Panel 1: Note the ominous presence of multiple-word alliteration in the Caged Demonwolf’s stentorian dialogue, here. Until this volume, I only occasionally flirted with the Blazing-Eyed Devilgoat’s use of alliteration; in a later story in this book, I went truly hog-wild with this rococo riff, which would infest his monologues ever since. This, I believe, is the point at which his speech patterns started to become impenetrable to some readers, as I resorted to ever more abstruse and obscure vocabulary to keep the long “alliteration chains” a-rolling. Much later on in Empowered, I deliberately dialed back this flourish a fair bit, using only shorter chains and less arcane and esoteric wordplay in a belated attempt to improve readability. Oh, well.

Panel 3: What can I say, folks? I’m strangely amused by the idea of the All-Knowing Autarch being mystified by the presence of baby corn, a culinary concept that his oft-trumpeted nigh-omniscience did not apparently cover. (Speaking of which, Emp apparently ate Chinese takeout earlier in the evening.)

-Adam Warren