Panel 2: Might this particular verbal riff sound familiar?

Panel 5: Attentive readers might recall this distinctive footwear—which garnered this unnamed cape the unofficial nickname “Cap’n Boots”—from a San-Antonio-set flashback to Thugboy’s shady past earlier in the volume.

Of course, this scene does bring up some narrative nitpickery issues, as it implies that Thugboy didn’t seem to know the identity of this cape after the traumatic San Antonio scene, or he would’ve recognized him earlier. This does seem at odds with most of the Empverse superheroes’ very public personae, but reasonable explanations are possible; I didn’t, however, have the time (or pagecount) left in Empowered vol. 4 to trot out said possible rationales. Nor do I have such free time left now, either, so readers are welcome to entertain their own No-Prize explanations as they feel fit.

Panel 7: While I do keenly appreciate the aesthetic qualities of the Old Navy black-powder revolver that this gun is patterned after, drawing the hand positioning on a gripped wheelgun is highly challenging; moreso when I have to depict the firearm’s hammer being thumbed back. Here, I wasn’t quite able to pull off the hand’s fingers and palm to my present-day satisfaction. Oh, well.

-Adam Warren