Any Empire by Nate Powell

At TCAF this year I purchased the second graphic novel by Nate Powell. Swallow Me Whole, which I bought the year before, was an examination of schizophrenia and the perceptions of reality. Any Empire deals with the intersection of violence and power. The protaginist is Lee Powell, an army brat who escapes from the pain of constantly moving into the fantasies of his action figures. He falls in with Sarah, a compassionate girl who seeks to emulate both Nancy Drew and her own social worker mother. Turtles have been turning up half dead, the result of the gang run by Donnie Purdy, who, like Lee, is an army brat who adores his special forces father, or rather his idea of him.

All three of the kids have their own fantasies: Lee as the heroic ninja with his kick ass girlfriend fighting evil; Sarah as the crusader against injustice fighting mind games from the shadows; and Purdy as the biggest badass imaginable. Purdy holds onto his gang by virtue of being as antagonistic as possible, cherishing a laser tag gun and refusing to relinquish it because of the feelings of control he gets. He constantly has to assert his dominance over the turtle-killing twins in his gang.

The drawing style is minimalistic and the plot dips between the characters and not necessarilly in chronological order with nothing to distinguish the borders between past and present. Any Empire can thus be a disorientating read, and while Swallow Me Whole had some of the same problems, since the book dealt with schizophrenia (I had to read the ending of Swallow Me Whole four times before I understood it, a result of the art style working against itself) it was more forgivable.

One point that Powell makes is that, for all the sentimental patriotism that surrounds the military, some recruits will not be motivated by a desire to preserve their country and their citizens but for the power they recieve by having social and legal sanction over human life. This becomes true at the ending where Purdy's unit participates in "excercises" against "Domestic Destablized Zones." You could argue of the benevolent nature of the American military, but it stands to reason that an institution comprised of those wanting the biggest stick they can find to smack people smaller than them around.

Overall Any Empire is a quality graphic novel but I cannot say that it grabbed me the way Swallow Me Whole did. The latter's plot was more straightforward and did not swerve wildly through perspectives and time periods like Any Empire. Still, I recommend both easily.