This Empowered page does pose a semi-interesting question: How, exactly, did the other superheroes avoid destroying King Tyrant LIzard’s clearly fragile crown whilst engaging him in pitched battle? Could it be that they haven’t been able to avoid doing so, which would explain Capitan Rivet’s warning, thanks to painful experience? I like the idea that KTL’s mom has, much to her frustration, had to repair or reconstruct that goofy little crown over and over again.

Panel 6: For the record, comics dialogue that’s lettered without a word balloon surrounding it is called “aside lettering,” since it’s normally delivered as an sotto voce “aside” accompanying a proper word balloon. This is a practice long out of fashion in American comics, but can still be seen in manga occasionally, when the artist hand-letters a character’s comment or story note outside the usual typeset word balloons. (Note, of course, that you won’t see the artist’s handwriting in a translated manga, as it’s replaced with a computer font after translation.)

So, in theory, King Tyrant Lizard’s bellow of “HGRAAAR” represents the world’s loudest “aside,” albeit not of the delivered-under-one’s-breath variety. Here, I just felt that rendering his roar in the style of a sound FX delivered more impact than sticking it inside a word balloon.

Panel 7: Behold, an early appearance of the lower-case exclamation “eep,” the quiet, high-pitched noise that Emp blurts—or bleats, more accurately—when she’s confronted with a genuinely alarming situation.

-Adam Warren