Dark Horse Comics: What’s the most difficult part about being a superheroine? Empowered: Um, well…As someone who’s carrying a crushing load of body-image issues on her shoulders—or around her hips, more relevantly—the toughest part of my often-craptastic superjob is having to run around in a beyond-skintight “hypermembrane” supersuit that leaves, like, nothing to the imagination. (As in, “I imagine that superheroine should perhaps consider laying off her late-night nom-nom-nomming of uncooked cookie dough by the tubeful.”) Seriously, having to cavort about in public with your jibbly bits on display is, to me, much scarier than having to engage in hand-to-hand battle. (Or...
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Trying to review a new installment of Adam Warren’s Empowered series (Dark Horse) is exactly like trying to review a new installment of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series (Oni). The fifth volume of Warren’s saga of a (sometimes literally) struggling super-heroine is good in exactly the same ways as the previous four, but with a slightly higher level of poise and complexity. It’s meatier and moodier, but it achieves those effects without sacrificing the core charm and wit of the series. Basically, a review of the fifth Empowered book would constitute an attempt to get new readers to pick up the first volume of the book. I figure that people who have read the first volume either gave up on the book for its salacious content (which...
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The latest volume of this sexy superhero satire finds the voluptuous but insecure heroine Empowered still frequently trussed up by bad guys when her fragile, form-fitting, power-granting bodysuit shreds and leaves her helpless. In the most hilarious story here, villain vendors even start using her to promote their latest superhero capture and restraint equipment. But though there's still a measure of ribaldry, witty wordplay, and intelligent superpower spoofery, manga-influenced American cartoonist Warren (Livewires; Iron Man: Hypervelocity) ups the seriousness quotient here. Readers learn more about the potential dangers left over from Emp's live-in boyfriend's villainous past, while best friend Ninjette is attacked by agents of the...
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Adam Warren's Empowered series is so self-referential and meta at times that it's hard to say anything about it that the series itself doesn't already say, largely in inter-chapter segments where the blushing heroine talks directly to the reader, explaining and analyzing the series. In Empowered Vol. 4, the titular (in two senses) character openly admits yet again that Warren invented her for porny bondage sketches at cons, and that she only gradually developed a personality and a story. She also admits that Vol. 4 contains a lot less bondage and a lot more plot than past installments, which might frustrate longtime readers who are only tuning in for the one thing. Here's something she doesn't say: The series keeps getting better. It's...
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