Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.
- Sarah to the rescue
Joyce: God sent you after me!
Sarah: Yeah, the Old Testament God. - Seeing Danny grow a spine for all of thirty seconds is kinda epic.
- Dina grows one as well after her Berserk Button is pushed.
- Amber gets angry and gives a long-overdue punch. The hovertext sums it up: "Panel five may be the most satisfying thing I've drawn in the last fifteen years."
- Also, her Badass Boast in the very next comic.Amber: In other words, dad, science says you can kiss my ass.
- It's a small moment in that scene, but kudos to Sierra's dad for stepping in between Blaine and Amber before Ruth shows up.
- Ruth as well. Despite being partly drunk, she still was able to suplex Blaine to the ground. Sadly, her drunkenness makes her horribly dizzy after pulling that off, but she still staggered him pretty good.
- It gets better.
- Also, her Badass Boast in the very next comic.
- Joyce refuses and rebukes her parents for their hypocrisy. Bonus points for it being based in her Christianity, rather than in defiance of it.Joyce: Jesus says to love your neighbor as yourself. Luke 10:27. That's everyone. Not just people we like. Not everyone except the Samaritans. Everyone. And so I will not act like—like a jerk to my best friend and her family. Anyway, that's what the Son of God says. He is my higher authority, my moral foundation. Not you.
- Danny takes care of things. Also heartwarming.
- Sal and Marcie are friends, but Malaya is apparently The Friend Nobody Likes and Carla has only just met them. This doesn't stop them from dog-piling the threatening lady in the costume together. Sal then chooses to just walk away, derailing whatever confrontation Amber had in mind (well, in theory).
- Dorothy figuring out Amazi-Girl's identity just by putting the evidence together is relatively impressive considering that so few others in canon saw through the Clark Kenting (Amber's roommate Dina may be the only other one to figure it out without unmasking her). The real CMOA, though, is when she decides not to expose Amber after all, and her explanation is funny and a bit heartwarming to boot.
- Leslie dressing down Roz after Roz shamed Joyce despite Leslie's orders to stop.Roz: So Joyce just gets a pass for ignoring and shouting over gay people for the first eighteen years of her life?
Leslie: ...said the straight girl to the gay girl who's been asking her to shut up for the past five minutes. - Dina shows that she has learned from her past mistakes.
- "I'll cop to smart and mean."
- Joyce taking a level in badass when Becky's dad forces Becky to come back home with him at gun point. Joyce does not take this lying down.
- After being kidnapped, having her friends held at gunpoint, and watching a friend nearly die, Becky hasn't been having a good day. Then it's revealed she's had 911 on the whole time, and the police know what her father's done. Read it here.
- Joyce is having none of your bullshit. Enjoy.
- To those who'd ground me, take a message back from me!
- Mike calls out Walky and Billie's selfish reactions to Joyce's despair;Mike: So for the past several weeks, you've said Joyce's sunny routine was annoying and you made fun of her for it. But now that she's dropped it...You want it back?
- Joyce's confrontation with John, her older brother, in which she is letting her anger out and telling him off for his barely-disguised bigotry. Starts here.
- After Mary deliberately misgenders Carla, Carla gets her revenge by setting up a contraption outside of Mary's room that spells out her name, because...
- Carol says that Becky doesn't have to take Communion if she's worried she's not right with God (due to being gay). After a beat, Becky points out that when her life was in danger, her girlfriend and a superhero showed up to save her, so she's pretty sure He still likes her. Then she takes Communion. Loudly.
- Hank comforting Joyce after she starts having flashbacks in church. "Never let anyone shame you for this."
- Billie punching Mary which was long waited after all the things she has done. In fact, there're three moments within this one scene that makes it awesome. The punch comes second...
- First, there's what Billie has done to ensure that Mary can't hurt anyone else like she hurt Ruth. To elaborate, she tells everyone in the dorm that Mary blackmailed her and Ruth, so they can go to the Residence Manager with that information should Mary try to mess with them. Now Mary has no choice but to behave cordially with the other students, even 'sinners' like Roz and Carla, unless she wants to get charged with blackmail. When Mary tries to have her transgender rival Carla exempted from this by pointing out how she revealed Ruth and Billie's relationship, Billie deals the aforementioned socking:Billie: I mean it, Mary. Be nice to everyone- or just, you know, leave them alone. Or else we tell the R.M. everything.
Mary: [Rolls her eyes] Ugh. You don't really mean that.
Billie: I don't?
Mary: Oh, I bet everyone isn't off limits. I know for a fact that we both hate Carla. Carla's the one who narced on your "girlfriend." She's the reason Ruth's leaving. Let me have just "her," and I'll get your revenge for y- [Billie punches Mary so hard she hits the floor.]
Billie: I do hate Carla. But I'd rather fifty of her than you. - Finally, in the last strip of this scene, Mary notices the cold glares of the other students and asks them why they're siding with Billie against her when Ruth was such a terrible Resident Assistant. Rachel makes it clear that they all consider Mary to be far worse. Mary finally realises the severity of the situation she's gotten herself into and walks away with a stunned look on her face.
- First, there's what Billie has done to ensure that Mary can't hurt anyone else like she hurt Ruth. To elaborate, she tells everyone in the dorm that Mary blackmailed her and Ruth, so they can go to the Residence Manager with that information should Mary try to mess with them. Now Mary has no choice but to behave cordially with the other students, even 'sinners' like Roz and Carla, unless she wants to get charged with blackmail. When Mary tries to have her transgender rival Carla exempted from this by pointing out how she revealed Ruth and Billie's relationship, Billie deals the aforementioned socking:
- Walky punching Sal's old partner in crime, Asher, for backstabbing her by calling the cops during the hostage robbery with Amber and Ethan.
- After Joyce is indecisive over drama, (and a toenail) Sarah gets stuff done.
- Mike - who for all his magnificent bastardry, isn't much of a fighter - tackles Blaine down from a high balcony, with an I Banged Your Mom one-liner.Mike: Hey Ball-Peen! I fucked your mom.Blaine: ...my mom is dead.Mike: Then you can come watch.
- The kidnapping arc in book ten gives everyone a chance to show off a little:
- Amber/Amazi-Girl and Sal get the highest action quotient, obviously, with Amber kicking the shit out of Blaine and at least a dozen other dudes, and Sal pulling some stunts that really should be impossible on a motorcycle. Joyce and Dina also manage to get some hits in with their adrenaline-fueled rage and velociraptor imitation, respectively. And, of course, Sarah gets a baseball bat.
- Dorothy puts her keen analytical mind to good use, strategically planning the group's escape and preventing anyone from putting in an assassination order for Mike (at least in the short term) by taking note of the location of Blaine's cell phone.
- Becky gets her dad to give the game away under the pretense of turning herself in, and then doxes Blaine and Ross using Representative DeSanto's Twitter account (alongside a damn good speech encapsulating the series' themes of Generational Trauma and learning from experience, imploring anyone reading not to take for granted that they're the good guy.)
- Walky, "preferring [being kidnapped] to be funny" and "[refusing] to be traumatized by this", spends the entire incident cracking jokes, which Sal later points out is pretty heroic in its own right.
- After Joyce's kidnapping, her parents try to reach her on her cellphone. Sarah, knowing all too well how Joyce feels about her parents and her former community, and having been herself kidnapped along with Joyce, takes care of it in the most adequate way possible:Sarah: (beep) FUUUUUCK OFFFFFFFF (beep)
- Linda and Carol's confrontation:
- An understated one when Carol, as sensitive as ever, defends their church bailing out Ross by saying "We stand by our own" - her husband, Hank, snidely states "...I'll be standing over here." before walking away.
- While Linda Walkerton is by absolutely no means a good person or parent, she makes the scathingly accurate point over how messed up it is that Carol is defending a man who kidnapped her own daughter and won't even apologize for her actions in making this situation occur. To Carol's face.
- An understated one when Carol, as sensitive as ever, defends their church bailing out Ross by saying "We stand by our own
- Although it happens off-screen, when Carol tries to force her way onto Joyce's dorm floor, Ruth apparently tackled and physically dragged her outside.
- Walky ever-so-subtly sees through Raidah's attempt to emotionally manipulate him, and instead changes the subject by further insulting Carl.
- Walky giving a long overdue call-out to Linda over her racist behavior after she drives Lucy to break up with him over it. In the process he calls himself out for always ignoring it because it never affected him until now, digging in a jab at his doormat of a father as well."I had a girlfriend. Don't think I got one anymore, 'cuz I overcompensated in your direction for yer... established pattern of behavior. Behavior all three of yer children understand an'... maneuver around. I am — I am me, with everythin' that's wrong with me, an' yet the breaking point in our relationship for the sweetest girl in the world was you. You an'... how I turn a blind eye to you. How I always turned a blind eye to you 'cuz yer behavior never affected me much. An' even benefited from it sometimes. In that way I guess that's how I... take after my dad."
