Must admit, I have no particular recollection of precisely how Willy Pete came to be introduced to to Empowered. During the previous story that told the tale of Thugboy’s former career as a villain-victimizing “Witless Minion,” I was presumably thinking, “What would be the worst possible supervillain he could have messed with?” And ol’ Willy Pete was the result, as a murderous, hot-tempered “blazing hick” with appetites that cannot be satisfied would definitely be a bad guy not to be trifled with.

I know part of his genesis was purely a visual matter, as I had never seen a Human-Torch-style, fire-based suprahuman character depicted with a beard and/or long hair, and thought that might be interesting to draw. Not, alas, that I was exactly knocking myself out, art-wise, in these first few panels of Willy Pete’s appearance, as they’re a fairly uninspired attempt at rendering a fiery dude. By his subsequent scenes later on in the series, though, I had worked out a more aggressive and visually interesting approach to rendering “The Burning Beard,” as a friend of mine dubbed ol’ Willy.

As I mentioned previously, some folks on Twitter repeatedly exhort me with variations on the line, “Empowered was supposed to be a comedy!”  Well, even in its very first volume, Empowered wasn’t intended solely to be a comedy, as this story’s sudden lurch into horror demonstrates. As new readers will eventually see—though not for some time yet!—this series ends up boasting more than its share of genuinely horrific monsters, of which Willy Pete is only the first to appear. Wheeeeee!

-Adam Warren