Empowered Unchained vol. 1
Adam Warren has been publishing assorted one-offs relating to his bondage-prone, self-esteem challenged superheroine over the years. Not only do they serve as a stopgap for providing Emp-related content in the years that we’re not graced with a new volume, but we also get to see his world and characters interpreted by a series of different and talented artists. I haven’t picked them up before now because I’ve been waiting for either confirmation that they would never be collected, or a trade paperback collecting them all. Well, the latter instance finally happened and “Empowered Unchained” is the result. It’s a fun collection that does make good on the promise of expanding the world Warren has created in a storytelling and visual sense. Fortunately the good here is also enough to outweigh the fact that there’s usually something holding each of these stories back from being a complete home run.
True to its title, “The Wench With a Million Sighs” deals with how Emp’s many sighs can be interpreted courtesy of an informal roundtable consisting of Thugboy, Ninjette, and the Caged Demonwolf. While the in-depth analyses are good for a laugh, it’s a setup that is driven into the ground before the story is over. The good news is that the Empowered-centric story which runs parallel to it — involving a superpowered grave-robbing extravaganza — is much better. We get to see the title character score a solid win for herself and one of the best uses of the “Stop hitting yourself!” insult I’ve ever seen. This is also the only story in the book that is fully illustrated by Warren and it’s completely up to his usual high standards.
Warren does provide additional art throughout all the stories in this volume, and his contributions always take the form of a parallel narrative, subplot, or flashback that help inform the main story being drawn by the guest artist. “Ten Questions For the Maidman” defines the flow of the stories from here on out as Emily Warren shows how the Corset-Clad Crusader handles an interview for a superhero entertainment show while the rest of the cast discusses the character’s appeal elsewhere. In this case, having the title put a more reasonable limit on the issues to be discussed with the character in question results in a stronger and more focused story. The back and forth between Maidman and host Blitzcraig is also handled quite well with the escalating tension resulting in a nice payoff.
Emily Warren’s contributions are definitely solid, as they capture the Maidman in all of his frilly glory. Though, her positioning of the character during the interview in a cross-legged effeminate style does seem to miss the point. In case you hadn’t realized it by now, this story should make it abundantly clear that Maidman is meant to be “Batman in a Maid Outfit.” It’s funnier when you play that kind of thing straight, as opposed to having the character act like a stereotype of a female French maid.
I have no such issues with Ryan Kinnaird’s work in “Hell Bent or Heaven Sent” as we find out what happens to all of the junk left over from every superpowered battle. It gets sent to a vault twelve miles underground where a teleportation portal is programmed to vent it all into the sun in case its security is breached to a critical extent. So guess what happens after Mechanismo’s VR porn suite gets exported to the vault via nanotech and lots of angel and devil constructs wind up chasing him and Emp around for “Sexy Time?” Kinnaird’s slick CG-influenced work is perfectly suited for the story and results in some of the best action scenes in the volume. There’s also a strong message against objectification of women here, which is even more effective because of how well Warren works it into the story here.
“Animal Style” has a lot of fun with a lot of the conventions of superhero fights. Specifically, how cars are used in them. When Emp gets security detail for a showcase of cars from alternate futures and other timelines, she winds up dealing with a group of crooks in animal-themed mecha suits. These sections are illustrated by John Staton, who has the most conventional superhero style of the artists in this volume. That’s a real plus when your story has Emp taking apart cars and using their parts to take out the bad guys in ways that you don’t often see in nearly all other superhero comics. The Warren-illustrated parts have a college-era Emp discussing how cars should be used as weapons, while her present-day self puts that theory into practice. If that wasn’t enough, there’s also a fun little running joke about why the bad guys keep saying “Close window,” throughout the fighting.
Yes, this story is great at showing us a capable Emp in her element as she (figuratively and literally) takes these goons apart one-by-one. This probably would’ve been my favorite story in the volume if it wasn’t for the fact that her extraordinary bad luck kicks in and she winds up bound and gagged again. I know it’s really difficult for her to catch a break, but everything here up to that point indicated that this was going to be one of those times.
Then we have “Nine Beers With Ninjette” and the different flavors of sadness and happiness that the alcoholic beverages in question inspire in the character. For what it’s worth, it’s a great dissection of Ninjette’s character and the art from Takeshi Miyazawa is a different, but equally appealing kind of black-and-white beauty compared to Warren’s. The problem is that this story winds up retreading a lot of the same unpleasant ground regarding the character and her father that vol. 7 of “Empowered” did. So it manages to be mostly, but not entirely, redundant and a real bummer as well.
Hints of bad things to come are present in the final story, “Internal Medicine,” as well, except that the tone is pitched much lighter here. A mothership is threatening to destroy Emp’s city if her babyship, which is suffering from a parasitic infection, dies on the operating table. Emp and Ninjette are recruited by the hospital staff to go in and take out the parasite. In case you were wondering about how medical care works in Emp’s world, consider that actually navigating the hospital to get to the babyship proves to be almost as difficult as taking out the parasite itself.
The story itself is another fun look at a specific part of the world of “Empowered” and a fun adventure tempered by the ominousness of its Warren-illustrated bookends. However, the main reason I was looking forward to reading this story was that it features art from Brandon Graham. I figured that his irreverence would be a good match for Warren’s and I was right. There is some truly weird stuff on display here — sentient floors, aforementioned motherships, blink-and-you’ll-miss-them superhero parodies — and Graham serves it all up with ease. In fact, it’s probably the most enjoyable thing I’ve read from the artist because he’s working with someone who knows how to tell an actual story rather than string together a bunch of ideas. Do I think Warren should write all of Graham’s comics from here on out? Based on this, I can say that certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing.
“Empowered Unchained” isn’t the volume you should start with if you’re looking to find out more about the title character. For those of us who have been following Emp’s adventures for years, it makes for a wonderful bonus that serves up more of the action, fanservice, crazy ideas, and superhero genre-skewering that makes it great. This is in addition to some of the stuff that doesn’t quite work as well, but I’m willing to take the good with the bad in this particular case. Warren holds out hope that there will be a second volume of stories like these, and that’s certainly not a bad thing to watch out for in the future.