Cover of Empowered Volume 4, the latest offence against Ellie Mae. Click on the pic to find out more about this shameful publication.Dear World:
For several years now, comic artist Adam Warren has made millions of dollars bagging on my cousin Ellie Mae Powers, and I'd like him to stop. (Her real first name is "Elissa" and her real middle name is "Megan" I know, but everyone calls her "Ellie Mae" after her great aunt on the Clampbett side.)
Ellie Mae is fondly regarded in the family as a sweet girl, a bit touched in the head but basically really nice. Ever since she was a toddler she was jazzed about superheroes, wandering around her folks' house with a towel pinned to her back by a clothespin, declaring that she could fly, had superstrength, etc. Her mother bought her Wonder Woman underoos then had to fight her to get her to take them off so she could wash them.
It was always kinda funny and we always figured she'd grow out of it until she went to college and majored in "Transhuman Studies." You want to talk about your useless college degrees! Everybody thought it was a bad idea to let her major in that -- why couldn't she get a degree in something useful, like business management or medicine? But no, her folks said it was the only thing she was interested in or would study (and she did get on the Dean's List and stay there while she was in college) so Transhuman Studies it was.
We figured her folks were just throwing away money on someone who was going to wind up teaching grade school somewhere, but what the hell, it was her folks' money and her life.
But after she found the supersuit in her senior year in college she went nuts because of course she figured it meant she could BE superhuman. Like being Ellie Mae Powers of the Kentucky Powers clan wasn't good enough for her. Her Great Granny Clampbett would have tanned her hide if she'd found out about it. Granny Clampbett would have been ESPECIALLY mad about the way Ellie Mae looked running around in public in that supersuit -- pretty much stark naked. I'm not sure what denomination Granny Clampbett was, but I AM sure it was one of those fire and brimstone ones where if women are the least bit sexy, they go straight to hell. And Granny Clampbett wouldn't let any kin of hers go to hell even if she had to make their lives hell on earth.
Meanwhile, Adam Warren bags on Empowered relentlessly in his weekly comic strip. Now, granted, Empowered has given him plenty of material to work with, god bless her, due to that damn supersuit's unreliability, but Warren seems to take a certain amount of glee in detailing the insults, humiliations, and dire perils she repeatedly encounters. Also, Warren seems to know more about Ellie Mae's relationship with her boyfriend Lee ... er, Thugboy, we all just call him Lee ... than is meet or proper, and he gleefully details THAT in his strip as well.
Now, I dunno where you're getting your information, Mr. Warren (I'm betting the Caged Demonwolf, he would be in a position to know a lot of this stuff with his starspawn powers, and he seems the type to dish the dirt on anyone if the price is right or even if it isn't) but I don't see what good it is bagging on the girl so much.
Surely you can find another female superhero who gets tied up a lot by bad guys and has plenty of foibles to exploit. Hell, look at Wonder Woman, she spends more time in the coils of her golden lasso than villains do. Plus, she's totally in the closet about her bondage proclivities nowadays, even though she was practically out about it back in the 50s, when it was really dangerous to be out about such things.
Wonder Woman would be right up your alley with her twisted psyche and strange past, and wouldn't be nearly so affected by your comments, as her ego isn't nearly so fragile as Ellie Mae's, what with her having been an actual goddess at one time.
We still have hopes that Ellie Mae can return to a more normal life -- we understand that Ellie Mae has somehow picked up some experience working as a librarian during her stint with the despicable SuperHomies, and that Lee, um, Thugboy, has had experience working as an administrative assistant of sorts. And hell, Ellie Mae has always had a real soft spot for children, she could always work in day care, maybe even transhuman day care -- I understand those kids could be an armful.
In summary, Mr. Warren, please stop bagging on Ellie Mae. She's a sweet kid who deserves better.
Yours,
Pat Powers
aka Ellie Mae's crazy cousin Pat