Panel 2: Anglerfish is, of course, referring to the horrific events of the Empowered vol. 4 story “My Idea of a Team-Up,” which apparently caused a number of disgusted commenters to stop reading the series. Wonder if they ever came back? Kind of a pity, IMHO, as vol. 4 wound up being the favorite volume of the first half of the series for a fair number of (print-comic) readers.

Panel 5: The “white capes” vs. “black capes” riff as slang for heroes vs. villains appears only a few times early on in the series before disappearing entirely. I kinda like the idea that the terms were deemed fraught and, of course, problematic in-universe and dropped hastily, though the (very) short timeframe elapsing during the series’ run makes this a bit doubtful.

-Adam Warren