Panel 4: As I’ve said before, I am not actually trying to give the outer shell of the Demonwolf’s cage a “face” of sorts, by drawing those two smaller open circles (which some see as eyes) over the bigger open circle (which some see as a mouth). I swear that’s just the reader’s pareidolia at work, perceiving a face where none was intended. No, really!

Panel 5: Note, at this point in their relationship, that Ninjette has not yet developed the ability to easily decipher the Caged Demonwolf’s baroque turns of phrase. Later on in Empowered, though, she becomes quite fluent in his speech patterns, to the point that she can volley right back with her own rococo phrasings and alliterative flairs. (I should add that the Demonwolf hasn’t yet broken into his later habit of extreme, “long-consonant-chain”  alliteration, which debuts in a rather odd story in Empowered vol.3.) 

Panel 6: For more about the supersuit’s “incompatibility with flowing tresses of the pubic variety,” you’ll need to check out a story from the previous volume of Empowered.

Also, nice shot of an uncharacteristically flustered Ninjette, I gotta say. As the series progresses, she’ll become decidedly less easy to fluster in the Demonwolf’s presence, to understate matters considerably.

-Adam Warren