Welcome to the latest installment of my comics review column here at Skiffy & Fanty! Every month, I use this space to shine a spotlight on SF&F comics (print comics, graphic novels, and webcomics) that I believe deserve more attention from SF&F readers.
This month, a graphic novel that I was very much looking forward too is out, and I have thoughts. Because it’s a fave, but it might also be a problematic fave. So yeah, you better believe that I have thoughts. (This review contains spoilers!)
Empowered and Sistah Spooky’s High School Hell
Created and written by Adam Warren
Art by Carla Speed McNeil
Colors by Jenn Manley Lee
Published by Dark Horse Comics
Empowered, the series, is a “sexy superhero comedy — except when it isn’t,” created, written and drawn by Adam Warren. Ten volumes have been published by Dark Horse as original graphic novels (plus some one-shots and mini-series side stories, like this one, which also often bring other artists into the mix).
Empowered, the character, is a superhero, but she’s one that other superheroes don’t take very seriously — mostly because she draws her powers of strength, resilience and energy blasts from a symbiotic costume that’s very easy to damage. That means her powers fail regularly, and that means that she gets captured by bad guys in various humiliating ways all the time. And there’s nothing less cool to this universe’s superheroes than that. Emp tries harder, and has more heart, than any five other heroes — but almost nobody seems to notice or care, and she’s still a laughingstock.
Sistah Spooky is a former superhero. As a bullied high school student, she learned that the mean blonde girls who’d been tormenting her had all sold their souls for hotness. So she did the same — but her Infernal Service provider accidentally (or accidentally-on-purpose?) gave her way more infernal energy than the others, enough to turn her into a powerful, sorcerous superhero. Spooky was a popular and respected hero — and she had no time at all for Empowered, and was never shy about saying so.
Until Spooky’s girlfriend, the telepath Mindf**k, died, with her soul apparently getting into the hands of the Infernal Service Provider. Spooky went rogue to try to rescue her love from Hell, with Empowered’s help — but they failed, and Sistah Spooky was disgraced.
Now, Empowered and Spooky are at the beginnings of an unlikely friendship, with Spooky finally able to admit her past cruelty to Emp, and Emp willing to forgive, but neither of them able to forget.
And then, in this side story written by Warren and drawn by Carla Speed McNeil, the Infernal Service Provider strikes again, dragging Emp and Spooky into a devilish high-school death trap, populated by Spooky’s former bullies, all of whom are mad that they only got supernatural good looks, while she got superpowers, and they’re out for blood.
Whew! The Empowered ‘verse has a lot of history, obviously, much of it loopy, and that’s part of what makes it fun. Seeing Warren emulate the accumulated weirdness of other superhero universes in a feminist-friendly, sex-and-body-positive way, with a clear and deeply lovable viewpoint character is fun.
And in this tale specifically, seeing the characters drawn by Carla Speed McNeil is fun. Seeing Empowered and Spooky working, struggling side-by-side, moving past their awkward, baggage-laden sort-of-friendship to truly support and care about one another, is fun — and sweet, and wonderful. The dialogue is witty, the plot engaging, the high-school-themed deathtraps funny and awful in exactly the way high school was awful, but with more zombie frogs and explosions.
So, why do I call this uplifting tale problematic?
Empowered, the character, actually originated as fetish-appeal pin-up art; she was a character that Warren drew for commissions, usually tied up and restrained (remember how I said that she keeps getting captured by bad guys? Yeah). Over time, he started getting curious about her interior life, how she came to be in these situations and how she’d feel about it. What kind of person she’d be. The result was Empowered, the series.
Warren worked and works very hard, both in the main Empowered series and in this story, to engage, deconstruct, or subvert with the tropes that led to Empowered’s creation; to reframe the passive male-gaze object as the active hero; to be feminist and sex-positive; and to present a diverse cast.
However, trying to do something doesn’t always mean succeeding, and there’s frequently a sense in Empowered that Warren is trying to have his trope-rich cake and eat it too.
Specifically in this case, it’s very difficult to ignore that this is a white dude, writing a story in which mean teenaged-looking girls are punished by dying in various horrible ways — well, it’s never entirely clear, within or outside of the story, whether they’re dying or being banished from the high school when their avatars are destroyed, but either way, it’s violent. And that’s a problem; because, yes, these are the meanest of mean girls, without an ounce of compassion, cruel and abusive, fat-shaming, sex-shaming, and racist.
Because Warren wrote them that way. It reminds me of the famous quote from John Berger.
“You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure.”
Warren created mean girls, and morally condemns them for being mean, and invites us to be entertained by it. And it is entertaining! It’s fun seeing Emp and Spooky confront their tormentors, help each other overcome their their present crisis and past traumas, and defeat the villains. But it’s also hard to ignore how stacked the deck is, and how feminism is being used to co-sign young women getting mangled for fun.
So yes, problematic. But also yes, still a fave. Because damn it, as I said, it works. The internal logic of the story, as much as aspects trouble me, is internally flawless. It wonderfully resolves the long-dangling plot threads around Spooky’s heroic origin, her grief over the death of Mindf**k, her Infernal Service Provider’s schemes, while also moving forward her friendship with Emp.
Now, before I talk about the art: Regular readers will know that I note disclosures of potential conflicts of interest in the “fine print” below, just under the acknowledgement of traditional territory. In this case, because the conflict I have is fairly significant, I’m going to note it in more detail, here: Carla Speed McNeil is a long-time acquaintance. We met through comics. We’ve known each other for over twenty years and I consider her a personal friend. I also consider her one of my favourite comics creators, and I’ll buy anything she writes and/or draws. I’m definitely not unbiased, but I don’t believe that unduly affected my views.
Okay, now on to the art! It’s great, as expected. Adam Warren both writes and draws the core Empowered graphic novels, and his manga influence is pronounced. That, to be clear, works very well for the story and the characters. But his practice of bringing in other artists for side stories like this one pays off in abundance here.
Because despite the demonic deathtraps and murderous schoolgirls, this is at its heart a story about Spooky coming to terms with her past, and the choices she made — and Empowered and Spooky both coming to terms with their awkward, mutual-emotional-minefield-filled burgeoning friendship. And nobody draws that kind of story better than McNeil; read her long-running series Finder to see more evidence of that. She can convey more emotion in a single-panel reaction shot than some artists can manage in a full page; nobody in comics does better expressions than Carla Speed McNeil, and in a story as full of frustration as this one is for the title characters, that’s a massive plus.
It’s funny. I started out writing this review thinking that while I really enjoyed Empowered and Sistah Spooky’s High School Hell, that on balance thinking that it isn’t a great jumping-on point for readers new to Empowered. Now… you know, I’m not so sure. Yes, there’s lots of history, but that’s true in any superhero universe — it’s just that most of them don’t have a single writer creating all that history. And if new readers are curious enough to want to know more, well, that’s exactly what the ten volumes of Empowered — all of which are in print and available — are for. Heck, Adam Warren has even started serializing the already-published volumes on his website, so you can try before you buy.
New-reader-friendlier than I first expected, then. Still not for everyone; I’d put a content warning on this one for violence, for depictions of bullying, including racist bullying, and, in one particularly memorable sequence, portraying eating disorders. And the rest of Empowered, when it’s not being a sexy comedy, can veer into depicting trauma and body horror, and occasionally touches on sexual violence. Dramatic shifts in tone over just a few pages are part of the show, here.
All that being said, despite my concerns and my qualifiers, for me this book remains a great Empowered side story, and much like Empowered herself: Imperfect, but smart, full of heart and unexpected strengths — and just plain fun.
Problematic. But definitely fave.
Acknowledgements and Disclosures: I would like to acknowledge that Toronto, and the land it now occupies, where I live and work, has been a site of human activity for 15,000 years. This land is the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat and Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. The territory was the subject of the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and Confederacy of the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. This territory is also covered by the Upper Canada Treaties. Today, the meeting place of Toronto is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island. I am grateful to have the opportunity to live and work in the community of Toronto, on this territory.
I have no personal or professional relationship with the publisher or with Empowered creator Adam Warren. I do have a significant personal and professional relationship with Carla Speed McNeil, as noted above. I can’t claim to be unbiased, but I don’t believe that this unduly changed my impression of the work. I purchased my own copy of the book for review.
