EMPOWERED story notes, pt.7 (Patreon)

More Empowered story notes from very early on in the series; been a while since the last one of these, alas.  And now, some quick annotations. 

Right-hand column (because I always write this side first, for some reason):

* "Big Iron" refers to a supervillain with a brief appearance in Empowered vol. 1.

Sounds like an interesting story idea, gotta say, with what would've been an early appearance of what I think of as "Compassionate Emp." See, in the first few volumes of the series, she's so wracked by insecurity and self-doubt that we don't really see the warm and fuzzy aspects of her character that are much more prominent in later books.

* "Plummeting suicide attempt"?  I have absolutely no recollection of what the hell this was supposed to be about, folks.  (Several other key characters would later be shown to wrestle with depression and suicidal ideation, but not Emp.)  However, I can tell you that we do indeed learn the canonical  source of (Very) Young Emp's initial fixation on Capitan Rivet in September's Empowered vol. 11. 

* The "Emp as geek" bit eventually appeared in the full-color story "Who's Da Ubermensch?", which first ran in the Dark Horse Myspace anthology(!) and was later reprinted in Empowered vol. 4.  My apologies, of course, for the slightly puzzling and quite possibly offensive generalizations about geeks; Lord knows I've met plenty of beautiful geeks over my decades in geekdom.

* The Caged Demonwolf riff appeared quite directly in the Empowered vol. 2 story "Dire Peril." 

Left-hand column:

* I wasn't able to dig up the actual, labeled p.7 of these story notes, which is where the techno-bondage guys of Advanced Restraint Research were presumably first discussed—and anti-superhero technology concepts A through O were listed.

* Speaking of which, "Eddie" refers to the ambulatory human-form mecha shell that Kei hid inside as a disguise in the miniseries Dirty Pair: Run from the Future. In fact, Eddie winds up being used as an opponent-encasing weapon in that series; and, if I recall correctly, I was once commissioned to draw a "damsel-in-distress" sketch of Kei being victimized by her own Eddie. Gasp! (I'll post that here someday, if I can find a photocopy of the sketch in question.)

* "Lurker above" is, of course, an old AD&D 1e monster; however, thumbs down to 2004 Me for being unable to remember the name of the lurker's floor-based equivalent, the trapper. Gotta admit, the idea of a room that would feature both beasties in a deadly "monster sandwich" is pretty amusing. 

* in case you can't read my crappy handwriting, concept T is "GIANT BONDAGE WASP".  

* "FF dealie" refers to concepts from Kirby-era Fantastic Four reprints I read as a wee lad in the 70s.

* " Ninjette's Big, Drunken Idea" is the initial idea for the subsequent vol. 2 story "Much Flaunted."