Heartwarming / Empowered

• In Volume 1, Emp is down with a bug when the call to duty comes, but when she makes it clear that she's going despite being in no shape to go, Thug Boy shreds her costume so she can't. And then goes in her place. Despite Emp yelling at him that he's just a normal man, not a superhero (his rejoinder is that yes, he is a normal man, but his Barrett Fifty is no ordinary gun.) When he gets back much the worse for wear (and gunless), Emp rips strips off him, and he tells her he did it because he loves her. She yells that even the "L" word isn't going to save him, but tells him to keep on using it. As she cuddles up to him to comfort him.
  • Before ThugBoy returns, Emp is clutching the Caged Demonwolf like a stuffed animal.
• When Thug Boy tells Empowered how much he respects her as a hero, she cries because it's the first time anyone complimented her as a superhero.
  • His speech is worth reprinting here. When Emp tells him that he doesn't need to pretend that he thinks she isn't inept and pathetic, he interrupts her.
    THUG BOY: Hey, watch that talk, missy. Sorry, but I'm not gonna let anyone trash talk my favorite superhero. Not even my favorite superhero herself. "Inept"? Given how insanely fragile your suit is, you're working with the highest degree of difficulty in the super-hero business! D'you think that, say, Red Griffon would have such a rep as a straight-up badass if his armor could be disabled by a rosebush? "Pathetic"? More like ridiculously friggin' ballsy. You're like, a hundred time braver than any of your bigshot, overrated Superhomeys teammates.
    EMP: I'm brave? What are you talking about?
    THUG BOY: How tough can it be to act all brave and courageous when you're pretty much invulnerable, like most of the Superhomeys? But you, baby...you're as vulnerable as a superhero could possibly be! You know that you could lose your powers at any time and you'll wind up tied up at the very least, or maybe even killed! And speaking as one of the bad guys who's trussed you up when your powers've failed, I know that crap doesn't just humiliate you, baby. It scares the hell outta you, even though you won't admit it. But scared or not...you keep on plugging away. You keep on putting your vulnerable self in harm's way. That's brave. Or crazy. Or maybe both. You're ten times as heroic as the rest of those overpowered, overpraised poseurs. And that's why you're my favorite superhero.
• Empowered and the mook's daughter in the hospital after her x-ray vision keeps the mook from having an aneurysm and dying the same way Emp's father did.
  "I think you are a pretty okay superhero. And I'm pretty sure my Mommy doesn't think you are a big skank anymore."
  • Emp convincing the mook to go to the hospital in the first place.
    • Said mook and his daughter show up again in Volume 9, fully putting their support behind Emp for saving the mook's life.
• The scene where Emp comes home after a more than usually humiliating day, crying because she's such a terrible superhero. Her friends fail to cheer her up, but then the Caged Demonwolf indignantly points out that she's done something that her colleagues couldn't manage between them: defeating him. (And that she was able to do it because she'd just been in another embarrassing incident.)
• No words, simply the first time Thugboy met Empowered. After an entire page of his completely dead reaction to the world after the demise of his friends (shown as a long line of panels with different backgrounds, but with his face constant, immutable and apathetic), that little heart revealed the entire depth of Thugboy's feelings better than a 1000-word epic poem.
• Thugboy watching Emp sleep and spooning with her to keep her nightmares away.
• Empowered and Manny's reactions to one another while she's fulfilling his dying wish. It's one of the most oddly touching scenes of someone tying Empowered up in the whole series.
• The painful sort of heartwarming: Emp and Spooky consoling each other after they both fail to prevent Mindf**k's sacrifice and death.
• Emp and her friends being probably the first people to show the Superdead any sort of respect or friendship that they never received from their former comrades, who hide them away from the world like a secret shame.
  • In particular, in volume 8 Daisycutter and Plutonium Blonde tell Emp that Hardkore only ever liked two things while he was alive—fighting and f**king. Now he's dead he can't do the latter (because the superdead can't get it up) and the living capes won't let him do the former (because the superdead are kept strictly under wraps). A few scenes later, Emp has invited the superdead, led by Hardkore, to help her train in fighting against multiple opponents at once—and Hardkore is clearly having a ball (even if Emp isn't).
    • Even better, the superdead aren't treating Emp like a joke or failing to take her seriously—after all, they saw what she did against Deathmonger when she rescued them. They clearly respect her, and while they'll push her to her limits and encourage her to improve, they never fail to treat her kindly.
• Ninjette and the Caged Demonwolf, talking while the former bathes and reminisces in Vol. 7. It must be read to be fully absorbed.
  • The Caged Demonwolf, actually speaking clearly for a change, says that Ninjette is beautiful and he is glad to be her friend. The only thing he regrets about being immortal is that they will be separated when she eventually dies. He can see both the future and the past. He will not give away how she dies, but she dies well. But even when she is dead and buried, even when their city is rubble, even when humanity becomes extinct, even when the universe ends and he moves on to the next one... he will remember her. FOREVER.
  • The way Ninjette smiles as he tells her this.
• Sistah Spooky warning Emp she has been nominated to the Capey Awards as a joke. Note that this is when Spooky still loathed Emp...
• Sistah Spooky finally learns what Mindf**k's eyes looked like and what her voice sounded like.
  • Spooky admitting that she never felt more like a hero than when she held Mindf**k to comfort her from her nightmares, despite Mindf**k's powers meaning Spooky had to watch it all night while her girlfriend slept. It's as sweet as it sounds.
• Emp and Thugboy comforting and watching out for Ninjette during her Despair Event Horizon after almost getting killed by ninja mercenaries, which include Emp sleeping with Ninjette in her costume and Thugboy offering to keep watch through the night alongside the never-sleeping Caged Demonwolf.
• Volume 9 has Deathmonger, of all people - merciless murderer and enslaver of the supradead - enact a brief truce with Emp because Deathmonger is actually fond of Manny; Given the things we've seen her do in the series, it's a weirdly heartwarming example of Even Evil Has Standards.
• Also in Volume 9, Manny returns to try and help Emp before the wave of villains trying to capture her succeed in doing so. Emp finds out eventually that Manny's attempt to use Fleshmaster to control his alien-boosted intelligence (and lethal cancer) failed, with Fleshmaster trapping Manny inside his own massively overgrown brain. While fleeing Fleshmaster's deathtrap, the remaining artificial memory of Manny's servant bots reveal to Emp that Manny realized too late his obsession with Emp was improper, and that he'd had a Heel–Face Turn just before Fleshmaster trapped him. The artificial memory is okay with Emp destroying whatever is left of Manny in order to stop Fleshmaster, and the final shot of Manny is of him as a happy pre-teen cancer patient waving goodbye.
• Again in Volume 9, as the super committee makes the decision to put Emp in "protective custody" aka cryo-freeze her to stop her knowledge of alien tech falling into the wrong hands it's clear from the blazing row Emp catches the end of that Capitan Rivet has been arguing vehemently against it. Though he's always been far nicer to Emp than most of the other Superhomies, it's nonetheless quite touching to see he really does care about her.
• "Clingy Monkey". When Thug Boy and Emp are fighting for whatever reason, either of them can invoke Clingy Monkey. It means the fight is temporarily stopped, as the invoker needs a hug, without admitting defeat.
• In volume 10 Spooky makes sure that Emp knows that Spooky's proud of her and that Mindf██k would have been too. And finally confesses to Emp about her powers shifting calories onto other people, like Emp, but that Emp shouldn't worry about it.
  • Further upping the heartwarming, as the two finally completely reconcile and hug affectionately, there's a one-panel flash of Mindf██k smiling.
• Also from Volume 10 there's an Imagine Spot where present Emp has a conversation with year-and-a-half-ago, just-starting-her-superhero-career Emp. While past!Emp expresses dismay over how it took present!Emp so long to become a full-time Super Homey, and she still has a reputation as a bondage-magnet, and if anything her backside appears even chubbier than before, she incredulously asks present!Emp whether she's happy, despite everything. Present!Emp thinks for a panel, and then enthusiastically nods. God knows Emp deserves it.
• At a karaoke party Li'l Daisy bemoans that one of the worst things about being one of the Superdead is still having emotional and physical desires for contact and companionship, and how she, formerly one of the most flirty and sexy of all capes, is now a charred corpse that repulses people. Emp immediately kisses Daisy full on the mouth in front of everyone, knowing that pictures will be uploaded in seconds, and just not giving a damn. She then tells Daisy that she's still the flirty, sexy centre of attention she's always been, and tells her to send Emp off with an affectionate buttslap. Considering how self-conscious Emp has always been and her terrible track record of humiliating pictures ending up all over the internet, this speaks volumes both about how caring she is, and how much she's grown as a person.
  • Following this, Emp's flourishing confidence and expanding social circle means that Ninjette, while happy for her, starts to worry that Emp may be outgrowing her as a friend. Ninjette's always been massively insecure about their relationship, idolising Emp and thinking herself totally unworthy of such a good person's friendship, but always feeling that Emp's own insecurities mean she will still need Ninjette around. Now she gets hit both with the dread that Emp may not need her anymore and a massive dose of self-disgust for being so clingy and selfish. She is brought out of her downward spiral by the Caged Demonwolf who reassures her that her "charnel-house of a childhood" makes her insecurities nothing to be ashamed of, that Ninjette and Emp need each other equally, and Emp's growing number of friends does not mean her love and trust in Ninjette will wither in the slightest. In terms of showing how much he cares for Ninjette, it comes close to his speech in Volume 7.
• In a weird sort of heartwarming, Emp adopts the seemingly-sentient Phallospear, even though she hated constantly being smacked on the butt with it when it was Phallik's weapon. She even names it "Spearmint". This pays off for her in volume 11 when Spearmint rescues her from the mind-controlled capes at the karaoke event and manages to carry her all the way back to HQ. Good spear!
• Mixed Heartwarming/Tear Jerker in volume 11: Rivet tells Emp how proud he is of her and commits a Heroic Sacrifice to buy her time to run from Willy Pete. And at the end when it seems like Emp is either going to die or be forced to kill the two people she loves most, Spooky comes to her rescue, taking out Mindf**k's brother thanks to some long-implanted mental shielding by Mindf**k herself.
• What's next for Spooky? Adam's keeping the details under wraps for now, but it looks like she's going to make friends with a smilodon, AKA Sabertoothed Tiger.
• At the end of High School Hell, Sistah Spooky destroys her ISP, which quite possibly means the contract that condemns her to Hell is no longer enforceable. Her ISP can't collect her soul if he doesn't exist.