The exploits of are favorite self-conscious and almost always tied up or naked heroine continue in Adam Warren's Empowered Volume 8. This time we get two long tales related to thoughts of afterlife spewed from the commentary of EMP herself and her background gallery of heroes and friends. The second story has EMP and Sistah Spooky heading to Hell on a rescue mission.
The first story has exposition over what happens when you die discussed by the various friends of EMP. Ninjette gets drunk and naked while discussing it over with a the cosmic G-d like entity trapped in a alien pimp belt that EMP still keeps as a sort of pet, sitcom background character. The dead superheroes who have no place to go still are EMP's sparring partners teaching her how to fight and going over their sad state of affairs. We get only a glimpse of what happened in San Antonio, the big crisis where capes were being killed by civilians, through EMP's boyfriend Thugboy and his thoughts on Heaven which has EMP in cosplay.
We also find out that a strange art teacher gave powers to his students creating some of the Superhomeys, EMP's team. Why? We'll have to find out in a later volume. It does tie into one of the dead homeys powers not being based on from Heaven or Hell.
Adam brought back Super Dirty Jobs for one of the best bukkake jokes ever. Lavakkake! Spin off comic of double entrees, anyone?
All this talk of Heaven and Hell leads into the second story where EMP and Sistah Spooky go off to save the soul of Mindf*ck, Sistah Spooky's former lover and fellow Superhomey with psychic abilities. This story shows off how powerful and petty Sistah Spooky has been. A battle in Hell shows off how much power she has in a powerful fight with biodrones. Flashbacks show how her pettiness has caused much om EMP's problems including why bad guys love kidnapping her so much. We see Sistah Spooky in her own mind and how she's abused her powers. In the same way through EMP's flashback and actions in this story you can only respect her more as a true hero just with her sense of morals.
Don't worry, there's hot fiery fights and lesbians kisses with scantily clad women. That and flying on a giant super powerful sword, the vorpal blade. Two ladies riding around a giant sword in Hell, comics at there best. Stealing it is only the start of their adventure together.
A flashback shows us a little more of Mindf*ck's evil brother. We only see him in the shadows taking her apart to "make her stronger" by making her cut out her own eyes and cutting off her tongue through psychic force. If he resurfaces it should be a terrifying issue. The whole scene is shown as a nightmare. Mindf*ck's brother, we still have no name for him, fuses his voice bubbles and thought bubbles creating an odd dark though/voice bubble filled with too much happening and lovely reversed E's. It looks so unnatural compared to any other characters speech bubbles, even The Caged Demonwolf trapped in that cosmic pimp belt. I can't wait until EMP releases him one day to fight a big baddie, could be wrong, just a guess.
The fight between Sistah Spooky and Hell's security is gripping intense battle with one-liners and Sistah Spooky's thoughts about, "if only she could have done it differently." Hope she has a heal spell handy or we might get some cyborg sorcery in the next issue. Taking on Hell security isn't easy.
Art as always from Adam is manga inspired action and ambiance. Bondage with strange superheroes begs why he isn't a character designer for some sort of animation going on now?
For long time readers only new questions are now open. Will we see Ninjette's clan come for her? Will we see what fully happened in San Antonio? What will Sistah Spooky do when she gets back, if she makes it back?
