Any halfway decent artist can draw a pretty girl tied up. But to take a string of... er... specialized art commissions and make them into one of the most appealing, accessible, and smart superhero satires out there? THAT's genius. And the result is Adam Warren's Empowered, which started out as a running bondage gag and grew into one of the funniest, strangest, sweetest comics I've ever read.
Empowered is about the misadventures of an unlikely superheroine--the eponymous Empowered. Emp's life sucks: she's got an alien super-suit flimsy enough to throw the most body-confident supermodel into a tailspin (and prone to tattering at just the wrong time); super-hero teammates who couldn't care less about her (when they're not mocking her outright), and a reputation as the superheroine most likely to end up tied and gagged as collateral damage (specialized commissions, remember?). She's surrounded by a colorful supporting cast, from her bad-boy-gone-good main-squeeze Thugboy (who once commandeers a chapter to wax eloquent on his favorite of Emp's assets); to her hard-drinkin', shuriken-slingin' (and runaway princess) Ninjette; a veritable who's-who and what's-what of more and less likely superfolk, and an alliteration-prone intergalactic menace (who lives in a belt on her coffee table).
But what really sets Empowered apart is Adam Warren's mastery of tonal alchemy. Empowered is the perfect blend of satire and substance: simultaneously side-splittingly slapstick-silly; brilliantly biting; and deeply, genuinely sweet. Warren's art is lush and dynamic--I still can't believe he draws this at 8 1/2 x 11--and the wordplay in his blithely bombastic dialogue has to be read to be believed (And have I mentioned the lettering? Be still, my heart!). Adam Warren's got a knack for making the excessive accessible, and with Empowered, he hits one hilarious, high-flying, heart-warming home run after another.
-Editor: Rachel Edidin