After almost a year and a half of waiting I finally got my hands on Empowered Volume 8, the newest book in Adam Warren’s “sexy superheroine” series.
To tide us over during that time, Warren gave us several stand-alone issues, written by himself and illustrated by various guest artists. I enjoyed those, and my only problem with them was that they weren’t drawn by Warren. (Which was the whole point: he needed to put the time and effort into finishing volume 8.) And after 17 months of art by (admittedly amazing) guest artists, I was completely blown away by an entire huge book drawn by Warren himself.
Deviating from his usual small-chapter format, the latest volume has only two long chapters. The first is a series of vignettes loosely based around the concept of hell. These lighthearted (well, lighter than the second chapter) mini stories let us connect with several of the characters that don’t figure into the main storyline of the book. We get to see Emp’s boyfriend ThugBoy (in several steamy sex scenes, yowza), Ninjette, and most of the “SuperDead” group (zombified superheroes who can’t die due to infernal pacts of one kind or another.)
This was a smart idea on Warren’s part, because it reminded readers of several unresolved plot lines, and even set up a few new ones too. When the current story arc wraps up, we’ll be able to move pretty seamlessly into a new story, without having to dig up our old copies to refresh ourselves with what was going on.
I’m looking forward to the San Antonio plot line, which promises to be heartbreaking, once Empowered finds out about ThugBoy’s past. Not to mention the Willy Pete plot line, which promises to be horrific.
The second (much darker) half of the book is the main story, following Sistah Spooky and 
Empowered down into hell (or some kind of hell, it’s never made clear if it’s a biblical hell or some really awful alternate dimension) to rescue Spooky’s former girlfriend.
Readers familiar with Spooky’s girlfriend will quickly see why the back cover image is so startling.
Spooky is probably the most-changed character of all eight volumes. She’s gone from a fairly two-dimensional, background-character nemesis, to a very nuanced anti-heroine in a no-win situation. In this book we pick up several more tidbits about her past, including the depth of her former hatred of Empowered, and exactly what Spooky did to torment her.
In addition, we get over 200 pages of Adam Warren’s gorgeous artwork. I know he considers himself first and foremost a storyteller, and I really respect that. But it’s easy to get distracted by the stunning quality of the art.
I suppose that’s the kind of problem you want to have.