Empowered & Sistah Spooky's High School Hell

by Adam Warren, Carla Speed McNeil (Illustrator)

Overview

Adam Warren teams with Eisner award winner Carla Speed McNeil, creator of Finder, in a hellishly funny superhero smackdown!

Empowered and "frenemy" Sistah Spooky are trapped in a twisted high-school hellscape, with Spooky's blonde, sold-their-souls-for-hotness, ex-classmates plotting ritual murder to claim her magic for themselves! Beset by giant biology-class frogs, deadly emoji, and a monstrous junk-food elemental, Emp and Spooky fight for their lives against straight-fire blonde ambition! Hell is for heroines!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506706610
Publisher:	Dark Horse Comics
Publication date:	02/12/2019
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	228,411
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Adam Warren, born 1967, is an American comic book writer and artist who is most famous for his adaptation of the characters known as Dirty Pair into an American comic book, and for being one of the first American commercial illustrators to be influenced by the general manga style. He has also contributed to several Gen13 comics, worked as writer and character designer for the Marvel Comics series Livewires, and has done numerous freelance works. His two latest projects are Iron Man: Hypervelocity and Empowered.

Carla Speed McNeil is a comic book creator, writer, artist, penciller, inker, and cover artist. She is known for her work on Bad Houses, Dark Horse Presents, Finder, Harrow County, Legends of Red Sonja, and Smoke/Ashes. 

You can learn more about McNeil at carlaspeedmcneil.com.

Editorial Reviews

01/14/2019

Warren’s ongoing Empowered series, about a bouncy superheroine who gets her powers from a tissue-thin costume and winds up in bondage at least once per issue, is at once parody and celebration of cheesecake superhero comic books. This side story is scripted by Warren but drawn by Eisner winner McNeil (Finder), who gives this outing a distinctively less T and A–centric vibe than usual. “Emp” and fellow superheroine Sistah Spooky, a black magician in a midriff-baring top, are transported to a hell based on Spooky’s high school memories and packed with a student body of demonic mean girls. (“That white-girl titter... so painfully familiar...”) Together the heroines fight living text messages, get caught in prehensile blonde hair, and even wage a rap battle. In typical Empowered style, the deliberately goofy plot is little more than an excuse for wild visuals and cheeky self-referential humor (“What sweaty perv designed these uniforms?” Emp demands), peppered with nods to gender and race issues that are well-meaning, though they feel a bit out of place in a silly romp of a story. McNeil draws very attractive people, but they’re much more straightforwardly human than Warren’s versions, who look like jiggly rubber toys. The less salacious visual look feels appropriate for the high school setting, though the characters are technically their adult selves. This is a gleeful, sexy, slyly smart adventure. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly