As I’m writing this, we are days away from the release of Adam Warren’s Empowered Volume 7. (If you’re reading this on May 30 I’m probably at the comic shop right now buying my copy.)
I’d hoped to have a review of the book already written, but the preview copy I’d been very generously given has a giant security watermark on every flipping page. Intellectually, I think that’s a great idea; you wouldn’t want a pristine bootlegged copy to get into the wrong hands. But I’ve been waiting over a year for this book to come out, and it’s worth it to me to wait an extra four days and buy my nice, pretty, un-watermarked copy, and then enjoy the heck out of it.
But I wanted to acknowledge the release date with some kind of review, so I decided, why not; I’ll review Empowered Volumes 1-6 all at once. How hard can it be?
I sure like to make things difficult for myself, I really do.
I decided against doing a general summary of the series since there’s plenty of places you can Google for that. (I won’t say the name of one of the sites, since one of my Comic Issues coworkers dislikes it so intensely, but it rhymes with “bickapedia” and I’m sure you can find it.) Instead I’m going to look at each volume and list what I liked about it, what I didn’t like about it, and what I loved about it.
No, that’s not a really balanced look at the books. Yes, I’m okay with that. (I did my best to avoid any major spoilers, but I do mention a lot of important stuff from the books. If you’re allergic to any and all spoilers you might want to skip my reviews and just read the books, I promise I won’t mind.)
Empowered Volume 1:
What I liked about it:
It’s a great intro to the entire series. It starts with little two- or three-page chapters, featuring funny 
stories about the main character, Empowered, and her easily-damaged supersuit. (The more ripped and torn her supersuit gets, the more powerless she becomes, which is why she ends up half-naked and tied up most of the time.) All the characters seem pretty two-dimensional (Thugboy is hot, Emp is insecure, Sistah Spooky’s a bitch) but it doesn’t take long for all the deeper personalities to show up.
But as complex and interesting as the stories get, the series never gets too far from its origins: racy bondage drawings Adam was doing on commission for a private buyer. There’s something very neat about the fact that the story arc encompasses so many characters and so many plot points, but we still get to see Emp and Thugboy doing some R-rated bow-chicca-wow-wow every few pages. (Adam can’t show everything in these comics. But he gets close.)
What I didn’t like:
Honestly there’s not much to not like. But there is a little four-page story about a villain named R.S.L. (which stands for “Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash”) that’s a teeny bit pointless. Funny, but definitely a filler sort of story.
What I loved:
I could say I love Adam’s artwork, but that’s going to get repetitive if I keep saying that for every volume. (Same with saying “the sexy scenes” because all of those are great.) So I’ll just say the fight between Emp and Thugboy near the end is brilliant, because it’s so real; just about anybody reading it is going to see something they recognize. But what makes it worth it is the ending, which happens exactly the way you always want it to happen: world-class makeup-sex. Siiiigh.
Empowered Volume 2:
What I liked:
Thugboy’s reaction to Emp’s sexy librarian outfit. She’s back from the mission, she’s all happy and just talking and talking and talking, and the way Adam did the panels you only see little bits and pieces of what she’s talking about, because Thugboy is not paying attention. All the word bubbles get cut off to show that Thugboy’s only looking at her in her outfit, until he can’t stand it anymore and throws her over his shoulder (she’s giggling the whole time) telling her: “All right, that’s it. Let’s go missy. You’re gonna keep the stockings on. And the shoes. And definitely the glasses.” I just thought it was adorable.
What I didn’t like:
Thugboy yelling at Ninjette. I know he had good reason; Ninjette was drunk and impulsively did something without thinking first. But she had the best intentions, and I really don’t think he should’ve been so ugly about it. He upset her pretty badly, and I was totally on the Caged Demonwolf’s side when he quipped: “An outstanding job of making the ninja cry, witless and insensitive fool.”
What I loved:
The very end of the book. The story that led up to the ending was really powerful, and nicely written. But the very last few pages were funny, and typical of what happens to Emp all the time. And the very last page with the last words Emp mumbles around the gag in her mouth, that was especially sweet.
Empowered Volume 3:
What I liked:
Emp’s disastrous attempt to match her boyfriend and best friend drink for drink. Emp’s a lightweight, but she’s in
complete denial about it. Adam paired each panel of Emp’s party night with a panel showing Emp strapping herself to a rocket on train tracks named “Inebriation No. 1.” Everything’s hilarious right up to the point the rocket goes off the rails and explodes all over everything. Which is what Emp ends up doing too. The whole story’s funny as hell.
What I didn’t like:
There’s a chapter about Major Havoc convincing Emp to be bait for some kind of telekinetic ghost thing. The story’s really not important, it was just an excuse to get Emp in the sexy librarian outfit again, which is fine. The story doesn’t have an ending, that’s what bugs me. One second Emp’s been overpowered by some kind of poltergeist, then the Caged Demonwolf (who’s been telling the story) gets interrupted by Ninjette, and somehow Emp’s already back home in bed with Thugboy.
What I loved:
The ninja battle scene at the end. I loved how it started out; Ninjette’s on the phone and she slowly realizes something’s not right. She stops in mid-sentence, there’s a moment of silence, and she says “…I think I’m in trouble Emp…” and all hell breaks loose.
Adam does really well with complicated fight scenes, with a real impression of tons of motion and master fighters moving really fast. And the “come to the rescue” scene literally gave me chills.
Empowered Volume 4:
What I liked:
All the superheroes and villains who showed up. It seemed Adam had fun creating as many different characters as possible considering it spices up half a page. We had Doctor McLarge Huge and the Ubernurses, Wet Blanket, Katastrophe, Baby Bird, Kid Anglerfish, Femifist, Single Action, Captain Katana, Were-Giraffe By Night (I’m not making this up) and Crowquet, though he was really Maid Man in disguise. (Aww, Maid Man. He rocks.)
What I didn’t like:
The stuff with Wiley Pete is pretty awful, and disturbed me more than in the other books. But he’s supposed to be the worst, most disturbing super-villain you can imagine, so I guess Adam did a good job there. Yeesh.
What I loved:
Both of the twist endings: the identity of the traitor, and who Mindf**k actually is. I really didn’t see either of those coming.
Empowered Volume 5:
What I liked:
I’m not a fan of characters with no redeeming values at all (ahem, Major Havoc) and Adam’s backstory for Sistah Spooky did a great job of showing Spooky in all her flawed, but somehow likable, humanity. You might not want to be her best friend or anything, but you sure do understand her a lot more after this book.
What I didn’t like:
The Caged Demonwolf’s recounting of one of the stories fell a bit flat – I’m not a Demonwolf-hater, but I think a little of his awesomely alliterative storytelling style goes a long way. I think I would’ve liked the story of “the gladiator meets the librarian” a bit more if we didn’t have to wade through quite so many words.
What I loved:
Holy cow the entire last chapter, from beginning to end, was brutal (probably the most horrific stuff we’ve seen in the series.) And the ending will destroy you, but that’s what makes it so amazing. I forgot to breathe a couple times.
Empowered Volume 6:
What I liked:
We got to see more of Maid Man and Oyuki-Chan in this book. I’m not sure why I like Maid Man so much, (probab
ly because he’s such a gentleman and has no problem kicking ass in a French maid’s outfit). And Oyuki-Chan, a member of Ninjette’s former clan, is wonderfully creepy and beautiful, and a good half of what she’s saying gets blacked out in the word bubbles because her language is so filthy. Both characters are incredibly interesting and I look forward to learning more of their backstory.
What I didn’t like:
Major Havoc. I hate the guy. Haaaaate. So far he hasn’t shown a single thing to like. At this point I’m not hoping Adam will give him some redeeming qualities like he did for Sistah Spooky. I’m hoping Adam will drop a building on him.
What I loved:
The entire Sistah Spooky storyline was great, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. She’s in (quite literal) hell and she’s already gone nuclear once. If one more awful thing happens to her then something’s getting exploded.
That’s it, all six books. I couldn’t mention every single thing that I liked about them because honestly this review’s long enough as it is. But after looking at some of the teaser pages on Adam’s deviantart.com account, I can see Empowered Volume 7 is going to be at least as good as the first six, if not better.
Check back here in a few days; after I read it I promise to review the heck out of it.