Empowered - Plot

Plot

Empowered chronicles the story of the titular character, a superheroine whose civilian name is Elissa Megan Powers, but is more commonly referred to as "Emp" (originally after her initials, E.M.P. ).

Empowered is a young blonde woman who is highly self-conscious about her figure, and has other self-esteem issues. She was inspired to become a superhero and help others after witnessing the death of her father at a very early age, going so far as to get a degree on "Metahuman Studies" while attending an unnamed college. She obtains a unique "hypermembrane" supersuit through unknown means but the suit is both very revealing and unreliable. Her concern over her appearance frequently serves as a dominant aspect of her career as a superheroine, as her "hypermembrane" supersuit is composed of an extremely fragile material; a material so thin and clingy that it outlines every curve of her body. Additionally, while her suit can provide her with several fantastic powers, such as super strength and directed energy blasts, these enhancements will usually fail if her suit becomes too damaged. Due to the fragility of her suit, this has happened frequently, and thus, she has earned herself a reputation for being ineffective and easily defeated...and subsequently tied up. Despite these many limitations, Empowered still manages to achieve triumphs in both her personal and professional lives using her intellect and determination, even if she rarely gains accolades for said heroic acts from the public at large.

She is also an associate-level member of the Superhomeys superhero group, who are the primary defenders of the city in which they reside. Within the group, Empowered is an active participant in many of the battles against the multitude of villains that threaten the metropolis. However, because of the unreliability of her suit, she is commonly defeated and captured. And, because of the villains' unwillingness to violate the unspoken rules of superhero/supervillian interaction, she is frequently hogtied and left for the Superhomeys to eventually rescue. Due to the frequency of this, she has a reputation within the Superhomeys as being "bondage-prone" and is something of a laughingstock. Empowered continually fights alongside them despite their lack of respect toward her and her own suit's unreliable nature, due to her unwavering determination to help people as best as she is able. While her teammates often soundly dismiss her contributions, she has managed to save the lives of the Superhomeys singlehandedly on at least two occasions. Empowered is also portrayed as being more morally upstanding, idealistic and noble than the majority of her more powerful, cynical teammates and members of the superhuman community at large.

Although Empowered is continually subjected to humiliation in her career as a superheroine, she does have close companionship and emotional support from her boyfriend, who is only known as Thugboy. Thugboy, who is so-called because of his previous career as a thug and henchman to various supervillians, reforms to stand by Empowered's side after meeting her "on the job" and moves in with her in short order. He continually provides her with uplifting emotional support and encouragement despite her misadventures and nigh-on continual failure to live up to her own expectations. This love and support frequently manifests in the form of sex, which may be beneficial to Empowered’s hypermembrane as well as her emotional state since the former seems to mirror the latter.

Emp is also a close friend to a young woman named Kozue Kaburagi, who prefers to be called by the pseudonym "Ninjette". Ninjette (or simply "'Jette", as she is colloquially known) is a highly-trained ninja and runaway princess of the Kaburagi ninja clan, which is based out of New Jersey. She, too, met Empowered on the opposite side of the law but has since reformed, thanks to forming a close friendship with the idealistic Empowered. She has been shown to have both a drinking problem and an unresolved attraction to Thugboy but neither of these problems have ruined their close friendship yet.

Her rival in most respects is respected fellow SuperHomey Sistah Spooky, a powerful, goth-styled black sorceress. She is very resentful of Emp and hugely successful. The reason for this is that as a kid, she went to a private school full of "shallow, preppy bitches" with perfect bodies, icy glares, and flowing blonde tresses. She was so scarred by this, she attempted to contact eldritch magickal entities in order to murder them, but was told that they were already their clients, as part of a package to sell your soul for the power to be perfectly hot for the rest of your life. She eventually went through with it, but was told that a decimal point was misplaced, giving her "waaaaay too much mystical power," and she used it to become a superhero and achieve international fame. Emp, who shares characteristics with the preppy bitches (all seemingly without selling her soul), as she already had the blonde hair, but she mentions continually that she has to work out constantly and diet to within an inch of her life without looking like a fat slob in what basically amounts to a coat of body paint, is shown to be a constant target of her attention. She has a pathological hatred of blondes, leading to a breakup of her lesbian relationship with blonde telepath Mindfuck.

The final member of Empowered's primary supporting cast is an immortal, cosmically powerful being called The Caged Demonwolf, whom Empowered prevented from destroying the Earth. She did so by imprisoning its essence within a "bondage belt" gained from another of her previous misadventures but when the Superhomeys refused to take the now talking, enraged belt into storage, Empowered was forced to hold on to it, much to her chagrin. While The Caged Demonwolf was initially hostile, it has since become both an advisor and friend to Empowered, Thugboy and Ninjette. The Caged Demonwolf also has a humorously unfortunate tendency to speak only in turgid, long-winded and unnecessarily alliterative speeches, which often obscure the points it is attempting to make. It also breaks the fourth wall to address the audience directly on occasion. To keep it entertained, Emp has placed The Caged Demonwolf on her living room coffee table so it can watch TV, listen to sports talk radio, and generally interact with the comings and goings of Emp's household.

A running gag in the strip is the promise to show people things that never get delivered along with some of the things that do, such as why Emp's suit doesn't show cameltoe and the appearance of "Were-giraffe by Night."