Damsel of the Month:

Name: Elissa Megan Powers aka Empowered/ "Emp"

Series: Empowered

Some words: Adam Warren DiD something that was blunt, daring, fan service, whimsical, and just downright great when Empowered came into the scene of the comic book world. Okay so maybe she's a bit more underground and most likely making sales off a lot of fan service and bondage lovers, but beyond all of that, there is actually more to Empowered than the poor gal writhing about in her bonds and 'mmppphhh'ing' through her cleave gags. I promise! While I won't sit here and completely spoil out every nook and cranny of this 8 volume story, I will say that it does have a lot of parodies to some of our well known Comic Book lore. Some of the characters introduced and even the metropolis often mentioned has so much Marvel and DC influence but twisted so much(in a dark but humorous way) that it's sometimes unrecognizable. The story of Elissa becoming Empowered starts a little after the beginning and right into the core of her distress that the origin of how and why she got her powers remains a mystery! Even with what is revealed now, Emp is still a mystery that it leaves me craving for more!

Yes, this is part of the 'freedom of speech'!

Now while saying that, there is a lot of personality put into Emp and her rapport with the characters. In the beginning all she has are hateful and pricks that she even calls 'teammates' but eventually she gets her own support. And support is what she'll need since her life is a 'living hell' with all of the crap she has to put up from her teammates and when she isn't being ostracized or ridiculed, Emp goes through an entire week of feeling MANY different positions of super heroine bondage!

And the world of Empowered also adheres to the modern (real) world factors like social media where someone like her will find her failures, her bondage moments, and such posted online and well… free for anyone to make memes, videos, and so forth. Imagine that! Failures of bondage and such always plastered online for anyone to see including yourself and then being ridiculed by your so called teammates! Yeah this girl doesn't have it easy at all despite her being a great fan service to us(so stop liking bondage then so poor Emp won't have to suffer!!!).

Powers? She is the parody of Spider-Woman in more ways than one. She has the 'venom blasts' which is called 'vorp'(or the sound affect anyways). She eventually learns to crawl/stick to walls, she has super strength, and her outfit has a VERY distinct similarity with Ms. Drew's costume design. Of course Spider-Woman doesn't walk around with torn up suit all the time! Which brings me to the next point! It's because her suit is torn up all the time that she ends up in bondage! She basically loses a ton of her super powers if she even gets a small rip! And it's not like the suit is durable, it's VERY fragile! Basically, Emp's entire aesthetics is a whole lot of skin! The trademark triangles on her chest and forehead are obviously prominent(Spider-Woman influence!) but without her tears she is just plain blue! Hate to say it but without her all battle damage, her suit is pretty insipid. Further more, without her ropes, she lacks her true nature! Sorry Emp! You look good in ropes!

The bondage has a reason as well as the last volume explains but to ground it to a more plausible notion, there is an unwritten law for villains to NOT murder 'capes'(super heroes). I'm not sure how I completely buy into that but it works in this world. And believe me, there is enough dark tone in the volumes that death is not scarce! While it's not entirely the most gruesome and visceral deaths, it does leave an emotional scar if one just thinks about it. People die in this world!

For a comic book/graphic novel, there is a lot of text. There is a lot of reading and a lot of good conversations! Some characters are unique(actually all of them are) because of the way they talk which makes certain parts just plain and simply entertaining to read! Oh, Emp does a lot of gag talk and the dialogue is sometimes translated for fun!

Character chemistry, somewhat enigmatic origin, whimsical humor, and above all things it has a main chica who is costume design has a lot of Spider-Woman love to her, so why oh why is she the Damsel of the Month for the new year? Well as a fan service icon to the D.i.D. community, she gets a hell of bondage scenes that are almost matching(or perhaps surpassed) Wonder Woman's bondage debut! Emp deserves the month for whenever a new volume arrives because she is always in some enticing bondage scene with a whole hell of a lot of bondage taunting, ridiculing, cleave gags, so on and so on! But to say that, she would just be a simple and everyday D.i.D. and not worthy to start the new year! So what is it then? Well, think about how often she does get bound and gagged, then think about how much she just gets up right after that and does her humiliating crime fighting life. That right there is perseverance.

Victory is an obscure term to her and more of than not she has her own failures to remind her that she is inept and the laughingstock of the superhero realm but despite all that she gets up. She tries. She fights. She does so with joviality, with positiveness, and she is also a smart ass! She has badass moments don't get me wrong! She has awesome friends and as the story progresses, there are changes to the characters as well. Sometimes certain characters ARE the main focus of a volume! So while it is about Emp's bondage and her often gagged mouth that makes her a Damsel worthy of a month; but the fact that she is a BRAVE new take on the often frowned upon(on the mainstream) bondage innuendo… she is a beginning!

There was a reason why Emp also got a Femme Fatale moment and a Damsel of the Month dedicated to her. She is a symbol; a bound and gagged symbol that is! So with that said….

To 2014. Hopefully we get another volume this year! If none of you EVER read a single Empowered, please do so. If it's not for the bondage, the art, or whatever, it's the humor in it that makes it worthwhile. Though… why would you pick up Empowered and NOT like the D.i.D. genre?

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And... We have ourselves a commission with a particular awesome DiD heroine who shares some similarity with this month's damsel! 

Spider-Woman and Empowered by Kachima

Both versions are done by NONE other than Saneperson.