Panel 2: Not sure if this is quite clear enough from this sequence, but the idea is that Emp’s behavior is so anomalous for a superhero that it triggers paranoia on the part of some on-edge baddies. As we’ll see in later Empowered volumes, the gap between the world of “capes” and the world of “civilians” is, it seems, a yawning and ever-widening one. The obvious irony—er, depending on how you care to define the term “irony,” natch—is that Emp clearly does care deeply about at least one thug. (That is, Thugboy.)

Persnickety nitpicker alert! Persnickery nitpicker alert! Seems more likely, in retrospect, that a right-handed Evil Orderly like Whatshername, here, would inject Emp in her right buttock, not her left. (God forbid, of course, that Emp’s “toothsome rump”—per the Caged Demonwolf—would be obscured.) My apologies if this tragic, nigh-unforgivable artistic lapse ruins the otherwise documentary-like hyper-realism and gritty verité of this “sexy superhero comedy” for you, oh quick-on-the-draw quibblers (who almost certainly aren’t reading these commentaries, judging by certain comments I’ve noticed).

-Adam Warren