Heyo! 

As I’ve noticed that a particular question seems to pop up in the comments section on a regular basis—even though I’ve already addressed it in my commentaries at least a dozen times over the years—I thought I’d take time out to answer this recurring query (again). 

The question: “Why don’t we ever see Emp’s supersuit fully intact?”

First, lemme give you the two real-world reasons for why I almost always draw her suit all tattered ’n’ torn:

1. I find the fully intact suit boring as hell, as it’s just a featureless, ho-hum “body stocking”-type dealie. This is largely because, in the earliest pages featuring the character, I initially designed Emp wearing a torn-up hypermembrane; if I’d created her as a superheroine in a “real” comic, with a more conventional costume, the intact suit would’ve been designed in a much more interesting manner. So torn-suit Emp is, in effect, my default mode of depicting her. Note that I’ve never drawn the intact suit on an Empowered cover, and likely never will; just consider the ragged ’membrane as being inherent to Emp’s depiction, not to mention overtly symbolic of the insecurities and vulnerabilities that differentiate her from other superheroes in comics.

Hey, given that this answer is dragging on at length, I’ve decided to stretch it out over the next few days of commentary. So, come back tomorrow as I repeat the second real-world reason for Emp’s perpetually tattered suit! (Later in the week, I’ll address a clever and elegantly simple in-universe rationale that helpful commenters recently addressed.)

Today’s Patreon Update: As this is a Monday, time for another double dose of life drawings new-ish (2019) and old (2017), along with the high-res Photoshop raw scans for both of ‘em, available to all Patreon tiers.

-Adam Warren