Panels 2-3: Gotta say, this does seem like just a bit of an overreaction on the part of our disorderly orderlies, here. Long-term Empowered readers will note that the civilian-oriented Purple Paladin Memorial Hospital is located very, very close to a separate Suprahuman Treatment Wing that’s positively crawling with capes—but the case might be that the civilian portion of the Purple Paladin facility is so rarely visited by superheroes that Emp’s presence might be legitimately alarming to on-the-edge conspirators.

Panel 5: As readers Of A Certain Age might recognize, “the chair is against the wall” is a reference to a code phrase in the original (1984) version of the movie Red Dawn. This was, as 80s kids might recall, a coded message over the resistance network Radio Free America “for some of our brothers and sisters in the occupied zone.” Sadly, though, I forgot the much funnier code phrase that follows it: “John has a long mustache. John has long mustache.” 

Also: Yikes, that's a serious vintage case of the ol' Big, Pouty Lips on Emp in this panel, a tendency that's largely disappeared from my modern-era artwork. I seriously considered scaling down these "soupcoolers" in Photoshop when I was prepping these pages, but gritted my teeth and left 'em as is, muttering my Empowered mantra of "embrace imperfection" the whole time.

-Adam Warren