Any Empire

Any Empire is a 2011 graphic novel by North Little Rock (Pulaski County) native Nate Powell, published by Top Shelf Productions. Although not explicitly set in Arkansas, there are any number of hints as to the setting, such as the presence in the background of one image of Bennett’s Military Supplies, a longstanding Little Rock (Pulaski County) business. The book explores the militarization of childhood in American culture, especially in the South.

The first half of the book follows three children: Lee, Purdy, and Sarah. Lee regularly reads G.I. Joe comic books, wears dog tags, and indulges in flights of fancy that see tanks rolling over the local scenery. Purdy, although loud and brash, is rather insecure and secretly sensitive. Purdy leads a local group of kids who like to play at being soldiers, and although he requires all initiates to beat a turtle to death, he cannot do this himself. Sarah lives at the edge of town in a trailer and has been investigating who has been killing so many turtles.

The second half follows these three characters as they proceed through high school and beyond. Lee and Sarah remain in their community, but Purdy joins the military alongside twins who were part of the childhood gang from his younger days. After he loses an arm in a landmine explosion, the army offers him a range of mechanical replacements, thus making him akin to a G.I. Joe figure referenced earlier in the book, the B.A.T. (Battle Android Trooper). Back in service, he is given the order to lead a training exercise in his hometown, producing exactly the sort of scenes that once occupied Lee’s daydreams. During this exercise, each of the three protagonists is able to encounter, mystically, the child version of themselves. Purdy goes AWOL (absent without official leave), and the three friends resist the military incursion, flipping a tank with their bare hands. Afterward, they are being held, bound and at gunpoint, when one soldier discovers the old box in which a younger Sarah had kept her evidence about the turtle murders. The final panels show a number of turtles walking out of the high grass to feed.

Any Empire received significant praise, including from Larry Hama, the original author of the G.I. Joe comic book series published by Marvel, who called it “fluid and effortless visual storytelling devoid of pretentions.” Booklist described it as “a potentially obvious antiwar parable” that, through Powell’s talents, becomes “a ravishingly beautiful, emotionally resonant, thoughtful, and provocative work of art.” Reviewer Hayley Campbell, writing for the Comics Journal, described the book thusly: “From the childhood-as-history angle it’s a book not so much about children, but about adults trying to figure out how they ended up the way they did and where it all began: the culmination of things that meant the most in a time when we felt things deepest, the effects of story on malleable minds.”

For additional information:
Campbell, Hayley. Review of Any Empire. Comics Journal, September 21, 2011. https://www.tcj.com/reviews/any-empire/ (accessed December 19, 2024).

Powell, Nate. Any Empire. Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Comics, 2011.

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas