What I found was... well pretty much what the above says. The fanservice was a bit too pronounced for my taste, and Emp getting trussed up a lot early on wasn't all that sexy because... well, onto the unexpected.
The characters are great. While they all run off of assorted superhero sterotypes, all of them have unique, interesting, strong personalities. Some of them I sympathize with, and root for (Empowered, Ninjette, etc.). Some of them I look up to in awe and admiration (Mindf**k, Maid Man, etc.). Some of them I want to club with a hammer... repeatedly (Captain Havok, most of the jerkass supers, and sometimes Sista Spooky). One of them is terrifying and wrong and scary (and doesn't play by the rules).
This is why Emp getting tied up isn't all that sexy. She might be an idealistically beautiful woman wearing (well-placed) tatters of a skin-adhering body-suit, but it's hard to enjoy the fanservicey nature of her predicament when you care for Emp so much. Thus stripperific bondage =/= sexy. Instead stripperific bondage = feeling sorry for Emp. She's far too sympathetic and complex a character to objectify. Well, I'd rather not objectify her, anyway.
Anyway, concerning the characters, it is important to note that they are not one-sided. Aside from Captain Havok, who enjoys my vehement and eternal contempt, most of the other nasty characters have their own internal problems, and are just expressing them worse than the nicer characters, with their own emotional problems flaws. I can only think of a few characters who are simple, but I would not complain about their purity of essence (Go Maid Man!). Even the minions are hard to objectify.
Which brings me to the next point - the story of the novels doesn't really pertain that much to the actual action. Instead, most of the story deals with characters' feelings. Think Neon Genesis Evangelion, but without the constantly feeling horrible bit. Often the battles are skipped, with Empowered assumably losing and getting captured, and instead there is the emotional abuse from other characters, interaction with and responses from friends, etc.
With that in mind, the story is really about Empowered's personal growth... and boy is there a lot of it. Empowered starts out with freshly shattered dreams to go with a shattered self-esteem, and from there she struggles upwards, with the help of her friends. This is all managed well, with an exception to be noted later.
Empowered also has heavy, heavy Cerebus Syndrome. The first three volumes are fairly comedic, but then the fourth one has heavy drama, and by the end of the fifth one I was outright crying. A well-done romance has something to do with that.
Empowered also gets better. If I had just read the first volume, I would have thought Empowered was pretty decent for what it does, and leave it at that. Fortunately, I had a healthy list of recommendation, and I pushed onward. By the second volume, I was starting to enjoy the tale, and by the third I approved heartily. But the fourth and fifth volumes are why I'm spieling about it. I don't go and write here about just any little comic, you know.
Other things to note:
Mindf**k and Maid Man are new role models for me. Mindf**k gets to hang out with Nausicaa and other characters who influenced my development. Maid Man is an all around good guy.
The setting is fairly interesting, in and of itself. There are Unwritten Rules to behavior, so nothing truly bad happens to Empowered (breaking the unwritten rules by, say, unnecessarily sexually molesting Emp would bring down the wrath of every superhero, which is a decent deterent same with killing her.). The whole way the world is adjusted to the existence of superheroes is rather interesting. A lot of characters, especially the unpowered ones and minions have interesting takes on the superheros and villains. There are a lot of little tidbits about how the world works, that are quite interesting. Emp finds out that all three superheros she is working with all became superheros after contracting super-natural STDs - she finds this coincidence weird, and then finds out that they first met at a super-natural STD support group. Some of the characters previously posed as Witless Minions, manipulating the system to steal their employer's valuables and blame it on the heroes.
Also interesting is the effect when certain characters break the Unwritten Rules. It's... impressive. And horrific.
I do have issue with a few things, though. Emp's boyfriend is perhaps not the best role model for building self-esteem. While he's a fine guy otherwise, in terms of boyfriendness... he deals with Emp's low self-esteem in a (fanservice-y) way I do not approve of (I'm much more part of the Mindf**k school of romance). Also related is his unrealistic sex with Emp - he apparently follows the hentai school of sex. I suppose part of this is that I gave up on the pornographic aspect of the series, and consequently find the carefully-placed speech bubbles more amusing.
Going on from there, I love the Caged Demonwolf's imagined rendition of Emp's sex with her boyfriend. Which one of the other characters uses for smut, apparently. Heck, the fact that Emp still reads yaoi superhero slash fanfiction (occasionally even starring her teammates) amuses me to no end.
Also, both Emp and her boyfriend are ridiculously/idealistically physically attractive. While the power of body-image issues are profound, I always find Emp's problems a bit strange. That said, they do live in a world where nearly everyone manages a ideal body-shape, with few exceptions, so I suppose it's not that strange? Dunno. I understand why Emp is a Hot Blonde, comercially speaking, and I can see Spookum's problem with her.
Anyway, it is a good series, assuming you are okay with everything-short-of-nudity and occasional objectifying shots. There's good content there. I recommend it.
