Panel 2: I’ve long intended to work up an alternate version of Ninjette’s shorts in which her nickname is lettered in phonetically rendered Japanese katakana, but keep forgetting to do so. (For the record, the kana version of “Ninjette” would presumably be ニンジェット.) Note that, later on in the series, I tired of the existing, rather wonky “all-caps” block lettering on her shorts, and switched over to an aesthetically more pleasing upper-and-lowercase font as of Empowered vol. 7.

Panel 3: At far right, behold another bizarre new Superhomey first introduced in this story: a mysterious and as yet unexplained fellow with a cannon for a head. His supranym is disclosed during a story about in-universe yaoi fanfiction(!) in vol. 3, but his origin remains a mystery as of vol. 10. My favorite part of this character’s very first cameo appearance? That drink he’s holding, which seems a tad challenging to imbibe for a howitzer-headed superhero like himself. Again: mysterious!

In panel 4, thrill to another appearance of the Superhomeys’ theme song, which so far features a grand total of two words worth of lyrics. I’ve been telling myself for a while that I’ll write up a full(er)-length version of the tune, but have never quite gotten around to the task. My hope is to do so for Empowered vol. 10, though. No, really!

Can’t quite recall for certain, but panel 5 and 6’s riff about Thugboy’s “all-Axis” ethnicity was probably invented on the spot as I drew this page. I had already decided that he would be half-Japanese circa the first time he took off his sunglasses in “Diseased Wench,” but hadn’t heretofore considered the racial status of his other parent. I only belatedly realized that this might seem a tad too similar to half-Chinese Percival Edmund “Grunge” Chang from Wildstorm/DC’s superteam book Gen13, which I wrote and occasionally drew off and on from 1997 through 2001. Must admit, Thugboy already shares a hairstyle with Grunge, thanks to my slapdash, tossed-off approach to character design in the early days of Empowered—but that’s about as far as the characters’ similarities go, I think.

-Adam Warren