Empowered #2

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I talked in a couple of posts about my enthusiasm for the first volume of Adam Warren’s Empowered.

I still enjoyed the second volume; Adam Warren’s manga-fetish art remains sexy; the gags are still funny (a 2nd-rate supervillain called the king of time who can’t actually control time, so instead hits people with clocks is a highlight); the characterization is still thoughtful and charming. Nonetheless, there are a couple of ominous trends. In particular, Warren keeps trying to explain stuff that really would maybe be better left unexplained. For instance, there’s a sequence where Empowered explains that her suit rips so easily, robbing her of her powers, because of her own lack of self-confidence; it’s a metaphor for her frayed ego, y’see.

Similarly, Warren seems to have a really unfortunate weakness for tragic backstories. Emp, we learn, had a dad who died of a brain tumor; Emp’s friend Ninjette has issues involving her childhood rejection by her ninja clan; Emp’s friend Thugboy also seems to be hiding some sort of tragic past which looks to be leading nowhere good. Part of what was delightful in the first volume was way Warren balanced treating the characters as gag punchlines and treating them as human beings. As the run goes on, he seems to be tipping more towards serious interpersonal drama, which would be okay if he was willing to actually take the time to do characterization rather than using the personal trauma shortcut.

I’m definitely still planning to get all of these, and I have hopes that things will improve again. But if this is the road we’re going down, I fear #1 may end up being my favorite of the series.

0 thoughts on “Empowered #2”

  1. I had a little taste of Empowered on Darkhorse Presents. Really loved the artwork, although for me the writing was more cute than funny.

  2. Hey Mercer. Yeah, I like the artwork a lot as well. The writing does make me laugh too, I have to admit….

  3. I've read 1 – 5, and the more serious tone does come up more, but quite frankly, I find the more serious stories to be the meat of the series.

  4. Serious is fine; it's the whiny reliance on tragic backstories and warmed-over melodrama that worries me…..

  5. Hmm, tragic backstories…there are a few of these, but I don't know if Warren really relies on them all that much. We do learn more about Ninjette, and the thing with Thugboy continues to come up, and there's at least one other character with a tragic past in the most recent volume, but I don't know if it's really a crutch for him or anything. I think he just continues to tell stories and develop the characters, with lots of jokes and gags and sexy times. The most tedious parts for me are the long chapters where somebody has a conversation with the caged Demonwolf in which he describes some sexual incident in detail. I think Warren likes those a lot more than I do.

    If I remember correctly, I think I liked the second volume the least out of all of them. Things pick up down the road as Warren figures out how to balance the longer chapters with the different types of stories, culminating in some extended bits of action that are pretty damn great. It's not a perfect series, but I do really dig it.