Gen13

Gen13 0-5

The apex of the Image era: 90s kewl teens with skintight clothes, big boobs, and generic stories.  Gen13 rose above the rest because of one thing: Artist J Scott Campbell.  Things start out a little rough in the first two issues, but he makes a quantum leap in issue 3 and never looks back from there.  

A really impressive cover from the young Campbell

Really nice of the bad guys to cuff only one arm, leaving the other for boob coverage.

The language is early Jubilee-painful.

I’ve made my poor opinion of writer Brandon Choi clear in the past, and I reiterate it here once more.  His verbose, tedious style is so very painful to read.  It gets a pass in this original series from me because of nostalgia, but it gets old really fast.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Gen13 1, 3-5

Campbell actually manages to string together five consecutive issues before falling apart as the penciller of a monthly title.  Everything that defines his style is on full display here:

As generic as the characters are, the same doesn't apply to the super distinctive looks.

Yep.  Comics for the fanboy in us all.

You'd be excused for thinking the image was vertically stretched.

Yep.  Pants got lost again.  Of course they did.

This was...an interesting choice.

This is the last time this title gets by on its charm.  Burnout and Grunge are completely annoying, Rainmaker’s defined by her lesbianism and warrior spirit (Choi never misses a chance to tell us about either), Roxy does nothing but mope about Grunge, and Fairchild has no real personality to speak of.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Gen13 6-7

As fill-in artists go, Jim Lee ain’t bad.  But everything else about this story is a complete snoozefest, something that will become a habit for the rest of these issues.

That's an impressive outfit on Bliss.

I get the decision to have them speak Italian in issue 6...

...but why give up on it in issue 7?  Choi wanted people to read his interminable prose, I guess.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Gen13 8-11, 15, 18

Issues 8-9: Trance, the Trent Reznor wannabe, makes his move, Fairchild turns evil for a while, Humberto Ramos needs to fill in for issue 9.  Yawn, cutting.

Issues 10-11: Two parts of the incomprehensible Wildstorm-wide Fire from Heaven crossover.  Soooo cuttable.

Issues 15, 18: No idea why I have these straggler issues.  Cutting.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Boring

Gen13 12, 13A-C

I don’t remember why issue 13 needed to be split up into three parts.  Choi and Campbell take Grunge through a tour of the indy comic characters of the day, which is fun enough, but I honestly stopped reading the words issues ago.  (Still keeping these, since Campbell has some nice interpretations of Bone, Archie, and the others.)

Looks like they weren't too sad to see Rob Liefeld go

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine