Annotated 48-12
FB: And so begins the battle of gold, silver, and brawns.
Back in the day, the Silver Centurion killed Brunhilde, and if Frigg is not her generation’s equivalent to Brunhilde at this point, she is well on her way. I know none of you thought there was any chance whatsoever of Frigg dying at his hands, but the symmetry still lends this battle some weight. Ardaic must’ve been incredibly powerful at his peak, because we’ve established that he’s not at his peak, and yet he’s still going toe to toe with a woman who’s killed her own personal god.
I like how their movements are contrasted here, with Ardaic patient and uncaring and Frigg just swinging and jumping. Bad order vs. good chaos. I don’t think it firmly lines up with Ardaic’s fighting style elsewhere, but it still works.
I’d say it checks out. He’s used to being the biggest kid in the park, so he’s been able to just swing away, spending his energy, getting the job done before casualties on your forces mount.
But he ain’t stupid, just dedicated to the very end.
So now that he knows he’s up against a powerful match, he takes it cool and refrained, saving his energy where he can and taking further measure of his opponent, before committing to the fight.
I think with age, most people tend towards technique over power, and I bet Ardaic has had a lot more time to perfect his glowy-lightning-sword technique than Frigg has had for her glowy hammershit — so it also makes tactical sense that Frigg, who is physically more capable, would make use of that advantage.
I’m starting to wonder how much of Gastonia’s previous military domination was made possible by Ardaic/Silver Centurion.
The guy must have been an almost literal god of destruction in his prime.
The slight fighting style inconsistency helps reinforce my impression that he’s on as much autopilot as possible to stave off the pretty imminent breakdown. (Especially since he stays silent for so many panels.)
Ardaic and Frigg have the same power; it’s obvious and fitting that it stems from sexual frustration, as Ardaic demonstrates in panel 2 by penetrating three enemies at once. Frigg is more restrained here.
:o)
I thought that was quite the show-off move on the part of Ardaic. Kind of immature, really.
I never got the impression he’s ‘past his prime’ in story. While you could make a solid argument that he’s pushing too many papers these days to be quite as sharp, the only other time we’ve seen him fight is with Brunhilde… which must have been pretty recent, since it was after the first adventure where Sundar was disgraced, and he won that fight pretty handily, and could have clearly killed everyone in opposition.
Although now that we’re talking about overpowered people, what ever happened to that guy who cast epic hail and crashed the kolbold pelt economy for a bit? You’d think a guy with that level of economic weight would have been brought up again, but I don’t think we ever see him brought up again.
I think Ardaic’s hesitation to take on the SC role again (and suggestion that he’d rather let someone younger do it) was a hint that although he can still do it, it’s getting harder these days. He’s clearly relying a lot more on his powers/gadgets than on his physical strength or speed.
Looking at the size of his … sword, I’d say those powers are definitely bigger than Frigg’s. A slightly younger Ardaic in SC mode would have been invincible to pretty much any single Arkerran opponent I can think of (except maybe sky elf magic might provide a way to “hack” his powers in some way…?)
Portal from ground to active volcano…
I think Ardaic might be a little better able to avoid that sort of thing than than a hammertank, but that would probably be as effective as it would be anticlimactic.
I wonder if Ardaic’s blue taking up more of the page than Frigg’s yellow was done as some kind of intentional symbolism (maybe her lack of formal training and experience making her seem like his “lesser” initially?)
Also I’m always a suckered for explosion weapon clashes