Gen 13 - Volume 1 1994

Limited Series Issues 1 - 5

Image

J Scott Campbell - Pencils
Jim Lee and Brandon Choi - Writers
Alex Garner - Inks
Chris Eliopoulos - Letters

Apparently when the first issue of this book came out it had huge publicity. I missed this and only picked it up on the off chance it was any good. Most of the other Image titles had put me off after 2 or 3 issues. Gen 13 didn't. Somehow I grabbed each copy from my LCS, which at that time was in the town of Crawley in West Sussex, England, and only later found out they where sought after...

Issue one starts with an action shot of a family on the run. The mother is gunned down and the father manages to destroy some of their pursuers with his super powers before he two takes a round in the cranium. A pretty brutal start.
We switch to college, where a bookish girl makes her way clutching text books to her chest. Her more adventurous roomate, in our first fan service shot, is off dating a fresh new fella. After she leaves a knock at the door informs our hard studying girl that she's been accepted on a government program.
We switch to Lynch and Ivana, two people running the program. They give us some background. Two Gen actives are warming up by fighting and sitting on gym equipment. The male one murders his sparring partner for being lippy. These must be the villains. We have more fan service but for the girls as well as the boys.
Caitlin, our bookish girl, actually runs into 'Grunge' who is a fellow intern at the government program. She then also meets Bobby and Roxy.
Then we have a training montage. No one questions this. Grunge and Caitlin don't appear to be Gen active so their dosage of drugs is upped. This has an immediate affect on Caitlin. She throws up and has a headache. Or she was drunk. She stumbles on Grunge and Bobby having a sneaky cigarette and they are all accosted by a guard. Caitlins powers activate and she rips through her night dress. See the above shot for the next fan service shot.

Issue two and the team is on the run. It lists them as Fairchild (Caitlin), Roxy Spalding, 'Grunge' Chang, Sarah Rainmaker and Tom Hallinan. The last two are new, or I wasn't paying attention. Each apart from Grunge manifests and uses their powers - and then there is a flashback for those of us who didn't buy issue 1. Fairchild doesn't trust Tom, who is a bit of a murdering A-Hole. She turns out to be right and Tom is actually Threshold, one of the villains. He knocks out the rest of the team. Fairchild grabs a gun and vows to free them.

Issue 3 starts with Fairchild scouting the complex holding her friends. There is a mysterious box. We suspect it contains the large grey hulk thing from the front cover of the issue. Jack Lynch shows up. he is curious as to what is going on. Fairchild, with a gun and some pouches that have shown up from somewhere, is looking for payback. Her team is captured, stripped naked and tortured by Threshold. Once in to the building, using her fists and gun as a club, she rescues a small boy. The big grey thing is 'Pitt'. He escapes his box. He is dripping with chains. After a misunderstanding, both he and Fairchild are trying to rescue the boy, Pitt and Fairchild start pounding each other.
Threshold adds torture to the list of crimes he is prepared to do for fun. He threatens to kill Grunge as he has no powers. This doesn't work so he threatens Roxy. This makes Grunge mad, activate his powers, which are 'Absorbing Man' power set. Grunge breaks free, lays out Threshold and frees the team. Pitt and Fairchild finally realise they are on the same side.

Issue four starts with Ivana and Lynch arguing. Ivana breaks the deadlock by murdering Lynch's henchmen. A massive fight breaks out between the team, as they leap in to rescue Fairchild, and the 'ops' who were holding them. Pitt frees Timmy, the boy.
Lynch reveals that he was in Team 7 with Fairchild's father - in another flashback. Bliss and Threshold were the kids from the first issue who have been brainwashed to be murdering A-Holes.

Issue five starts with our team landing in a dumpster and Grunge taking a close look at Fairchild's butt. They escaped thanks to Lynch but then have to confront Threshold again. With his extensive training he pretty much owns them solo. Lynch confronts Ivana who turns out to be a robot or a cyborg or an android and attacks him. Lynch also has hidden powers which saves him.
Threshold is monologging. Bliss shows up and vamps all over Bobby. Her powers seem to work through snogging. Rainmaker takes her out with mini lightning blasts and threatens her to take out Threshold. Lynch appears with a team of Mecha suits after escaping a 'base detonation' by Ivana. Lynch just lets Bliss and Threshold escape and Gen 13 decide that this super hero lark is the one for them.

I loved this book when it came out. Despite the cookie cutter power sets and team set-up, Gen 13 had a certain pizzaz about their stories and again, the art matched very well. Of course the book is full of 'posters', fan service and some of the hero/villain actions have to be glossed over with a wide brush. The fact that the murdering a-holes get let off scott free only to return to their murderous ways is a prime example.
With all these elements I can only give it a Qualified recommend. If you don't mind these things it's an enjoyable read, certainly to 18/19 year old me. If these things bother you I would avoid.

In the back of one of the issues the artist, J Scott Campbell, answers some questions posed by a fanzine about 'How to make a successful comic book', where he answers the questions about the style and content rather glibly. Of course eventually Image titles took a nose dive after the overall shallow style of their books couldn't maintain fan interest. Gen 13 is similar to this, not really working hard on an overall reason for the team to be supers. Of course these days Image titles tend to be very different. Good to see they could change and adapt.