After two trade paperbacks, sadsack superheroine Empowered has a pretty well-established character and supporting cast. She's bootilicious, but with an abysmal self-image only exacerbated by a skintight supersuit that gives her an assortment of powers -- but becomes ineffective if she exercises any level of modesty, such as a butt-covering cape or even underwear -- and her generally ineffective abilities. As her suit becomes shredded -- and, oh yes, it does shred -- it loses its powers until it has time to regenerate, and Empowered spends most of her "hero" time as a trussed-up captive and unwilling spokeswoman for bondage weekly.

Her fellow superheroes look on her with varying levels of disdain, with the exception of martial arts hottie Ninjette, and her beau is a former witless minion for evil.

If you liked what came before in volumes one and two, you'll like what happens here. The failing is in the lack of anything, well, new.

Sure, we get to see Ninjette put her mad skills to good use and we learn a little more about the witless minion's past, but Empowered, for all her adorable, lip-quivering cuteness, does not grow, develop or change in any significant way. The book just retreads old material to higher extremes -- her bodysuit is torn more often, she's tied up more often and she even reprises her undercover get-up as a sexy librarian.

If you're reading this book solely for the cheesecake factor and bondage humor, you'll be thrilled with this new installment. But writer/artist Adam Warren has proven himself to be capable of more plot-driven action and character development than this -- poor li'l Emp deserves some growth.