Panel 1: “Black Ice” was going to be A Thing in the Empowered universe, save for the fact that I plumb forgot about it after this scene. It was to be a drug used by the superpowered—in fact, a “supraperformance enhancing drug,” or “SPED,” instead of the more mundane PEDs used by human athletes. I’d hoped for Black Ice to feature prominently in Empowered vol.11, but once again I haven’t been able to work it in yet. Sorry ‘bout that, Black Ice.

Panel 5: Wellp, no getting around the fact that this Sistah Spooky image seems to be a mistaken choice on my part—no, a mistake on Decade-Ago Me’s part, the dumbass. See, as established way back in Empowered vol.1, Spookums’s body was indeed magically transformed from that of a scrawny teen to a buxom young woman—but that happened six years ago, so presumably her “original body” would’ve grown and filled out in that time. In fact, one cruel irony about Spooky that I’ve never quite gotten around to establishing is that she would’ve grown up to look like she does now even without any magical bargains, so she sold her soul for merely an advance installment of her future hawtness.

Then again, maybe you could say that Spooky’s original body simply never had the chance to age naturally and organically, hence the reversion to its six-years-ago form. Chalk it up to the vagaries of infernal magic, right? Plus, let’s face it, this scene wouldn’t have had much impact if Spooky didn’t de-age so dramatically. 

-Adam Warren