Commenters had some insightful takes on Major Havoc's motivations yesterday, but here's one riff that I've had in mind lately: Havoc may be the rare superhero who can actually remember all the bizarre and outlandish schemes and ruses that have befallen his team in years gone by. See, many "shocking plot twists" in superhero books, especially ones involving apparent betrayals by teammates, require capes to conveniently forget that such startling events have happened dozens of times before, and always involved shapeshifters, mind control, alternate universes, clever disguises, nefarious supervillainy or the like. Heroes always seem to take matters at face value for dramatic purposes, while somehow not recalling the many times before that some wildly unlikely scheme was afoot. (Occam's razor is rarely the superhero's friend, in other words.)

Panel 4: Note that the cast on Havoc's hand is due to a rather severe injury he received while depowered at the end of the previous Empowered volume.

-Adam Warren