The body unbound: Empowered, heroism and body image

Abstract

Within most superhero comics, superheroes start as established heroes who save others and planets in the ultimate battle of good versus evil; although characters do evolve and become stronger over time, they still are treated as heroes by fellow superheroes and citizens. Offering an alternative reading, this article explores the transformative narrative arc of a female character who begins as disempowered and struggles to become empowered. Through Adam Warren's graphic novels Empowered, this article argues that through rhetorics of (dis)empowerment and challenging the duality of strength and femininity/sexuality, a new version of superhero emerges: a vulnerable, human superheroine.

Keywords:

• superhero genre
• empowerment
• heroism
• body image
• women in comics

Acknowledgements

A previous version of this paper was presented at the 2011 University of Wisconsin system Women's Studies/LGBTQ conference. Thanks to Leslie Harris and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and insightful feedback on this piece. Also, a word of thanks to my husband, Phil Rippke, who sparked my interest in comics and this graphic novel in particular.

Notes

1 I use the term ‘graphic novel’ to describe Empowered, as Warren identifies his work as graphic novels rather than comics. More specifically, Empowered constitutes a series of graphic novels, as each volume can stand alone, written as a complete unified work of fiction, rather than being a compilation of monthly issues (drawing on O'Neil's 2001 distinction here). When I use the term ‘comic’ or ‘comic book’, this functions as an overall umbrella term for comics more generally, including comic strips, monthly issues, miniseries, trade paperbacks and graphic novels.

2 See also Simon and Simon (1990) for more on development of Captain America as a character.

3 For more on these tensions, see Stuller (2010).

4 Warren uses black boxes to play with the concept of redacting or censoring certain words, such as profanity. In order to keep in the style of the graphic novel, I have decided to keep the word ‘fuck’ censored.

5 See previous comment concerning censorship and Warren's visual style.