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

Superman/Gen13, Superman: Last Son of Earth

Superman/Gen13 1-3

Plot A: Gen13 visits Metropolis because Caitlin has a crush on Superman.  Caitlin gets amnesia after Superman collides with her during a fight, and starts thinking that she’s Supergirl, unable to fly due to Red Kryptonite.  (Like how Miles blames everything on puberty in Into the Spiderverse.)  

Heh.  I like this cover.

She goes about trying to do good deeds, but screws it up each and every time because she’s Archie Andrews.  

Superman and Gen13 spend three issues chasing her down as she wreaks havoc across the city.  

Plot B: The kids think Superman’s lame, but come around one by one as he wins them over with his strong arms (Roxy), superheroics (Bobby), and strength of will (Sarah).  It’s Adam Hughes’ take on “What's So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?”, showing why he thinks Superman’s wholesome character is still relevant and as important as ever in today’s society.  It works for me, but I never needed to be convinced in the first place. Love me some well written Superman, and this series qualifies.  (Great work by Lee Bermejo, by the way.)

Whodathunk Bermejo could do slapstick so effectively?

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Nice

Superman: Last Son of Earth 1-2

What if Clark Kent was sent from Earth to Krypton instead of the other way around?  He’s a human baby found and raised by Jor-El, forced to live in an exoskeleton to compensate for the heavier gravity.  It’s a fascinating take that I really enjoyed, well told by Steve Gerber.

Unfortunately, it veers back into conventional Elseworlds territory in the second issue after Clark gets a Green Lantern ring and returns to a devastated Earth.  (Where Lex, Lois, Martha, and Jimmy are all alive, of course.) But on the whole, not a bad outing.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Fine

WildCATs, Wildstorm Rising, Wild Storm, Wonderlost

WildCATs 1

A title restart by Grant Morrison and Jim Lee.  It hits all the right beats, with the original team scattered across the universe and slowly getting back together.  But there’s no clear mandate for the group, only a disparate set of stories. It doesn’t help that it’s part of a Wildstorm-wide crossover, something called Worldstorm that I never read more of.  (At least, I’m assuming it’s a crossover. Maybe it’s just the name of the first arc. I never read more of this series, either. Oh, hah. I just looked it up, a second issue never came out...)

Keeping it for the Jim Lee art, even though there’s nothing really stand out about it.

Any reason for the psychedelic colors aside from the sex?

Callback to the Emp trash scene in WildCATs 1?

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Fine

Wildstorm Rising 1-2, WildCATs 20, Union 4, Gen13 2, Grifter 1, Deathblow 16, Wetworks 8, Backlash 8, Stormwatch 22

Ah, the massive company-wide crossover.  A ten-issue extravaganza spanning eight regular titles.  It sounds epic enough, but at the end of the day, it’s nothing more than a “gather all the pieces that power the MacGuffin” story.  Of course it has to do with an item that Team 7 encountered in the past, which conveniently allows the plot to weave its way through Gen13, Grifter, Deathblow, Wetworks, and Backlash.  

It’s clear that Gen 13 was only marginally involved with the planning of the story, as it’s a) the only issue not written by James Robinson, Ron Marz, or Steven Seagle (who each wrote three issues of the crossover) and b) only tangentially related to the main story.  It isn’t necessary for the crossover and it doesn’t interrupt the flow of Gen 13.  It’s also the most fun, a breezy romp that doesn’t take on the grim, serious mein of the rest of the event.  It’s also, importantly, the issue where Sarah Rainmaker comes out as a lesbian. Pretty enlightened for the mid-90s, though Roxy’s reaction is anything but.

I can’t tell if the decision to make Sarah gay was a thoughtful attempt at inclusion or a blatant attempt to attract horny male teenagers.  (It is a comic driven almost entirely by J Scott Campbell’s ability to draw hot women, after all.)  

Some other thoughts about the crossover:

Grifter 1 - It sucks to have your first issue come smack in the middle of the crossover.  There’s no way for it to effectively communicate what it’s all about. I suppose it succeeded in getting my money, but there was zero chance that I was going to come back for the next one.  

Deathblow 16 - This has got a line that makes the list of awesomeness.  After his comrades have fallen into a camouflaged spike hole, a surviving henchmen marvels, “How can that be?  No one arbitrarily surrounds his home with spear-filled pits.” Let us all join him in his thoughtful bewilderment.  

Stormwatch 22 - Renato Arlem is not the caliber of penciller that Stormwatch deserves.  

So many problems with posing and anatomy.

Of course, as good as he was at Marvel, Barry Windsor-Smith’s style doesn’t fit with the Wildstorm style either.  His thick line weights and blurry colors feel sloppy when viewed amidst the other artists’ issues.

Smith has some unpleasant anatomy going on too.

I’m not saying Brett Booth’s a better artist than Smith, just that he better suits the art expectations I have for this crossover:   

This crossover reminded me of the eight piece cover image Whilce Portacio did in 1994.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine (Nice for Gen 13 and WildCATs because of the art)

Wild Storm 1-3

Warren Ellis completely reboots the Wildstorm universe.  He cuts down on the brightly-colored superheroics and amps up the government machinations.  It’s right in his wheelhouse (which isn’t to say that Ellis hasn’t nailed superheroes in the past).  It’s also very clinical and dispassionate, which is probably why I stopped buying it after three issues.  

But it reads a lot better in one go, instead of monthly installments.  I’m interested in reading the rest at some point, and can see myself being convinced to buy it.  (I want to be convinced, because I want to like Ellis.)

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Wonderlost 1-2

CB Cebulski writes vignettes about his high school and college years.  They’re all centered around girls, sex, alcohol, and drugs. That sounds far more shallow than it really is.  While a number of the stories do indeed reflect the stupidity and unthinkingly insensitive behavior that is the male teenage mind, just as many accurately reflect the magic of teenage love and the pure wonder of a perfect shared moment with someone you care about.  

The art is surprisingly consistent in its high quality.  I particularly liked Alina Urusov’s art. What else has she done?  Not very much, from what I can tell. That’s a total shame,

This never happened to me in college.

I'd love to see more of this art.

This reminds me of Copybook Tales with more sex and booze.  Both are welcome additions to my bookshelf.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good