way that has led her here.

      1. Li

        This.

    4. Nono

      In a sense, the morality scale of the comic has shifted over the years as more real world issues get tangled up in it. Dorothy is the clearest example, but we also have things like Robin no longer being a politician because real world politics are becoming too tiring, Joe stopping the misogyny because yeah that’s become way less fun to pass off as a joke, etc.

      So yeah Amazi-Girl still follows the law, but she’s become more “in the spirit of the law” rather than “the authorities win”. But it’s also consistent because if she really believed that the cops were right, she wouldn’t exist in the first place. And she already knew that Blaine had dirty fingers in with the cops and mafia.

    5. thakoru

      I mean, not for nothing, her dad got murdered by a corrupt cop, who (per a bonus strip) suffered no consequences or scrutiny. Even though Blaine was a shit, that’s the sort of thing that might cause someone to reevaluate their stance on police.

      1. Proxiehunter

        Does she know that or even suspect it? The official story is that he went for the cops gun and was shot while struggling for control over it. Given the events that led Blaine to that hospital room being guarded by a cop is that really an unbelievable sequence of events?

        1. thejeff

          OTOH, she also knew he was connected to the mob and that the mob had some corrupt cops, so it’s not unreasonable for her to suspect.

    6. Tan

      Amazi-Girl has previously noted that she is actively trying to be less of a cop. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-14/03-trystin-in-the-wind/rankled/

      1. Li

        Excellent link, ty.

    7. Bobby

      I’d say AG, while LG, would be much more heavily slanted on the G- and even so, the actions of riot police on a thus peaceful protest are HEAVILY Lawful /evil/, which any LG should and must stand against- because it is still evil.

      1. Azrael

        She’s a vigilante; while she adheres to her own code of morality, being a vigilante is definitely a chaotic act, neutral at best. She routinely breaks letter and spirit of the law for her activities.

        Police are generally chaotic evil; while they’re supposed to adhere to laws and enforce them, they don’t give a shit and will make up their own laws as they please. Then murder, rape, with impunity.

        1. Embe13

          no thats just lawful evil, use the rules for evil/ change the rules when needed.
          chaotic evil gives -infinity about rules, like kill your entire family line for simply suggesting that they may even have a moral code they follow. (see also kidnapping your sister to train them to kill your family line for not acknowledging their evil.)

          a lot of folks don’t seem to understand the differences between lawful, neutral evil and chaotic evil. a lot of what i see people describe as chaotic evil is simply neutral evil that seems chaotic to them as they haven been exposed to what a true agent of evil chaos is.

          i am not great with words to define it better, but evil with regards for rules or regulations is not inherently chaotic evil, more than likely it is evil coming from a place of planning and intent. i guess what i am poorly trying to say is evil motivated by self interest is rarely chaotic evil.

          i have always viewed chaotic evil as more of evil committed with out regard of self aggrandizement/enrichment, committed impulsively, or committed purely to disrupt order.

    8. Zero

      If she’s lawful, then that’s fine because they are explicitly behaving unlawfully. Which is the thing she’s mad about.

    9. Astariel

      I don’t think Amazi-Girl was ever shown to be a fan of cops. She never actually contacted the authorities about any of the people she went after. And the more cop-like behavior was mostly an excuse to go after Sal for her own psychological reasons and wasn’t her SOP. (Not trying to excuse her behavior, just saying that she didn’t seem like much of a cop fan.)

  21. AnonGrouch

    I’m sure the masked vigilante assaulting riot police won’t result in a disproportionate use of force on the protestors and a broad and rapid escalation of force in the coming days at all future protests. No that would be too unreasonable. /s

    1. Proxiehunter

      More disproportionate than it already was? She should have kicked the fucker harder.

      1. AnonGrouch

        There’s ‘fencing people in, threatening arrest, tear gas, and batons, and there is ‘whatever the fuck they are doing in L.A. at any given moment lately’. Honestly the past 6 months or so of hard core fascism has really moved my bar a bit. I suppose I should have said ‘even more disproportionate’.

    2. Charles Phipps

      It’s like the scene in Andor.

      There was never going to be a peaceful handling of the protest because they wanted it to escalate to violence to vilify their cause.

      1. Throwatron

        wow its almost like exactly what german fascists were doing in the early 1930s. good thing that isn’t related to anything happening in america right now. that would be a harrowing reality to contemplate. good thing that’s impossible.

        1. Taffy

          I might get flak for this, but at least Germany’s Hitler didn’t look like a melting vegetable. He was a complete dork, but you can at least look at photos of him and say “Yeah, I could see literally even one person following this guy.” We can’t even say that much.

        2. Astariel

          It really does add insult to injury.

        3. Taffy

          They had a professional fashion designer come up with their uniforms.
          We get Temu hockey pads. If we’re going to have a fascist dictatorship (and I’m not saying we are, because I’m not giving up hope yet), does it have to be so completely and utterly sauceless?

        4. AnonGrouch

          It is sauceless because the internet and science have progressed enough that the people with sauce have more nuanced takes that the copious amounts of solid data support because to have sauce in the modern competitive global economy requires a large foundation in pre-existing facts and culture. Yes I think nazi Germany would have been less ‘sauced’ if the internet existed back then. And probably more unhinged which if you know anything about nazi’s is impressive as they are notriously super unhinged.

        5. PedanticJerkass

          Hitler, at the absolute very least, also was a mediocre painter at one point in his life.

          Has Donald Trump, in all of his 79 years, ever done anything at all that was even as marginally beneficial to society as that? Anything that wasn’t intended to solely benefit Trump himself and only himself, first and foremost, to the exclusion of everyone else?

    3. Icalasari

      I needed this

      1. Icalasari

        Dammit how did that reply to yours I went to the bottom and everything

        1. AnonGrouch

          Replying to bottom stack is always a cursed endeavor. Happens to me all the time. No worries mate.

    4. Kyulen

      They were gonna use disproportionate force anyway, and I’m assuming they had some bullshit excuse prepared beforehand. Likely some nonsense about the protesters “not dispersing when ordered to” or something similar.

      1. AnonGrouch

        Yeah but there is this and there is openly shooting so called ‘less than lethal armaments’ at civvies point blank for the lols. I think we can agree ‘it can get way worse and way more disproportional’.

        Also as a side note since you are the one I frequently run into when I comment on this type of subject matter. Could you please stop nitpicking me when I’m just expressing my general emotional reaction regarding this stuff. I don’t particularly feel it adds to the dialogue at all and all it is really doing is making me feel less welcome in my general expression on this topic. Which is stupid given we basically agree.

        1. AnonGrouch

          (to clarify you arent really doing that now per say, but it felt like a good time to request it.)

        2. Kyulen

          I didn’t consider my comments nitpicking, to be honest. And I think I replied to you that much either. But ok.

        3. Kyulen

          I didn’t think I replied to you that much. Left out a word.

        4. AnonGrouch

          Thanks. It’s not a big deal, but I do appreciate it.

    5. Sirksome

      All cops are bastards. They literally wait for scenarios like this that give them excuses to use all their toys with complete safety and impunity. Countless examples of cops just shooting people or beating up the elderly or unarmed women and even children at protests. It seems like people will happily shred any bit of basic humanity left in them if you give them a bit of authority and status over others.

      1. AnonGrouch

        Yeah it fuckin sucks. Not looking forward when they start adding robots to the mix.

        1. Taffy

          I’ll just fuck the robots myself, don’t worry about the robots.

        2. AnonGrouch

          also I love your profile pic rn

        3. Pergola

          Robots have to be programmed to do what comes naturally to organics.

      2. Charles Phipps

        As an anarchist, I don’t much care for cops but I also think that the anger directed at them ignores that it’s the people who have made this structure and the laws they enforce

        1. Nymph

          Nah, fuck the cops.

        2. PedanticJerkass

          Ew, no thanks.

        3. Proxiehunter

          Jinx: Damn it Vi, you know that’s not what “Fuck the police” means!

    6. thejeff

      Agreed. It wasn’t going to be peaceful anyway, but AG intervening has the potential to make it much worse.
      Joyce being on the outside, this might give her the chance to run away or some of the other cops might focus on her anyway.
      But what’s AG’s next move? Try to get the protesters who were staying to escape? Why would they? Fight off all the cops – that’s just going to escalate into even more force. Sure, it was always going to be disproportionate force, but if she’s actually effective at beating up the cops, is the escalation now really disproportionate? It’s also going to drastically change the coverage of the protest – which already wasn’t really going to be about Bulmeria, but now it’s not even going to be about police violence.

      1. PedanticJerkass

        Well, it’ll still be about police violence, it’ll just be rationalized way more than it otherwise would have been as “justified” due to them being literally attacked by a masked vigilante “out of the blue, for no good reason.” But yeah, very few people are going to care about or even remember Bulmeria once this hits the news.

        Also, even if AG does somehow manage to defeat all these riot cops (and snipers), that wouldn’t end the matter. They’ll be back with a much larger force soon enough, possibly involving troop deployment if the current president in DoA is the same as it unfortunately is in real life.

        (If real-life Trump will jump straight to deploying Marines in response to peaceful protests, just imagine what he would try to do about someone like Amazi-Girl attacking cops. Could be another “Can’t we just nuke hurricanes?” situation.)

  22. Versen

    Dang, cuffing season already.

  23. Kyulen

    I kinda expected Amazi-Girl to be elsewhere, not in the area where all the police are. Also while I’m glad she helped Joyce, I worry that her fighting the cops is gonna cause them to behave worse than they usually do towards protesters.

  24. Doopyboop

    That’s so nice, the cops are sending nice smelling perfume to make everybody smell lovely

    (this is a joke I am kidding)

    1. Woop de doop

      Later Dorothy will send the police department some flowers and a handwritten thank you note

      1. Doopyboop

        So heartwarming! You love to see it.

  25. AnonGrouch

    It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no it’s…. A knee to the heavily armored riot cop face. I am so not prepared for Amazigirl getting arrested. Hope she makes it out unsullied.

    1. Da Boy

      She is attacking cops while there are snipers around, getting arrested is the Good ending

      1. AnonGrouch

        I kind of disagree. There are some things worse than death. Not saying prison is one of them but the moment they find out Amazigirl is Amber I don’t think all the cops that were supporting her father/covering it up are just going to let her serve her sentence in peace. I think they would do everything in their power to destroy and desecrate the symbol of what she stands for an wanted to be all while forcing her to watch the way they manipulate her/amazigirls image/brand in the news constantly tearing her down.

        A death would shock the cast and devastate many but I think it’d be harder for them to destroy her symbolism in such a situation.

      2. thejeff

        Escaping is the only possible good ending here. And even that probably leads to the cops looking for Amazi-Girl a lot more seriously than they might have been before.

        I don’t know where this is going to go, but right now I don’t like the super-hero intrusion into the serious take on protests and police violence.

        1. Da Boy

          Yeah, before she was more of a nuisance/urban legend. Now she committed actual crimes against the government.

        2. Clif

          Successfully so far.

        3. PedanticJerkass

          “I don’t like the super-hero intrusion into the serious take on protests and police violence.”

          Especially since it is based on a real-world event from last year.

          (But then, the seriousness of real-world events didn’t stop Captain America or Superman or whoever from, say, getting involved in WWII or whatever, so I guess it’s… okay… here, too. Question mark.)

  26. Florence

    It begins

  27. Yumi

    Good, good, I was worried AG’s enemies weren’t powerful enough. (/s)

  28. Taffy

    Ew, a cop. Kill it.

    1. not someone else

      I look forward to Joyce deciding your avatar is correct and what that does to Season 2 of Julia Gray.

      1. Throwatron

        yeah on the bright side julia grey strips are about to get way more based.

        1. PedanticJerkass

          “based.”

          *eye roll + sigh + smdh*

      2. Steamweed

        May there actually be a Season 2 and they don’t get the Fox Executive Meddling treatment.

    2. Steamweed

      I’m rereading some Heinlein novels. I had forgotten how much “never just injure a cop; kill ’em all the way” he’s got in his libertarian stories.

  29. Jahu

    rip joyce’s hat u will be missed </3

    1. Woop de doop

      No not the hat!!! (Actually Dorothy’s hat)

    2. Amós Batista

      Joyce was pretty cute with it. And it’s sad to lose a hat

      1. Throwatron

        man i sure hope that the hat falling off wasn’t some kind of intentional symbolism, or else i’ll have more reason to be sad than i already do

        1. Proxiehunter

          Symbolizing a loss of faith in the police maybe?

    3. Doopyboop

      It’s such a small thing but honestly big props to how the hat looks as it’s falling off of Joyce’s head that looks so good.

  30. John Campbell

    Even in this situation, Joyce can say Amazi-Girl’s logo. A-G really needs to hire her to announce all her entrances.

  31. SvenTS

    Love ‘assaulting a police officer’ as a sound effect.

  32. M!a

    No, you’re right; this is SO much more satisfying and healthy than letting them smooch. ?

    The DeeDub is a cruel god.

  33. APersonAmI

    AssaultingAPoliceOfficer is an excellent sound effect. Well played.

    1. Steamweed

      Unfortunately, all that yellow makes her a real easy target to sight, for a sniper on a roof.

      1. Clif

        If not, they can just wait for the next Roller Derby game and take her out then.

  34. Derek

    we’ll find out next time if Amazigirl is perceived as white enough not to be shot on sight for kicking a cop

  35. HueSatLight

    That’s why you wear generic looking clothes.

  36. APersonAmI

    I will say… is it weird to anyone else how much USA gets away with having faceless stormtropers beating up innocent children while secret police kidnap people and send them of to foreign death camps without trial?

    Like, “plain clothes cop” should join “enhanced interrogation” as something only the fascist bootlickers parrot at this point.

    Sorry if that’s too inflamatory, this shit has me livid with rage even on the other end of the world.

    1. Taffy

      Too inflammatory? Hell, you’ve been borderline kind. It’s fucking insane and broken and the country is increasingly in shambles. Treating it that way is how we stay mad enough to act out against it.

      1. APersonAmI

        Thank you. And agreed. Treating it as normal is a dangerous path to giving up on fighting against it.

    2. AGV/Ruby

      It’s not too dissimilar in supposedly more progressive western countries. In Spain riot police remove the numerical tags that are supposed to identify them and snort coke right before they escalate (they’ve been spotted sniffing on their white dust covered gloves).

      1. Mr D phone posting

        As someone living in Spain: way too many people snort coke on the reg. It is like miami in the 80s here.

    3. Kyulen

      I wish more people were bothered by what the US has been doing, not just to its own people, but to people in many other countries. Seems like a lot of Americans have only just recently started to realize how bad things are, when we’ve been this sort of stuff for many years under many presidents.

      1. Throwatron

        I saw a Gianmarco Soresi (comedian) short just today, and he’s performing in Italy, who literally have a fascist party in power, and he asked them, “so who has it worse, you or me?”

        The entire crowd said “you.”

        He continued doing some more crowd work, and got to a couple who said they were from Iran.

        He asked them, “who has it worse, you or me?”

        They said “you.”

        And everyone applauded.

        tl;dr i think some of the world is figuring out what you’ve hoped they would

        1. Plain Marie

          This is both satisfying and … well, I’m wincing.

        2. Tequila Mockingbird

          Given what I’ve heard of how the Iranian government treats its citizens and the subsequent citizen protests in response to those abuses… gawd dayum that is not a good look. Really puts it all into chilling perspective.

        3. RonF

          Given the way that gays and women are treated in Iran – and what happens to people who challenge the regime in public, as that comedian was asking the couple from Iran to do – I don’t credit that comment at all.

      2. yak

        Millions of Americans currently yelling “I never thought *we* would get Operation Condor’d!”

    4. Bobby

      yeah this is a p average day in america sadly

      land of the free amirite

    5. Davus

      I think “plain clothes cop” has a time and place…and that time and place is for investigation. Like, having someone who doesn’t look like a cop so that you can catch people in the act that normally wouldn’t do such a thing around a cop is okay. What’s not okay is having them then arrest the people,
      or if they do arrest someone in while plainclothes, they should roughly follow the procedure of a citizen’s arrest: briefly detain someone in place and call for backup, and then have a cop in uniform preform the arrest.

      1. APersonAmI

        Hm. Yeah, it’s okay for police to be human.

        It’s not okay when they use guns hey wild out of uniform.

        That’s a good perspective, thank you.

      2. thejeff

        Not sure what the issue with plain clothes cop is here? Usually that’s undercover investigation or just a detective detecting. They show the badge and ID themselves when they arresting (or in plenty of other circumstances.)

        Neither the riot cops here, nor the people doing the ICE raids, which I assume are the issue, in “plain clothes” – they’re not in uniform, but they’re usually wearing tactical vests with “ICE” on them or the like. The problem isn’t “plain clothes”, it’s that they hide their faces and don’t have identifying badge numbers or use anything to prove their actual authority. (Well, the problem is really what they’re doing, even if they did it more by the book.)

        1. Tan

          Here you go: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/04/28/ice-detentions-video-civil-liberties-fears-immigrants/83258615007/

        2. thejeff

          Fair. There are some cases – though I still say most are the masked guys in ICE tactical vests.

          But the real problem there is still “refused to show ID or a warrant to his attorneys”. If they’d been plain clothes police detectives who showed warrants and badges to make an arrest, that’s a whole different story.

        3. Tan

          Do you have statistics to back up that “most” beyond a gut feeling? Admittedly it’s probably true in at least the strictest sense of more than half, but the number of “arrests” that are, in the moment, indistinguishable from a kidnapping to either the person being “arrested” or an outside observer are only growing.

        4. Li

          I think “most” is probably hard to prove in both directions. It’s not like we have peer-reviewed research on the topic.

        5. thejeff

          I do not have statistics, but I don’t really care, because again, it’s not the plain clothes, it’s the lack of ID and warrants.
          If they roll up in a van and jump out to grab you with ICE labeled vests on, that’s not actually better.

    6. yak

      Unfortunately it’s actually not that weird. Most states are like this.

  37. SDGlyph

    Oh. I thought this storyline was running on “serious arc with social commentary” but Willis just gave the drama dial a hard twist to “major consequences set piece ohshitohshitohshit”, didn’t they?

    1. Alongcameaspider

      I mean the last one was 5 books ago

      (Also when I checked the archive to make sure I got that right I noticed the next storyline is called “Not So Smooth Criminals” make of that what you will)

    2. thejeff

      Maybe.

      I’m kind of afraid that it’s going to break the “serious arc with social commentary” part, by going over the top. It’s hard for me to see where Amazi-Girl vs the riot cops goes in any satisfying way.

      Like Joyce and/or Dorothy could get arrested and it could be a cool and dramatic sequence. Traumatizing, but with good character development for both. AG gets arrested here and Amber’s not coming back.

      1. AnonGrouch

        I think we can definitely agree masks and lack of badges are a bigger issue. That being said, many of them were not wearing said vests until recently. There were some very high profile cases where this was the case and the public back lash prompted them to (I think?) bulk buy the vests you are talking about.

        So I think now they are at least /slightly/ marked but its also in many cases still so generic looking and so unidentifiable with specifics that I’m pretty sure any schmuk could still buy a reasonable amount of gear at a reasonable price and impersonate. The uniform and badge numbers are meant to deter impersonation. There is a bunch of identifiers built into modern cop uniforms to stop that exact problem. Its also why there are so many rules regarding what you are allowed to wear in terms of security uniforms.

        So while many of them are LESS ‘plain clothes’ now, they are still in my opinion ‘plain clothes enough’ that it has all the negatives of doing enforcement work in plain clothes.

  38. Boh No

    One year it’s the police and national guard descending on protests to protect immigrants

    A year before that, police and feds against encampments to protest genocide in Palestine.

    A year before that, against black protesters decrying police violence.

    It isn’t just them finding new scapegoats; they’re building off each, throwing the marginalized and their allies into smaller and smaller cages.

    The smartest thing to do in this dumb dumb age is build up systems that don’t have to rely on or bow to this bullshit.

    Hold each other close, protect communities, and work to something better

    1. Throwatron

      Trump has opened concentration camps in both of his terms, and publicly bragged about it each time, and used taxpayer dollars to pay private corporations to run those concentration camps, at a massive profit.

      You’re right that we’re in the early stages of the “and then they came for…” poem.

      You’re wrong to think that the average American citizen is literate enough to understand that fucking poem.

      I hate to sound hopeless but I’m pretty much sitting around on this Earth, waiting for America to show up where I’m at and kill me. Because it appears that, for whatever reason, the Republicans cannot lose, and all they want is to pump the military-industrial complex with as much money as possible, for some kind of Christo-fascist neo-Crusade.

      Definitely build communities with networks of like-minded people! But if things keep going at the rate they’re going, it’s all going to be for naught. Either the average American stops identifying with their system, and turns on it at great cost to themselves, or else what comes next, is not something the rest of the free world is ready for.

      1. yak

        They’ve also been purging the high-ranking members of the military, there’s massive brain drain, and of late the way they spend R&D money is wasteful, to say the least.

        I think people are wrong to see these goons as having the capacity to win a war. This is not like Nazi Germany, where the leaders were all ex-soldiers. Most of them are incompetent lawyers and businessmen, and most of them are just in it to loot their own country for profit.

        I would be more worried that the leadership of your own country starts trying to copy the strategy, if they haven’t already.

        1. thejeff

          It’s hard to say. That’ll be more true with time. I don’t think they’ve had the chance to hollow out the US military yet.
          And while we’re not good at occupation and nation building (who is?), it’s a stretch for me to argue the US military isn’t still unmatched at straight up conventional conflict.

        2. yak

          Yeah I don’t mean to say that the US does not still possess the strongest military in the world. What I mean is that baseline competence to use it is just not there at the topmost levels (like the National Security Council). They might have success with limited engagements, but I don’t think the civilian rulers are capable of having a grand strategic vision or executing it.

          Also, one of the first things Trump did this time around was fire several of the joint chiefs of staff. Probably because they weren’t yes-men. I also know for a fact (told by family member) that civilian staff within the DoD got fired randomly, so they’ve been in disarray for a while.

    2. Steamweed

      Teaching the best practices for civil rights attention, protesting, protest medical practices, economic protesting, and more. Spreading the wisdom.

  39. Boh No

    Also, for like, any reason whatsoever, just remember that a tear gas canister can be corralled with a traffic cone that you pour water into the top of while the rest goes over the canister. Can be done with a bucket if careful, but STILL GET OUTTA THERE ASAP.

    If it gets in eyes, USE ONLY WATER, NOT MILK. Gently scrub affected areas and try not to rub at them.

    An umbrella can be useful at protests and such for rain, among, other things.

  40. Reltzik

    …. so, I know it’s hard to tell the passage in time in comics, but I’m thinking this wasn’t anywhere near 30 minutes. And Joyce isn’t doing anything arrest-worthy even by the legalistic “this is an illegal gathering” decree from earlier — she left the area when ordered to disperse and was lingering around the exit for a few extra seconds.

    … so, yeah, those cops are drunk or something. Someone call acab.

    1. Zero

      It really doesn’t seem like 30 minutes, but Joyce and Dorothy were both kind of acting like it was.

    2. Da Boy

      Eh, you know, Trump said two weeks and then bombed Iran like two days later. Lying is very much on the table.

  41. Woop de doop

    Assaulting a police officer!! Arrest her!

    1. Taffy

      May as well arrest her for assaulting a punching bag. They’re equally non-sentient.

  42. Queezle

    Here comes more trauma. Exactly what these characters need.

  43. Acher4

    In the current America, that sound effect seems very… correct.
    Fascist America is Fascist America.

    Let’s only hope that in 10-20 years, these comic updates would be period pieces. And that would be a good thing.

    1. Throwatron

      I mean, I’m gonna stick to hoping that civilization as we know it is still here in 10-20 years, at this rate. I don’t see the rest of NATO actually doing the right thing, and going head-to-head with the enemy we helped create, and besides, China and Russia would gladly ally with Fascist America, if America would let them split up the spoils.

      America and Russia could take Canada in literally a day, and there’s nothing we could do. They could split that shit in half, or divvy it up how they wanted. They could also split Europe. China is more likely to want to conquer the Middle East and expand their financial domination of Africa.

      America, at least, if American propaganda is to be believed, is a solo-the-world threat. If they have any help, or if our resistance to the military-industrial complex is not complete and global, I don’t comprehend how we collectively win a fight against “The Place That Builds All The Modern Weapons of War in the Entire World.”

      1. Taffy

        As an American, I sincerely doubt this country’s military is a solo-the-world threat. They’re overfunded, too damn eager, and a host of other generally scary descriptors, but I don’t have as much faith in them as other Americans or even foreigners seem to, when it comes to their ability to handle such a wide-scale conflict. Buncha Call of Duty bros who think they’re combat veterans if they make it through basic training and camp out in Wyoming playin’ Xbox for a few months, but we’re all supposed to think they’re capable of taking on the planet? Nah.

        1. Sirksome

          Also a war with Canada would be insanely unpopular, immediately cripple us economically, and if not immediately sabotaging the power of the Republican party then it would any of their prospects for like a decade. US citizens live in Canada, US billionaires own property and businesses in Canada. Trump only says he can take over Canada because it gets the most fanatical supporters riled up. Something to stoke the ultranationalist America first boner like renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America did.

          Realistically we’d be totally fucked. And hypothetically if we did somehow remain a democracy after absorbing Canada how would that influx of new voting citizens do anything other than completely reshape politics as we know it?

        2. Reltzik

          …. NGL, that last sentence, and thinking about how Canadian voters could restore some semblance of sanity, almost sold me on the idea.

          Almost.

        3. Steamweed

          Simple solution: not give voting rights to the new state. The fed govt is already practicing taking away rights from American citizens, on a wholesale level. The new Canadian state people can have the same rights as the former American citizens who lost it simply because rump said so and the congress and stupid court rolled over.

        4. Li

          Puerto Rico.

          Why turn Canada into a state when it can just be a territory with far fewer rights.

      2. AnonGrouch

        Civilization as we know it is already crumbling. I doubt it survives 10-20 years. We are living in an increasingly alien and strange world very much unlike what the status quo was. Neoliberalism is dead and it had many flaws, but there WAS a system and there was some egalitarian/morale stances mixed in there. There was a world view to trust in multilateralism, trade, and the global judicial system sort of proped up by the wealthy western countries to get theres but still gave people a since of ‘rule of law’.

        Many people kind of forget until recently just how fundamental Americana was to the backbone structure that allows things like free trade, a stable financial ecosystem to do global trade, and how many civil ngos and institutions biggest funding and backer were basically America. These were the fabric of modern civilization. The world cannot replace the largest economies weight and measure on all these systems. They were already underfunded and experiencing waves of unpopularity due to propaganda. We are already seeing the death of multilateralism and the solevency of the Fed as they drive America deeper into debt and threaten the Fed Chair’s independence. The fabric is being torn every day.

        We don’t need a war for everything to go to shit. A war, if anything, would be a gasp for air from a dying nation rather than a highly effective, high morale, high skilled operation. Remember we fired a ton of experienced professionals in the military in the name of anti-wokeness and a yearning desire for fealty to Trump and we have destroyed every single bond with our allies with all this tariff bs. The civil unrest in America in particular would go through the roof. It would make the 60’s look like a peace time affair.

        Civilization will look vastly different and war isn’t necessary to achieve that in 10 years.

        1. yak

          That dang History, always coming back for more.

      3. Proxiehunter

        The US military couldn’t beat the Viet Cong and it spent 10 years unable to win the war in Afghanistan. We aren’t anywhere near capable of divvying up the world.

        1. thejeff

          We’re not capable of pacifying an occupied territory against hardened resistance, but I’m not sure who is in the modern world.

          We’re not capable of holding the world, but there’s a good chance we could conquer most of it (nukes aside). Problem is that some leaders can fool themselves into thinking that first part – beating the conventional army and flying a “Mission Accomplished” banner is the important part, rather than the easy part.

        2. Proxiehunter

          If you can’t pacify a territory against hardened resistance then you can’t conquer that territory. That’s kind of the definition of conquering it.

    2. Silphael

      Honestly, that sound effect is always correct.

    3. Reltzik

      It’s not like we’ve got some evil Neo-Nazi mad scientist inventing a Mecha-Hitler AI or anything like that. We’re not in the darkest timeline yet.

      …

      (I feel like this is the right moment for a laugh track, but also the exact wrong moment for a laugh track.)

      1. Steamweed

        Only thing worse than a neo-nazi mad scientist doing a mecha-hitler ai is the actual real-world tech-bro billionaire class racing neck-to-neck (while ours are on their chopping blocks) with China’s party-controlled tech-bros, inventing more and more ai to destroy jobs, internet interoperability, and civil and political processes.

        1. Reltzik

          Could you imagine if we had both???

  44. Amós Batista

    Look, how AG could know if this was a cop, too?
    No badges, no ID. Only a shield and a club.

    Looks more like a villain than a cop, right? Right?

  45. Amós Batista

    Plot twist: he’s Lester

  46. Amelie Wikström

    That was a really short half hour.

  47. Needfuldoer

    Everything is fine.

    Nothing is the matter.

    1. Proxiehunter

      There is no police brutality in Ba Sing Se on campus.

  48. Doom Shepherd

    Needs moar costumed vigilantes.

    “Dumbing of Age: Dawn of the ICE-Breakers.”

    1. Nadamás

      As a disco Elysium player you absolutely do not want the ice breaker to rise

  49. JoeCovenant

    That single panel, “Assaulting a police officer” could spark off a whole new direction for this strip (Or more likely a whole new strip…)
    TV cameras?
    Ubiquitous mobile phones?
    Amazi Girl all over the mainstream and Alt medias?
    And suddenly we have our own, moody, neighbourhood Terrorist/Freedom Fighter!
    (Then: JL8 crossovers… Animated TV Series… The DoA UNiverse expansion… World Domination!!!)

  50. MacareuxMoine

    I wonder what the dumbest thing Amazi-Girl did today was. Trying the Iron Man landing? Or patroling everywhere except Dunn Meadow? Or something of-panel?

    1. CianM1301

      I’d assume assaulting that police officer was the dumbest thing.

      1. Kyulen

        Yeah, that’s what it sounds like Amazi-Girl is saying to me. And that the second dumbest thing is her going out into the field while there’s a cop with a sniper pointed at that area.

      2. MacareuxMoine

        Thanks for pointing me towards the obvious, which I somehow failed to grasp

  51. Charles Phipps

    I worry for Dorothy and Joyce who both have absurd faith in Amazi-Girl’s ability to deal with armed stormtroopers. Batman in Arkham Asylum dies very quickly to guns.

    1. Clif

      She’s done okay so far.

      1. thejeff

        As the man falling from the skyscraper was heard to say: “So far, so good.”

    2. PedanticJerkass

      Not if you’re playing it right, he doesn’t.

  52. Arianod

    It’s pink gas! That means it’s good gas, right?

    1. Amelie Wikström

      “Diversity win! Cops disperse protest with tear gas in every color of the rainbow”

      1. Looney

        this is killing me, help

        1. Amelie Wikström

          In a good way, right? I mean I’m kind of proud of that one.

        2. Looney

          absoluely. in a great way, even

  53. CianM1301

    Run, Joyce! Run ’til your feet bleed, and then keep running!

    1. Taffy

      Or just go indoors. Cops can’t enter a dwelling uninvited, or they turn into pools of blood until the next full moon.

      1. CianM1301

        Can cops not cross running water, either?

        1. Taffy

          Only if they’re carrying a piece of a Pope.

        2. PedanticJerkass

          They don’t show up in mirrors, either. Also, why do you think they’re wearing full, head-to-toe body armor out in daylight? Too bad Amazi-Girl didn’t show up with a bag full of rice to spill.

  54. Plaaaaaa

    Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, we’re finally on our own

    1. Plain Marie

      *shudder*

  55. Da Boy

    Oh shit, Amazi-Girl assaulting cops, the potential for things to go horribly wrong just sky-rocketed.

    1. thejeff

      Yeah, I’ve been pointing at the actual events this was based as precedent that the sniper wasn’t going to shoot anyone and that although there would be unnecessary police violence and arrests, there weren’t going to be deaths or serious injuries.
      That argument’s kind of off the table now.

      1. Da Boy

        And if bullets fly I imagine it won’t be Amazi-Girl or maybe even Joyce that will get it but some innocent bystander, for maximum drama and guilt.

        1. RonF

          Highly unlikely that bullets fly. Protesters generally don’t have firearms and the cops don’t shoot first, especially if no firearms are used or seen.

        2. Da Boy

          If Amazi-Girl starts winning too much the cops might get nervous though.

        3. Astariel

          Cops don’t shoot first? What world are you living in, and how can I get there?

        4. Thing 2

          Al ot of the world outside the USA.

        5. Thing 2

          A lot.

        6. thejeff

          First, like Astariel said, it’s not that rare for cops to shoot first.
          Second, if Amazi-Girl’s actually capable of physically beating up cops to the point that they can’t simply overpower her with the numbers on hand, then that’s actually not an unreasonable time to shoot, despite her not having a weapon.

          That’s almost never the case in real life – because cops don’t get into fist fights with super heroes who can’t be handled by the riot squad, but if some comic book supervillain equivalent is taking them down en masse, what do you expect.

        7. Taffy

          HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

        8. Taffy

          Cops will point their guns at someone who’s actively trying to jump off an overpass, as if that person is a threat somehow. It’s their first instinct in any and every situation, and you can apply that universally to every cop in the country. If shooting is on the table at all, they’re going to take the opportunity and they’re going to love the fact they can kill you without consequence.

        9. Nadamás

          That is objectively not true. Like, have you lived under a rock or something?

        10. Adept

          Since when do American cops not shoot first?

        11. Proxiehunter

          Since when do cops not shoot first?

        12. Kyulen

          Cops almost always shoot first. In the US they often shoot at people who are running or even just looking away from them.

        13. Proxiehunter

          Or holding something incredibly dangerous like a wallet or a phone.

        14. Taffy

          Or even the highly dangerous substance known as melanin.

        15. Thing 2

          I visited the USA in the 70s. While I was there, the cops shot and killed a 12 year old boy for the combined crimes of possession of dermal melanin and running away. Why was he running away? I mean, he hadn’t done anything wrong, so why would he be shit scared of the cops? It’s not as if they just shoot people dead for no reason, is it? Not a place I would ever visit again.

        16. Nymph

          There’s video evidence of cops shooting first. At members of the press. Who are live and reporting and not even facing them.

          To say nothing of what they’ll do to protestors without specific constitutional protection and a camera pointed at them.

        17. PedanticJerkass

          Cops, like Han Solo, do shoot first. They just don’t look even remotely as cool doing it.

  56. darkoneko

    …well, f**k.

  57. Steamweed

    Oh bells, hells, and tells. Joyce, you really need to run the hell outta there. But you ain’t, are ya. And A-G, you’re outnumbered by orders of magnitude. You need to leave. But you ain’t gonna, either.

  58. Zamperla

    I think I speak for us all when I say: wuhoh!

  59. ValdVin

    The only thing Willis didn’t predict back when this was put in the buffer* was “Assaulting a police officer”.

    Thanks to Republicans it now could be “assaulting ICE” or “assaulting any masked, unidentified private bigot on a power trip”.

    (*When was this strip drawn? I’m impressed with the futurevision he’s shown.)

    1. Amós Batista

      More and less 1 year ago.

      1. Amós Batista

        (Who would guess Trump could be re-elected)

        1. Steamweed

          Really, there was a whole lot of concern about it. That’s why so much effort was put into the fights over the January 06 evidence, all the court cases, the evidence, Congress’s response, and all the political races. The whole thing cohesively brought together the billionaires, white nationalists, and theocratic-wannabes, plus groups outside the country, all together, to get the rump elected again.

    2. Heatth

      A few strips ago was when Willis completed 9 months buffer, so that should still be about how long ago this was drawn.

    3. Bruno

      APO is a formal criminal charge; the version you might get for attacking ICE is AFO — Assault of a Federal Officer. But feds don’t break up protests. This is local police.

      Also quick pop quiz, how many Democratic presidents have there been since ICE was founded, and did the budget of ICE grow or shrink under them?

      1. Bruno

        In practical terms, APO is not generally prosecuted in protest settings because it’s so hard to prove so many things. An arrested protester can be charged with APO but it’s unlikely to make it far in court. Amazo’s probably fine on this.

        1. thejeff

          It’s usually not prosecuted, but that’s because it’s usually brought up as a justification for a cop clubbing someone someone during a back and forth on a protest line, not for someone in a superhero outfit dropping a cop out of the blue. Especially if she keeps it up, they’re going to want to make an example out of her.

        2. PedanticJerkass

          Wow, I kind of wish it was Amazo there instead of Amazi-Girl (in the same position and role).

      2. ValdVin

        No idea, but we all know what’s happened since Republicans stepped back into the White House six months ago, and what their Congress is doing for ICE’s budget the upcoming year.

      3. Kyulen

        ICE was created in 2003, under George W Bush. Every president since then, Republicans and Democrats, have increased their funding.

  60. crepuscularkid

    Amazi-Girl said ACAB!!!

  61. thumb

    This… will be bad for Amber.

    1. thumb

      Actually, I just realised this will be bad for Sal if Jennifer “outs” her as Amazi-Girl now that this is likely to become real news. Luckily, she’s currently on a redemption arc so we can cross our fingers.

      1. Li

        I seriously doubt Jennifer would tell a cop who she thinks Amazi-Girl is right now, and thankfully Daisy kept her earlier speculations out of the student paper, so there’s no existing record.

        1. Da Boy

          Unless they’ll be looking for a scapegoat and doing this hard and fast, the whole thing would fall apart quickly. There’ll be recordings and a short thick white girl looks nothing like a tall slender brown girl.

        2. thumb

          You’re right that it’s highly unlikely she’d just narc. But she has been crusading in the newspaper office at least about who this person is. So there might come pressure to reveal what she knows. Even then, it’s not a given that she’d snitch. But it’s not a given that she wouldn’t succumb to pressure either. We’ll see how much pressure Willis has been planning to bring. Might not even be that much (relatively) if it was drawn almost a year ago.

        3. Proxiehunter

          Has she told Raidah? Because I wouldn’t put it past her.

  62. Suet

    “Canned farts? This won’t be good…”

    NAMES, CITIZEN!

  63. Whirlakitty

    Like two strips ago we seemed to be on the border of a very sweet (if very misguided) love confession, and now we’re at flying kicks and tear gas. What went wrong, oh cruel world, what went wrong?

    1. Amós Batista

      World just works against the gayness…

  64. RonF

    1. Vaseline on the face and other exposed skin helps a lot with tear gas.
    2. You generally can outrun a cop, but you should have your escape route planned BEFORE you have to start running. Move BEFORE your escape routes are all cut off.

  65. darkoneko

    a bit late, but ah, she lost her beanie hat.

  66. Astariel

    This is getting upsetting.

  67. Banana Slamma

    Man, we’re getting into shark-jumping territory. Like, how do you come back from this? Let me get my popcorn and wait….

    1. Nadamás

      Come back from what?

    2. Taffy

      These suddenly-drastic plots are always at least a little jarring since everyone goes back to their mundane romcom lives almost immediately after the wrap-up. How we come back from this is probably gonna be “And then they went to class the next day”, if patterns indicate much.

      1. thejeff

        We’ll see. That seemed perfectly plausible to me up till Amazi-Girl hit the cop. Maybe they get roughed up, spend the night in jail. It happens. Protesters get arrested and go back to class or their jobs and back to protesting.

        AG’s going to have to get away clean here to do that, especially if this keeps escalating. Which means she’s going to have to run, which doesn’t seem likely yet. If she does, I guess “The cops are seriously looking for AG now, but don’t have any real leads” is at least plausible.

    3. Amós Batista

      Sometimes, there’s no turning back.

  68. Anonymous

    I do note that Joyce’s “I’m evacuating!” lacks external-viewpoint credibility, given her lack of movement in the last panels. A machine that rips you to shreds is terrible, but when you dangle your legs in it right before you know it’s going to whirr into motion, it’s not surprising if it then does whirr into motion and drags your legs into it–especially if you’ve already several times delayed pulling your legs well clear of it (for reasons of concern for others, romantic poignancy, concern for others again, or otherwise).

    1. BorkBorkBork

      If the machine has eyes, ears, a thinking brain, some level of sentience, and understands English, shouting at it SHOULD get it to stop. Especially if it’s not actually a machine but a person.

      Hiding behind anonymity and using the excuse of groupthink or “I was under orders” is how some of the worst atrocities are rationalized. Don’t give credence to that excuse; it’s not true. People are responsible for their actions; they don’t become machines.

      All that to say is, it is not Joyce’s fault for assuming that the police would act like human beings and treat her like a person. If I was there, I would be doing the same thing, and be in the same boat.

      1. Taffy

        But cops aren’t people, so they can’t be expected to act like them.

        1. BorkBorkBork

          Yeah, but in some strange, horrific way, they used to be.

          … in all seriousness, I feel like it’s wrong to dehumanize cops. Not because they don’t deserve it – heck, dehumanizing is their bread and butter – but because it’s wrong to dehumanize anyone. Ever.

          From the greatest humanitarian to the lowest abuser, we are human. That is the range of the capabilities of humanity. When we look at some unspeakable atrocity, some brutal and violent and horrific crime, and shudder, and say, That monster, how could he do that, that’s not even human, yes, it is. That is exactly humanity.

          That is, in fact, what we all are capable of. And all we have to do is two simple things: convince ourselves that the other person has something that we desperately need, or threatens something that we hold dear, and then tell ourselves that it’s OK, because the other person isn’t a person at all, they’re a monster, and should be put down.

          Take down police, and something just like police will take its place. Maybe it’ll be a gang, maybe a militia, maybe an army, maybe the neighborhood watch. Meet the new police, just like the old police. It’s just a side effect of civilization: A society forms because we all agree to live and work and thrive together by following certain rules. As long as there are rules, there will be rule-breakers, and if you don’t have the ability to enforce those rules, the rule-breakers themselves will become the new enforcers, of their order.

          All that’s to say, that it has literally never done anyone any good, in the history of the world, to treat someone as less than human. You either commit atrocities, or you don’t pay heed to cautionary tales. The people who are shoving others to the ground, and cuffing them, and throwing tear gas, and aiming with guns, are exactly as guilty as if they did not have a badge.

        2. Taffy

          I make a distinction between humans and people. Cops can be human all they want, that doesn’t make them people. They can be people when they give up being willing and eager government weapons.

        3. Charles Phipps

          I think that it’s useless to go that route.

          Cops are bullies.

          The most human thing of all.

        4. Taffy

          See, that’s subjective, because it’s been incredibly useful for me to view the things that pointed a gun at me as less than people. That way if (when?) it happens again, I won’t need to feel guilty about fighting back.

        5. Amelie Wikström

          Dehumanization wouldn’t be a thing if it didn’t make things easier for everyone. But listen to Batman.

        6. Amelie Wikström

          I mean, everything you can say to justify dehumanzing someone is exactly the things you can say to justify it no matter whose side you’re on. Are you so sure you’re on the right side it’s fine when you do it to them? The cops think that too, and now you’re put yourself on the same moral ground as the cops.

          As mentioned above, it’s never led to good things happening. It’s only ever led to excusing atrocity. If you can’t fight someone while still recognizing they’re people, then don’t fight, because you’re not any better than them.

        7. Amelie Wikström

          I maintain that if you can’t fight someone without recognizing their basic humanity, you should not fight them.

      2. Anonymous

        “shouting at it should get it to stop”: If you precommit to the course of action “Anyone who doesn’t leave now will get handcuffed”, then don’t follow through with it, the precomittment was meaningless. Setting a boundary for a family member “Brush your own teeth by 7pm, or else no lunch dessert tomorrow.”, and later being asked “I started brushing my teeth at 7:05pm, so can I stlil exceed the boundary without incurring the associated consequences?” is a can-I-eat-my-cake-and-have-it-too situation. Even shouting at it shouldn’t get it to give you dessert when you’ve already indulged in the nicer side of the no-dessert future.

        (Reflecting on another reply, I would object to anyone in their protest being arrested in the fisrt place, but if there were arrests be unhappy if a priviledged subset of those there were given special dispensation due to being pale-skinned, being harmless-looking, or shouting. “We earlier said we’d arrest both of you if you didn’t leave, but of the two of you we’re only arresting you because you didn’t shout loud enough while we were doing it.”)

    2. Nadamás

      Nice bootlicking there.

  69. Adept

    Here comes Amazi-Girl with a steel chair!

    Damn, that was impressive.

    1. Morhek

      Some girls name their boobs. Amazi-Girl named her left knee “the steel chair.”

  70. Pergola

    Joyce dithers by the gate. The cops do their thing and Joyce learns the meaning of ACAB. Amazi-Girl opens a path to freedom. Will Neo-Joyce do the sensible thing or will Amazi-Joyce try to save Dorothy?
    ( no points for answering your own question )

    1. Nadamás

      Your mom.

  71. Jdorr

    I thought we’d have more time before things went down, let us sit with Dorothy’s choice. But instead we are jumping straight into the “oh no! Ohnoohnoohno” which, fair enough

  72. Yeet

    don’t shout names said the alter with the mask that only works as the plot requires
    hopefully she distracts the police long enough to break their kettle I guess

  73. TheScreenJockey

    Seeing that last panel, all I can think is . . .

    All around me are familiar faces
    Worn-out places, worn-out faces

  74. PedanticJerkass

    I don’t know if Amazi-Girl’s direct involvement in this cheapens the whole thing or makes it cooler. A little bit of both, maybe?

    1. Taffy

      It does seem like a bit of both, yeah. Cheapening-wise, these are supposed to be the scary faceless minions of the state, a direct threat to our mundane protagonists, but AG can basically slap them to the floor despite their bulk and presumable weight? Coolering-wise, gotdamn, did you see her just body that grown human male in full riot gear?

      1. Yeet

        knee to the head, even in a helmet, will do that to pretty much anyone
        I assume she’s gonna have more trouble when they’re ready for her and not getting ambushed from off-panel

  75. DeadGuyKai

    And this chapter has now officially jumped the shark.

    1. Chris Phoenix

      No, this chapter is very topical and current. Just replace the cops with ICE.

      1. Proxiehunter

        I agree with you about the American gestapo but also you can just replace the cops with cops and it’s still topical and current.

      2. PedanticJerkass

        I think it was probably more the “and suddenly a superhero shows up and starts kneeing cops in the face” part that caused the claim of shark-jumping, not the timeliness of it.

        Also, this is (or at least was, until AG showed up) directly based on a real-world incident at Indiana University that happened last year, so it wasn’t that much less topical and current even before.

  76. Chris Phoenix

    OK, now do ICE.

    Seriously, WTF country? How is it OK for unidentified thugs to claim “I’m a government employee!” and kidnap people?

    Every sane state should pass an emergency law that anyone who acts to detain someone without being fully identified and in uniform should be treated as a kidnapper and suspected human trafficker, and state and local law enforcement are empowered, required, and indemnified to carry out this policy.

    I already wrote to my state representatives (California). Please do the same.

    1. Adept

      I mean… the US constitution should already make ICE antics and behaviour illegal. Sadly you guys elected an orange Hitler-wannabe who doesn’t give a cap about the constitution.

  77. Amós Batista

    Hope Amazi-girl don’t go solo against the pigs (unless she wants to take all the loot)

    1. Steamweed

      And get all the XP.

      1. PedanticJerkass

        Or if this ends up going more realistically, let’s hope she’s playing by Kenshi rules.

  78. Kazuma Shouri

    ah yes, “you have 30 minutes to disperse” but don’t disperse in any way that makes us feel nervous or we might lash out

    1. PedanticJerkass

      In any way that makes us feel nervous, like standing there, not moving or doing much of anything at all, really, and clearly already outside of our established kettle.

    2. bo

      the sound of a kettle

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