Guilty Pleasure


The latest from Adam Warren.

I'm a longtime fan of writer/artist Adam Warren, and so when I heard that he's coming out with a new original trade paperback graphic novel, I was pretty intrigued. Instead of another chapter of his more established Dirty Pair series, this latest opus is a totally new creation- Empowered.

Labelled as a 'sexy superhero comedy', Empowered is all about the trials and travails of a beautiful but seemingly perennially-on-the-losing-end C-list superheroine named, well, Empowered (or Emp for short). She's got the unlucky combination of having low self-esteem and a rather scandalously skin-tight supersuit which leaves NOTHING to the imagination. And while her suit does give her quite a few super powers like limited invulnerability and the ability 'to zap things', it more often than not malfunctions, leaving poor Emp in sticky and often embarrassing situations. Oh, and the suit also has a tendency to get ripped and torn off, leaving the girl all nubile, helpless and exposed. Ooh.

Thankfully, Emp has a few true friends to look out for her- Thugboy is her new boyfriend who ironically started off as one of her enemies 'on the job'. Then there's Ninjette, a hard-drinking videogame-addicted kunoichi. Ironically, Emp's friends are usually 'villains' (or at least, former minions), while the ones who cause her the most distress are usually the members of Emp's own superhero team, the Superhomeys (particularly her spellcasting 'comrade', Sista Spooky).



Instead of one big story, Empowered is apparently divided into a large number of smaller vignettes, anecdotes and tales, almost like strip cartoons. The art, while still at Warren's ridiculous level of detail, is scanned from Warren's original pencils so has a kind of sketchy look that still looks incredible and expressive thanks to the detail and texture of the lines. The sheer volume of pages- about 248 or so- promises a lot of fun reading.
Along with Warren's trademark art is his sharp dialogue and writing, which is brimming with satire, offbeat ideas and innuendo. Needless to say, with some raunchy situations and almost-nudity all about, this isn't a kiddie book by any measure.


There's a ninja girl in the comic? Well, I'm sold.

This apparently got released recently under Dark Horse, so hopefully it'll be available soon. I'll be sure to pick this one up when it arrives at Comic Quest or wherever and whenever I find it. Expect a review or something once I get my grubby paws on this one.