Empowered, Vol. 2 [Paperback]

Adam Warren (Author, Artist)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 22, 2009

Empowered returns for further misadventures, as a distress-prone girl wonder struggling with life on the superheroic C-list! Clad - or unclad, as fate would too often have it - in her embarrassingly revealing and maddeningly unreliable supersuit, she fights a neverending battle against overly sensitive supervillains, irrationally envious superheroines, and her own body-image issues! Meanwhile, her boyfriend, Thugboy, plays with fire when he foolhardily attempts to compliment his profoundly insecure sweetheart on the awe-inspiring power of her... well, booty. And her often-inebriated gal-pal, Ninjette, pursues a drunken and ultimately disastrous mission to acquire Empowered some respect - by force if necessary! All this, plus crossword-obsessed goons, speech-impaired superbeasts, "Ninjas Gone Wild," and even a few self-help hints from nigh-omnipotent cosmic overlords! You know, the usual.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse (December 22, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593078161
• ISBN-13: 978-1593078164
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #342,112 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun, November 17, 2007

By 

Jessica (Seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Empowered, Vol. 2 (Paperback)

The sequel to EMPOWERED 1 is, somehow, not as zany and wild as the first book, but still thoroughly enjoyable, with a crazy fight scene or two, more character development and backstory, and extremely amusing dialogue. Adam Warren's excellent artwork is almost too good to be real, the tight pencils better than most inked and colored pages from other comics. The characters are fun and interesting, Emp is great, the villains are amusing, and Thugboy, Ninjette, and the Blazing-Eyed Demonlord are hilarious and fun, and again the art and dialogue are awesome. Great book, highly recommended (even the bondage stuff is treated really well).

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A rollicking fun read, November 3, 2007

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Empowered, Vol. 2 (Paperback)

The second volume starring the barely clad exploits of an aspiring but less than impressive super heroine who calls herself 'Empowered', writer/artist Adam Warren continues to demonstrate a superb sense of wit, whimsey, and humor that ranges from slapstick to gallows. "Empowered" is a compilation of short (some very short) individual stories of our plucky gal whose powers depend on her skin-tight body suit, a garment that is easily torn (read shredded) resulting in the loss of her superpowers. The result is her almost inevitable capture and bondage by the bad guys (and gals). Humiliation is the result -- and not just from the bad guys! Her boy friend and ninja girlfriend are solidly behind her. Her super team mates somewhat less so. Readers who appreciate a manga style artwork, a wickedly clever short story, a lovely semi-clad female form of the buxom variety, and a rollicking fun read will not only enjoy this second volume of "Empowered", but will avidly seek out Volume 1, and line up at their favorite comic book shop awaiting the arrival of Volume 3!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best satire on comic book super-heroes continues to delight, June 6, 2010

By 

Whitt Patrick Pond "Whitt" (Cambridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Empowered, Vol. 2 (Paperback)

This is the second volume of Adam Warren's Empowered, which is absolutely one of the best satires on the comic book super-hero genre ever done. It continues the adventures of the main characters introduced in the first volume: the title character Empowered, the "hotness incarnate" yet insecure-about-body-issues super-heroine with the unreliable supersuit that leaves her vulnerable (and nigh naked) at the worst moments possible; Thugboy, her sweetly loyal and supportive former-badboy boyfriend; Ninjette, her fun-loving and totally kick-ass ninja girlfriend, and last but never least, the Caged Demonwolf, a cosmic demonic overlord imprisoned inside an alien bondage belt who offers priceless on-going commentary on the lives and doings of the other three (always referring to himself in the third person and never by the same name twice, and sounding like a cross between Skeletor and the anime-style version of Teen Titan's Starfire). The dialogue, as in the first volume, is frequently priceless, as is seen in this exchange when the Caged Demonwolf has discovered that Ninjette has adopted Empowered's practice of "clear-cutting" her pubic hair:

CD: "Bahh. Enough distraction and misdirection, elusive wench. Speak unto the Dread Doomfarer of your newly depilated downstairs!"
N: (moves hands self-conciously over said area)
CD: "Feign not modesty, she who parades her callipygian posterior about in the shortest of shorts, with her name egregiously emblazoned across the tight-clinging backside!"
N: "All right, all right..." (sits down) "'s not a long or complicated story, all right? Yeah, I was kinda freaked out when I saw her, ah, 'depilated downstairs'. But, then after a while..."
CD: "Yes...?"
N: (blushing) "...I started thinking that it was kinda, well, hot. Maybe because she was doing it, and she's, like, hotness incarnate. Not that she _knows_ she is, of course. Anyway, s'not like 'clearcutting' is uncommon nowadays, is it? So I started doing it myself. The end."
CD: "Hrmmm. Do you employ shaving, or mayhap waxing...?"
N: "Uhm, waxing."
CD: "Indeed? A counter-intuitive choice for a blade-happy ninja. So... might the conqueror of the cosmos not gaze upon your newly nude nether realm, _without_ the supersuit...?"
N: (annoyed) "No, he might _not_!"
CD: "Remember, ninja prude... after losing a foolhardy wager to the All-Knowing Autarch, do you not owe him season three of The Wire on DVD? (heh,heh,heh...)"
N: "I was kinda hoping you'd forget about that..."
CD: "Ha! Like unto Omar Little, the Omniscient Overlord forgets _nothing_, mortal fool! Thanks to the Box Office of Home's accursed and avaricious pricing policies, does that DVD set not cost roughly seventy dollars, if not more? (and let us not even speak of The Sopranos DVD sets)"
N: (frowning) "Not sure I like the direction this is taking..."
CD: "Well, if you satiate the Ravening Shadowking's curiosity prurient... he shall consider your vast debt settled! Are you not still partially inebriated? Have we not already seen that your judgement is grievously impaired? Surely one more impetuous act will not slay you!"
N: (musing) "Jeez, I _really_ wouldn't mind saving seventy-plus bucks, y'know..."
CD: "Behold, your defenses are dropping before the Dark Godling's pressure of peer! Now, let your drawers drop as well!"

Other characters appear as well. Sistah Spooky has a fun episode, "The Aryan Ideal of Shoulder Candy", where she rescues Empowered from would-be kidnappers, turning her fury on them not because of the kidnapping but because of their choice of kidnappee: "You picked her because she's a ****ing _blonde_, didn't you!" Another of my favorite episodes, "The Power of TIME!", shows how truly absurd some themed super-villains really are. We also learn more about Empowered, Thug-boy and Ninjette's past and see them evolving in subtle ways. One of the things I like about this series is that, even though it's satire, the characters do have a history and everything that happens adds to that history. It's an excellent mix of comic satire, romantic comedy and, surprisingly at times, actually serious threats that have to be dealt with.

Anyone who likes comic book superheroes - and likes them sexy and intimate - will love this superb satirical take on them. As will anyone who's familiar with the delights and pitfalls of being in an on-going boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. Highly, highly recommended.