As I understand the story, Empowered started from somebody commissioning Adam Warren to make-up a superheroine and basically draw her in a lot of bondage stuff. Said person never coughed up the cash, Warren was left with this character he created who gets their costume strategically torn up and winds up captured a lot, and went from there.
The title character has an extremely powerful, but also extremely fragile, skin-tight supersuit. The more it gets damaged, the less powerful it gets, and flying glass can be enough to damage it. And super-battles are full of flying glass. So even though Emp is actually an intelligent, careful superhero, she tends to get captured a lot and has a reputation as a joke, even when she routinely bails out her more popular, dumbshit teammates on the Super-Homeys. She does end up with a small crew of good friends, mainly an alcoholic lady ninja and a former henchman called "Thugboy", so that keeps it from being too much of a downer.
Warren released, I think, 10 manga-sized volumes, although I think now he's moved to publishing it a page at a time online. Probably will collect that work eventually, too. Besides that, there were a lot of one-shots (like the comic above) and a few mini-series. Those were nice, because you usually didn't have to be reading the main story to follow along. Anything you did need to know, Warren would fill you in on. He understands the need for a little exposition and flashback on occasion. Most of those were drawn by other artists, like Takeshi Miyazawa, Carla Speed McNeil, or Brandon Graham, among others. I don't know why Warren decided to draw this one himself, although it might be the last of the one-shot issues he released.
For me, Empowered is one of those books where you can see the skill and craft put into the book, but it doesn't quite connect somehow. I like Warren's art, it's got manga influence, but it's still it's own thing. Heavier lines and more frenetic energy than most manga I've seen, but also more clarity than some of the mangas that come close. The difference in trying to follow a fight scene in Empowered versus Trigun Maximum is night and day. The writing can be funny or touching as needed. Warren plays up the notion that a lot (but not all) of the heroes are really just dumbass high schoolers that got older but no wiser or mature. Which makes them predictably idiotic in ways that can be entertaining or infuriating.
Yet, it doesn't click. I enjoy the one-shot stories, and the two mini-series were fine, but even having bought the first volume of the series, I never felt compelled to keep going. I imagine if I came across it in a library I might read through it if I had the time, but I don't have to know what happens next.
Just the way it goes sometimes.
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