Panel 4: Note that the reference to the "Kelp King vine" is a sneak preview (of sorts) for an upcoming scene from I Am Empowered, though you won't be reading that particular bit for many months from now. Speaking of which:

And now, my latest attempt to paste in an excerpt from the third chapter of long-defunct prose experiment I Am Empowered, a Year-One-ish first-person account from Emp in 140-character Twitter format detailing her earliest days as a superheroine; note that this chapter is an especially long one exploring the art and science of superheroic roofjumping, with these current excerpts depicting at some length one of Emp’s more disastrous efforts along those lines.

ABOMINABLEMENT DIFFICILE, part 8 (of 8)

I’ve seen that Trigger Troll’s jump jets allow him a little more range than my full-power superleaps. Quasarmodo’s strength, a little less.

Thus, in my qualified opinion as A Noted If Not Eminent Rooftopping Pundit, these two doofi have no chance whatsoever of making this run.

“How about a little ABOMINABLEMENT DIFFICILE, dumbasses?” I harpy-shriek into the wind, with no small degree of righteous satisfaction.

Trigger Troll takes the slightly longer, marginally safer—but still wildly dangerous— route variation that crosses Really Longfellow Plaza.

Then he makes the same error in jump judgment I once made—okay, twice—fooled by the tricky distance AND height gap at the plaza’s east end.

Booming roar, spectacular spray of metal, sparks, stone, dust—and look, that’s one less gargoyle atop 25 Hanover Place! (Good riddance.)

The wrecked exoskeleton tumbles off the Gothic facade, then clangs and bangs and crunches and pings all the way down to street level.

Up on the roof, I’ve damsel-hopped to the parapet, leaning over it to howl, “FEMININE WILES: ONE! DRUNKEN IDIOT NEWBIE ROOFJUMPER: ZERO!”

(Okay, maybe I’m li’l buzzed, at this point. Like me, Platinum Blonde SuperHard Lemonade® is undeniably girly, but surprisingly effective.)

I squint, and my mask’s lenses zoom in, showing me the ruined Trollsuit sprawled on the plaza’s flagstones—bonk, a gargoyle head hits him.

(Yeahp, go figure: My suit’s vision options still function when most of its other superfunctions have failed, for reasons unclear to me.)

Judging by the twitching, Trigger Troll’s pilot survived. Far more important: No civilians were harmed in the production of this beatdown.

I spot the usual influx of unwisely unafraid civvies, howeva, drifting in from across the plaza to snap cellphone pix of Troll’s wreckage.

I’m thinking, go ahead and immortalize another cape’s misfortune for once, instead of immortalizing every mishap befalling MY sorry behind!

(In fact, I’m not THINKING that at all—I’m yelling it out loud, in a rather maniacal manner. SuperHard Lemonade is a helluva drink, y’all.)

Quasarmodo remains oblivious to his buddy’s fate, no doubt because surviving the tricky R2R route he’s chosen is taking all his attention.

Clearly, the Hulking Hunchback enjoys extrêmement degrees of difficile, as he’s superjumping the very gnarliest of crosstown paths eastward.

I’d almost feel sorry for the doomed lout, save for all the demeaning humiliation and terror and buttslaps he’s inflicted on me. Suck it, Q.

The lopsided lunkhead slips and stumbles, scrambles back up onto a roof, staggers against an HVAC mount, arcs skyward with limbs flailing.

Despite a gasp-worthy chain of close calls and near-disasters and barely-made-its, the brass-ballsy moron closes in on the turnaround point.

As he flea-springs ever closer and closer to Purple Paladin Memorial Hospital, a delicate thread of worry weaves itself into my thoughts.

Cue anxious lip bite, as I don’t quite have a Plan B in mind—silly me, I never considered that a R2R virgin could succeed where I’ve failed.

Returning, he might just be srsly peeved to discover that Trigger Troll’s down—and he might just take it out on me, Unwritten Rules or not.

Skunk-drunk, adrenaline-jacked supervills: Not especially well-known for their even-keel tempers and exemplary levels of impulse control.

Cursing my own doofiness, I reach down and tug frantically at the wiring cables binding my legs, while still wary-eyeing distant Q-Modo.

But wait, y’all! A 40-story foe arises to save Lucky Me and doom Unlucky Him: The Hirsch-Rockwell Building’s too-high, FAR-too-slanty roof!

Just like me, the hunchback botches the black-diamond-precipitous jump up—WAY up—to that frustrating skyscraper’s absurdly angled top.  

Hapless Quasarmodo bounces right off the roof’s corner slope, meathooks clawing futilely at ice-slippery metal and handhold-defying glass.

The unbeaten champ Hirsch-Rockwell claims another scalp as the hunchback plummets away from the building, arms and legs thrashing wildly.

Eyeblink-fast, Q-Modo plunges down ten stories, twenty stories, thirty stories, then smashes onto the (wee) neighboring building’s roof.

He slams into the very same elevator housing that I landed on post-botch, months earlier. Silence, then the flinch-y crunch reaches my ears.

I zoom-lens in on the ruins, spot some feeble movements through the dust and debris.  Dumbass survived the drop—yay—but his joyride is over.

I woo-hoo jubilantly into the void. My hard-won R2R savviness and—ughh—grudging use of Feminine Wiles have garnered me sweet, sweet victory!

Then, slowly but inexorably, the mantle of triumph slips away, and the gloomy, gray  cloak of dismal, sucktastic reality settles over me.

I’m shivering-cold, my supersuit in tatters, bruises on my belly and thighs, Troll cable binding me hand and foot. I’m a (non-hot) mess.

I’m trapped powerless on a rooftop—guess what, the stupid roof-access door is always, ALWAYS locked, up here—with no way to call for help.

I’ll likely face long, chilly hours of awaiting rescue by my teammates, or—no better—waiting for my regenerating suit to restore my powers.

An indirect victory like this will, of course, net me few props from my snobby superpeers. (Cue Sistah Spooky’s sneer of amused contempt.)

Filling out the after-action report will be embarrassing enough, but detailing my birdstrike-induced office visit? Even more cringeworthy.

I slump down against the parapet wall, curl into an upright shame ball, rest my cheek against my cable-wrapped knees, and heave a BIG SIGH.

As I sigh, I know that new, derisive video clips of me—naked-ish, chubby, begging the two bads to capture me—are already popping up online.

Then I hear a madly batting flutter of wings, and look up to see another pigeon flapping overhead. Or is it the same pigeon from earlier?

Hard to say for sure. What IS certain: This pigeon, miserable prick that it is, unerringly splatters birdcrap in my hair as overflies me.

PLOP! My crappy day turns perfectly—and, yes, literally—crappy. Cue my strangled groan of misery and outrage and burgeoning pigeon-hate.

Okay, so I made up that last part about the pigeon. Mea culpa, all right?

Even poor, pitiful me rarely experiences crappiness of such absolute, gemlike perfection. (Or IMperfection.) Sorry for exaggerating, y’all.

Tell you one thing, though: Since then, I’ve never looked at pigeons the same way. Just hearing their stupid cooing gives me flashbacks.

So, to sum up this thread: Rooftop-to-rooftop superjumping is tricky. Supervillains can be dumb—and/or drunk—and easily misled.

And, quite frankly, pigeons suck.

<END OF EXCERPT, AND OF CHAPTER>

Wellp, if this actually worked, webcomic readers, I’ll try again shortly with another excerpt from I Am Empowered, this time moving on to a new chapter.

Today’s Patreon update: Originally done as a means of scratching out more worktime to complete the long-gestating Empowered vol. 12, I've switched over to a Monday/ Wednesday/ Friday Patreon posting schedule that won't feature the fixed content format I previously used. However, my vast archive of years of Patreon posts—extensive Empowered previews, vintage con sketches, work stages on covers, "damsel in distress" commissions, life drawings & much, much more—remains available for Patrons' perusal.

-Adam Warren