Yeahp, as this page hints, Thugboy was involved in some seriously shady shenanigans even before his already-discussed stint as a villain-victimizing Witless Minion. More details—though not a lot more, and certainly not delivered in a hurry—later regarding this matter, folks.

Panel 4: Ah, here’s what may be the first Empowered reference to a mysterious Empverse incident in San Antonio, Texas. Actually, it just now occurred to me that I didn’t specify that this was referring to the Texas city. This could be referring to the many different San Antonios worldwide, from Mexico to the Philippines to the several other US locations with that name—in California, Florida, Colorado, Missouri and more! (Thanks for the consultation, Wikipedia!) But no, I should admit that this enigmatic disaster is supposed to have occurred in San Antonio, Texas, a city I’ve often visited in the past and where a goodly number of my friends from comics live. The story of what the hell happened out there will unfold slowly—very slowly—over the next six or seven Empowered volumes.

I’ve long considered doing a story about the incident itself, but have absolutely no interest in drawing such an urban-location-intensive episode myself, given my severe antipathy for depicting such contemporary milieus. Need to find another artist to inflict this difficult story on, needless to say!

-Adam Warren