It’s time for the capes to get down!
Creative Staff:
Story: Adam Warren
Art: Karla Diaz
Colors: Karla Diaz
Letterer: Nate Piekos of Blambot
What They Say:
Love is tearing apart costumed crimefighter Empowered’s city, as the unearthly powers of an embittered “International Magical Girl of Mystery” covertly inflame the superheroic community’s burning passions. But even if a befuddled Emp can puzzle out her shadowy foe’s schemes, can she hope to prevail against the Soldier of Love?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With this being the tenth anniversary of the Empowered property, we’re certainly hoping for some fun events for it over the course of the year. The first one up is the first of three issues of Empowered and the Soldier of Love, a miniseries with creator Adam Warren writing it and artwork by Karla Diaz. I’ve enjoyed and sometimes struggled with Empowered over the years but I’ve been a huge fan of Warren’s since the early 90’s that I’ll always come back to see more. This book introduces me to Diaz and it’s definitely interesting to see the approach she takes to the style that Warren has set for it, which is what has made previous miniseries by other artists interesting as well.
With this originally starting as its own project and then shifted into the Empowered universe, the opening installment is all about the setup as the mysterious Soldier of Love and her animal companion have hit the city and are targeting a range of capes that they have on a list. The targeting isn’t to kill them, as we often see such things play out, but rather to fill them full of lust so that there’s a wide range of couplings going on. This will mean a lot more if you’ve followed the book for a long time and remember all the different characters and their types but it’s also pretty accessible from a new reader’s perspective since Warren just makes the experience fun with the combinations of characters, though the one with the two alpha males going at it and then going at it just felt a bit old school and forced in a way. There’s a lot of fun across the range of characters that we get here, however, so it’s all in all a lot of mostly off-screen fun with dialogue and impact from the couplings.
The view through all of this is with Empowered and Ninjette as they’re just having a day out and get caught up in seeing it, dealing with Night Giant going all sad over two of his loves now hooking up to a karaoke session among others leading to sexytimes. And a hilarious threesome they discover in the club bathroom stall. All of this is being orchestrated by the magical girl of international mystery, who has some interesting panels and a bilingual approach to things that’s a nice change of pace, but she’s not the main focus here other than the cause. This is about Emp and Ninjette seeing it all unfold and trying to figure out what’s going on as they realize it really is a Love Attack that’s underway. That’s going to be hard to convince anyone of though since they’re all constantly hooking up and Emp is being ignored since she’s not on the list.
In Summary:
I’ve had mixed luck with Empowered in general and the spinoff material a bit more so but this Soldier of Love miniseries is off to a great start. Warren and Diaz work really well together with their different styles as he’s adapting to her layout approach and panel dynamics and she’s dealing with someone that really enjoys heavy dialogue pieces with both foreground and background elements. That can be frustrating in the main book with the black and white but the blending here has made this a lot more fun than I expected. I came away from it appreciating Warren’s writing a bit more and now falling in love with Diaz’s artwork and wanting to see a whole lot more of it. Fans of the property will definitely dig the book as it’s pure Empowered in most ways but it’s also a comically effective accessible work to new readers – and those that like the admittance that capes engage in sexytimes.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: February 8th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
