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comics, reviews

Review: "Empowered" by Adam Warren
We're here with another comic review!

And, well, what with the sex drawings and all, it seems like this blog is currently in some kind of "slightly-more-adult-than-usual" phase... and with that in mind, and while it lasts (I have no idea how long it will last), I might as well review a definitely "adult"-themed comic, namely Adam Warren's superheroine-parody, Empowered, with some added musings on superheroines and superheroines in peril.

Now, while Empowered is hardly very graphic in its numerous depictions of sex and nudity, it's still not extremely kid-friendly, so it's perhaps not a good idea to let your kiddies read this one, unless you're prepared for some very awkward questions afterwards.



Now then:

Superheroine.

It's a pretty cool word, isn't it?

Brings to mind images of a strong, independent woman who stands up for the little people, protects the innocents and fights injustice wherever she may find it. Not just a heroine, which any woman could be if she wanted to (yes, she could!), but a superheroine, which has to be something a little more. Something perhaps slightly larger-than-life, perhaps with somewhat bigger heroics. At the very least, it's someone very admirable.

Then again...

Try to run the word "superheroine" through any Internet searh engine of your choice, and what sort of sites turn up? It probably shouldn't come as a surprise, but roughly half the sites you'll find should be pornographic in nature, either with porn models dressed as (or photomanipulated to look like) superheroines in various state of undress... or with fan comics/stories/series of photos in which the superheroine in question is depowered -- bound, sedated, chloroformed or mind-controlled in some way -- and at best ends up just being stripped and humiliated, at worst getting raped and then sold into slavery.

It's, in fact, so common that it's almost become its own genre, which I here and now dub the "superheroine-in-distress" genre.

Now, there is, admittedly as slight porn-y theme to superheroes in any case: the skintight costumes, the careful posing, the lack of realism... the huge boobs... so it's not surprising that people see the sexy part of it or decide to make superhero porn. What is surprising, at least to me, is the constant humilation and rape. While stories like this get extremely tedious extremely fast, I probably wouldn't have minded them so much -- after all, stories about heroes do thrive on situations where the hero gets overpowered and gets in peril, and bondage can be pretty hot, and I can even understand rape fantasies (it's a pretty common fantasy, after all, and much different from real rape in the obvious way that nobody's actually getting hurt) -- if it hadn't been for the attitude put forth by most of these stories, an attitude that can be summed up in three words: "Bitch deserves it."

It's perhaps an extreme version of how many superheroines have sometimes been treated even in mainstream media; there has sometimes been a distinct misogynist attitude towards the female characters from both creators and readers, but it's seldom so obviously undiluted as here. At least mainstream media pretends to have some small sympathy for the superheroine in distress -- no such pretense for these online stories. The heroines are presented as sexy, yes, but there is no actual sympathy for them. They show up with annoyingly patrionising attitudes to everything and everyone, and then, when they're tied up and raped, or whatever, they often exclaim (or think, if they have been gagged) "No! I am [insert Superheroine's name here]!! You can't do this to me!"

All the while, she's pictured in the most erotic (or pseudo-erotic) of poses, made to look as hot as possible while it shines through that as far as the writer/artist is concerned, "the bitch is getting exactly what she deserves."

Yep, the bitch is getting exactly what she deserves for trying to be strong and assertive, and for not leaving crimefighting and heroics to the men. Far as I can see, that's really the only thing she has done wrong in most of these cases -- not conforming to the stereotype of a weak "damsel-in-distress" woman and "needing to be taught her place."

Maybe I'm reading too much into it -- in fact, I'm hoping I'm reading too much into it. But that's still how it comes across to me... especially since extremely few of these stories bother to show the heroines as, well, heroines. Because, of course, while peril and danger are vital parts of a story about a hero, the entire point with including peril and danger in a hero's story is to show how the hero overcomes them. Sure, a hero's tale can also be the tale of failure and how the hero fails to overcome the troubles, but the sympathy should at the very least be on the hero's side here.

...So why, you may ask, if I find these superheroines-in-distress stories so offensive, do I even bother to visit these sites? Obviously, I must have willingly read many enough of these stories/comics to get the gist of what's most commonly going on in them... what gives, man? What gives?!

And that's a very good question, actually. On some level, I think I do it because they are so laughable -- after all, I have talked before about the sheer fun it can be to willingly visit a story/comic that's horribly bad and then mock the hell out of it.

That said, sometimes... not very often, but sometimes.... even the most hopeless of genres can surprise by bringing out something that's actually good.

Which brings us, in a nice roundabout way, to Empowered.

Now, Empowered is the somewhat ironic name of a superheroine-in-distress who, according to creator Adam Warren, started life as a character from commissioned sketches he'd drawn for people who had requested... yep, you guessed it... drawings of a "superheroine-in-distress" genre.

Apparently, however (and possibly becase it gets boring drawing Wonder Woman tied up with her own lasso for the umpteenth time), Warren spends a bit more time wondering what things might really be like for a bondage-brone and unfortunate superheroine than your average fan, because some way along the line, he seems to have gotten interested in her as a character and started drawing short comic stories with her as the main star, stories that parodied the entire superheroine-in-distress and ended up being both more ridiculous and more plausible than most of the more "serious" superheroine-in-distress stories out there.

See, Empowered gets her powers from her costume, a skintight bodysuit (with mask) that somehow grants her superstrength and other interesting powers, but only as long as it's in one piece. Even the slightest tear in the fabric means that the powers vanish. And to make it worse, it rips incredibly easily. And stops working immediately if she tries wearing anything protective over it.

Which leads to situations like this:



Yep.

But what makes Empowered different is that unlike most superheroines-in-distress, she is presented not only as sexy, but also as genuinely sympathetic and likeable. While she does spend an ungodly amount of time tied up and helpless in situations that just ooze sex and sexuality, there is absolutely no trace of that "bitch deserves it" feel here. Quite the contrary, Adam Warren manages to really make you feel for the disaster-prone girl, who is a laughingstock in the entire superhero business because of her constant captures and bondage scenes, while at the same time making the situations so bizarre that they become funny.

In short, Warren has, while maintaining the "sexy" status of the genre, quite cleverly turned the entire thing into a so-called "loser comedy," you know, the sort of comedy where the main character is a spectacular failure, and the comedy lies in the constant mishaps he -- or in this case, she -- gets into, but the character is still presented as sympathetic in all her lameness, and while we may laugh at her misfortune, we cheer even louder for her on the few occasions where she actually gets things right.

It also helps that the supporting cast is a fairly strong one; all the recourring secondary characters have their own distinct personalities. Even Empowered's less-than-sympathetic superhero colleagues, the "Superhomeys," who spend most their appearances calling her a loser come across as individuals rather than just "all of the other raindeer." The absolute worst of the worst, and by far the most prominent, is Sistah Spooky, a "Raven-from-Teen-Titans" wannabe with a bitch factor of 110%, but the complete sleaze-bag Major Havoc comes a close second (even if he is a much more minor character). The non-human-looking superheroes, of which there are a few, are more lenient -- but the only one who's actually sympathetic is the bizarre-looking Syndablokk, who... no, you just have to see a picture of him.



Yeah, so Syndablokk is pretty cool. He's a very minor character though, and doesn't get anywhere near the screen time of the meaner superheroes.

No wonder, perhaps, that Empowered struggles with her self-esteem and very easily turns into an emotional wreck -- constant humiliation has to be taxing on the nerves, especially when Sistah Spooky and her posse do everything in their might to further the humiliation with insults and trash-talk whenever they can.




Luckily for both Empowered and the readers, Warren soon introduces some major secondary characters with a more friendly disposition -- and this is what turns out to save the comic from being just a one-note joke, because as they get introduced, the focus begins to turn more towards our heroine's relationship with them alongside the displays of helplessness.

First introduced, and most central to the story, is Thugboy, a former villainous thug who has worked for several supervillains but is mostly reformed these days and now appears as Empowered's boyfriend and main supportive player: He's the one who tries to lift her up and build up under her fragile self-confidence... with various results. Though he can be a bit of a perv, he's a decent guy and provides much-needed heart to the comic.

Then there's Ninjette, the female ninja (don't you just love the names here?) who ends up as Empowered's roomate and best friend. While she has a bit of a drinking problem, she is a mostly stoic, relaxed and witty character who adds a sense of fun to most of the scenes she's in.

And of course, there's the Caged Demonwolf, a would-be-omnipotent "dark godling" that our heroine trapped within power-draining alien bondage gear and who now resides in her apartment and provides comedy relief with old-school supervillain-style dialogue about small, trivial things... but might also be more genuinely villainous than his "wannabe-Dr.Doom" dialogue hints at.

These characters, Thugboy and Ninjette especially, are what hinders the comic from becoming too cruel to the poor heroine. Because the bondage situations with their over-the-top sexual tint do get old after a while, and you start really wishing that Empowered would grow more of a spine, stop with the self-loathing and start being more assertive instead of having the universe constantly dumping on her. Because she does get a few moments, some glorious moments, where she actually succeeds... and they are so satisfying that you just wish they weren't so damn rare.




"Loser comedies" can be tricky; you have to let the main character have some small form of victory once in a while or it simply gets too mean-spirited and stops being funny, but turning the main character into a too much of a success removes the entire premise for the concept.

Sometimes, Warren does err, and Empowered becomes too much of a loser, and her situation is no longer funny but tragic... after all, we're laughing (or ogling) at someone's pain and humiliation here, and this becomes painfully heavy-handed at times, while at the same time trying to make light of it. In these instances, it almost feels like the comic doesn't quite know what it wants to say, or about what, and ends up just flipflopping between "isn't-this-sexy?" and "isn't-this-dreadful?"

That is Empowered's biggest weakness. To Warren's credit, he does seem to be aware of this on some level, but doesn't seem to know how to do anything about it other than have the characters call attention to it now and again.

But when all is said and done, I like Empowered. At its best, it's good superhero satire (even though it's seldom laugh-out-loud funny, it does provide some chuckles) with visually pleasing art -- Warren is one of the few people who manages to draw in a "pseudo-manga" style that comes across as a personal and unique style and not just a generic copy of some anime show, and Empowered is mostly presented in un-inked pencils that give it all a nice "soft" look -- good dialogue... and, and this is the biggest draw for me, characters who are actually likeable.

It's a perfect example that even a "superheroine-in-distress" comic can have something worthwhile in it.

There are currently three "trade-paperback" sized comics out there, each one with two hundred-plus pages, so there's a fairly good read for the money there, even.


VERDICT:
Not without its flaws, but with enough strong points to it that I have no qualms in recommending it!
7/10