Empowered/YMMV

• Complete Monster
  • In a world of Card-Carrying Villains, Willy Pete stands out. Note that it's possible he isn't even human. He's a "Kludge mind", but the explanation is never given.
  • Add in Mindf██k's brother. See Nightmare Fuel below.
  • And in Volume 6, Deathmonger. Willy Pete is one of the most repulsive villains in comics, and Deathmonger outdoes him in the very next issue.
    • Debatable. Death Monger is pretty disgusting, but he at least has a recognisable aim, which is that of traditional supervillain -- to have and maintain a power base. Willy Pete just seems to be in it For the Evulz and want of skull-f**king things to death. To me, that's way worse.
• Crack Ship: The author himself has stated that he didn't expect the relationship between Ninjette and the Caged Demonwolf to become so... supportive.
• Crazy Awesome: The Maidman's a MALE Ninja Maid, and being a Ninja Maid is awesome all by itself.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Willy Pete becomes an in-universe example of this after video of him massacring nearly a dozen superheroes leaks to the internet.
• Everybody Remembers the Stripper
• Evil Is Sexy: Vanity
• Fan Disservice: Don't even get me started on the Ninjette bondage at the end of Volume 3... Let's just say that the Fetish Fuel is pretty effectively killed by the fact that she's in very real danger. We like Ninjette. We want her to keep her limbs.
• Fetish Retardant: Getting tied up in serious situations makes bondage a SERIOUS turn-off for Emp and ThugBoy.
• Foe Yay: Parodied in another Show Within a Show Slash Fic, this one about Empowered and Sistah Spooky.
• Hurt/Comfort Fic: "Not Always Perfect." Generally a large part of Thugboy and Emp's relationship.
• Iron Woobie: Emp takes all the horrible luck and daily humiliation brought about by her unreliable supersuit. She cries, moans, bitches, gets scared... and then she will get back up again, because she is a hero.
• Les Yay: Ninjette towards Empowered. And Three-Drink Bisexual Emp towards Ninjette, or Maternal Instinct Emp towards Ninjette. Also, Sistah Spooky and Mindf██k, though those two actually HAD been together.
  • Most blatant example yet is when Emp is kidnapped by a brother/sister team. The sister strips her, though that's par for the course there. When she gawks at her paipan, gropes her boobs, slaps Emp on the arse, climbs into the trunk with her (to make sure she doesn't get out. Suuure), then starts caressing her and says that she's her favourite, we're heading straight past Les Yay and on to Les Could It Be Any More Obvious.
    • Worth remembering, though, that Emp was essentially being kidnapped and forced into that situation pretty much from the very start. While it's pretty obvious what was on her kidnapper's mind, Emp herself never expresses her feelings on the matter, making it difficult to draw any conclusions.
    • One-sided, unwritten-rules-breaking Les Yay counts. *cough*Noncon*cough*
  • As with most things, this happens in-universe as well. Apparently there's a fairly sizable Empowered x Sistah Spooky fanbase (apparently for the exact reasons there'd be one out-of-universe: antagonism = hot sex). Empowered is quite annoyed at discovering said fiction, and has to use the "Well that's different!" defense when it's pointed out that she's an ardent fan of slashfic involving male heroes.
• Moe: Empowered. Part of what attracted ThugBoy to her in their first encounter.
• OT3: The series keeps dancing on the edge of making the three main characters (Emp, ThugBoy, and Ninjette) into an outright threesome. Emp is a three-drink bisexual who hits on Ninjette when drunk, Ninjette is barely able to hide her attraction to ThugBoy ("Aieee! Me canoe be swampin"!). Not sure if Ninjette has ever shown any attraction to Emp or ThugBoy to Ninjette, but it wouldn't take much prompting. Anyone's guess if this ends up as a love triangle or a ménage à trois... but the Demonwolf definitely has an opinion on how it SHOULD BE.
  And for additional rampant speculation fuel, witness Volume 5 in which Ninjette encounters a fellow (female) ninja disguised as ThugBoy, who proceeds to passionately kiss her until detected. Ninjette then claims the disguise was obvious because the ninja "kisses like a girl". A) This is yet more evidence that Ninjette has some interest in ThugBoy and B) Saying someone kisses like a girl implies the speaker actually knows what it's like to kiss a girl! So... yeah.
  • Ninjette's done more than kiss a girl: a little earlier in that Vol. 5 story, we learn that Ninjette consummated a woman's marriage disguised as her new husband.
  • Oh, ThugBoy's attracted to Ninjette: seeing her drop her panties or having her cuddle up against him gets his elephant trumpeting.
    • And then there is 'Jette's flushed contemplation on how sexy Emp is. It seems all the linkages are there.
• Nightmare Fuel
  • Willy Pete, a man-turned-fire-elemental, whose gig so far is forcing people to give him optical sex -- reminder: his body is made of supernaturally hot fire. ("Willy Pete" is military slang for white phosphorus.) In Vol. 4 it turns out he likes to eat superheroes and supervillains, because normal human flesh incinerates the second it gets close to his mouth. Gah. What is optical sex you ask? Being skullfucked to death via the eye socket. BY A MAN ON FIRE. Oh, and by the way, he doesn't need to eat, he's just that sick.
  • Mindf██k's background. She was telepathically forced by her insane brother to use rusty kitchen shears to cut off her tongue. Then he made her gouge out her eyes. He would have given her nose and ears a trim too, if she hadn't been restrained. The worst part is that he thought he was helping. *shiver*
  • This is toyed with during the Downer Ending of vol. 5. No matter the circumstance, seeing someone telepathically forced to walk into a hole in the floor, despite being fully conscious and begging the telepath doing so to stop is viscerally terrifying. The fact that the "hole" in question was a single-use escape portal on a space station about to burn up on reentry (both the telepath and the victim were well aware remaining behind would be a death sentence for the former, which was why the latter was screaming and crying) did not help.
  • Earlier in that chapter, Mindf██k's description of the "encounter" between Willy Pete and the Superhomies who went to ambush him.

Mindf██k: Oh god... their thoughtstreams... raw agony... they're burning... they're DYING...! Divangelic... Vanity's already gone... Charity's dying... now Charity's gone too...! Homunculoid's gone... Katana's gone...

• • In vol. 4, dWarf! cuts up Wet Blanket and puts his flesh in the Superhomies' food. Sick.
  • Volume 6. The headless corpses of two giant super beings used as vehicles by a necromantic supervillain, who forces them to use their own skulls as weapons. Emp remembering nearly drowning in her own snot the first time she was gagged and then being buried alive. And a description of what may or may not be happening to Mindf██k's soul in Hell.
  • Spooky's ghastly, magically-induced fake grin. Underneath, she's falling apart, but on the surface -- happy happyhappyhappyhappyAAAAGH.
• Hollywood Pudgy: Somewhat subverted, considering Emp is drawn like most comic superheroines boob- and booty-wise, yet she still considers herself chubby as all get out. Lampshaded when another character dismisses this as "grenade-fishing for compliments".
• Rape as Drama: Rape, cannibalism and burning people alive as Drama -- by Willy Pete.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: For as often as Empowered ends up bound, gagged, and nude in a room full of villains, they rarely attempt to assault her because this would violate the "Unwritten rules" between heroes and villains.
• Double Standard Rape (Male on Male): At the end of volume #1, Major Havoc and dWARF! are in the hands of a villain "fond of the oeuvre of Quentin Tarantino".
• The Scrappy: You won't find too many people who like Major Havoc.
• The Woobie: Empowered
  • Sistah Spooky may be a snide bitch, but she's an absolute wreck in v.6; it's hard to watch.
  • Anglerfish, who laments on the murder of his son (Kid Anglerfish), Katastrophe, and Baby Bird and how the Superhomeys didn't care just because they were villains.
  • Mindf██k, who essentially mindraped herself in order to force herself to be a good person. To make matters even more tragic, this contributes to her reasoning behind her Heroic Sacrifice: Empowered is a genuinely good person, whereas Mindf██k (in her mind) isn't because she had to force herself to be one.
• Ship Tease: Ninjette & the Maidman, Ninjette & ThugBoy, Ninjette & Empowered - I think we found our Launcher of a Thousand Ships.
  • Yup. And you can add Ninjette & Caged Demonwolf. The author himself has said he didn't expect her relationship with the Caged Demonwolf to develop so much. Example: He notices she's drinking more (pointing out that she's breaking her own rules of drinking) after a horribly close call and reassures her that her friends won't abandon her. Even if it's because he wants to see her in her tight shorts once more.
• Shipper on Deck: Demonwolf ships Emp×ThugBoy×Ninjette.
• Tear Jerker
  • The end of Volume 5. "What does 'Three Seconds Too Late' mean, Spookums?"
  • Also, in Volume 4, Emp finding out the Caped Justice Award nomination, which she was so touched and excited about, was in fact a Carrie-style humiliation planned by her fellow superheroes. Gee, what a bunch of not-bastards. It's Emp trying to keep a brave face and finally starting to cry in Thugboy's arms that does it.
  • Sistah Spooky may be a snide bitch, but she's an absolute wreck in v.6; it's hard to watch.
  • Anglerfish, who laments on the murder of his son (Kid Anglerfish), Katastrophe, and Baby Bird and how the Superhomeys didn't care just because they were villains.
• Too Cool to Live: Mind████