So, this week on the commentary I’m addressing a frequently asked (and almost as frequently answered) question: “Why don’t we ever see Emp’s supersuit fully intact?”

Finally, when the topic of the suit’s perpetually tattered status came up in the comments a few weeks ago, someone opined that we hadn’t seen occasions where the suit might’ve gotten torn. Well, folks, Empowered is a highly allusive and ambiguously structured narrative, to put it mildly; you’re seeing only scattered moments from Emp’s highly active career as a superheroine. In theory, the suit might've gotten torn during in incidents and adventures I didn't actually show you.

A question no one ever asks is, “Why does the supersuit usually sport the same patterns of tearing and tattering?” The real reason is repetition and preference on my part as an artist, but an in-universe explanation could be that the hypermembrane is fully capable of allocating its surface area at will, and chooses to display this default pattern as its standard, even uniform-like condition. (The suit’s preferences in Emp coverage as it loses surface area will eventually be addressed in future chapters of the Twitter-formatted prose experiment I Am Empowered, currently being serialized on my Patreon.)

And that’s it for a week of blithering and No-Prizing, webcomic readers! Next time, back to our regularly scheduled commentary.

Today’s Patreon update: Probably another installment of Comics Riff I Love, celebrating art and storytelling riffs that have inspired and influenced my own work.

-Adam Warren