Well, on the plus-side our heroes’ period of dumb-foundedness still hasn’t lasted nearly as long as the earlier iterations…on the minus-side, it has lasted longer than their opponent’s period of dumb-foundedness, and in a competitive system, that makes a difference.
And the discrepancy was so large, in fact, that said opponent even had sufficient time to undergo a carefully orchestrated routine of steps to increase his combat-readiness. Warming-up exercises, followed by the application of face-paint and a bandana/hairband. It’s kind of the Western equivalent to a magical-girl transformation sequence, only that you end up being John Rambo, which is only functionally equivalent to being a magical girl – in terms of outside appearance, there are some minor differences. But leaving those aside, in the context of a B-movie this transformation should definitely give the villain a considerable boost in combat value – will it be enough, in combination with the head-start, to off-set the team’s magical-girl advantage?
Oh, and yeah…panel four is not part of the classic canon of combat-readiness steps, at least not for humans. But when cats do that sort of butt-wiggling before attacking, it looks quite cute! So I thought the same might be the case for our opponent here…
… please accept my heart-felt apologies for that misjudgement. >_>
More on Thursday.