I’m oddly amused by the idea that Spooky had to sell her g-d soul to keep her previously hirsute eyebrows from growing together. Surely eternal damnation was worth it, just to avoid the tedious labor of trimming and plucking! And let’s not even get started about how good a deal this was to allow her to stop having to wear eyeglasses! To hell with contact lenses or laser retinal surgery, right?

Lordy loo, the “Princess phone” landline of panels 1, 2 and 5 was a disastrously bad call—pun unintended!—on the part of 2006-Era Me. Since this “SIX YEARS AGO” flashback scene would’ve placed the timeframe at 1999 or 2000, a landline might have just barely been a reasonable inclusion, though certainly not a far-thinking one. Now, alas, after a decade’s passing, this particular “technoreference” has become a distinct and prominent anachronism. For the record, my perspective might’ve been skewed by the fact that I live in a rural environment prone to frequent blackouts, which means one had damn well better retain a cord-based landline phone somewhere in one’s house.

In panel 3, note what may be the first appearance of an ongoing Empowered trope: the use of the thumb-and-pinkie “telephone” gesture to indicate some unearthly form of access to telephonic service. Later on, supersuit-clad Emp and several of her Superhomey teammates use this gesture whilst ringing up other capes via largely unexplained communications technology. 

Note also panel 3’s riff of the demon dubbing himself Spooky’s “Dark Forces Provider.” While a reasonable term to use, I replaced it with the much catchier “Infernal Service Provider”—an oblique reference to “Internet Service Provider,” natch—after someone posted the phrase during online discussion of Empowered. Thanks for the improved labeling, whoever posted said phrase!

-Adam Warren