Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Talent Caldwell
Company: Wildstorm

The first question that really sounded in my head after reading Wildstorm’s re-launch of the Gen 13 title was: Where did all the funny go? In a book that had so much potential to do something different, all the story had to offer was a bland facsimile of an older book that didn’t have all that much going for it in the first place. And while I did have some love for Brandon Choi and Jim Lee’s upbeat and comedic teen drama meets dark government thriller, Gail Simone’s version completely loses me with a book that metaphorically paints everything in its path black. It’s a shame too, because the intelligent wit and sarcastic humor that Simone (Birds of Prey/Deadpool) normally brings with her is something that could have really taken Gen 13 to a whole other level.

If you’re familiar with Gen 13 at all, you’re bound to recognize a few things from the get-go, since just about every element of the original is still there. Everything from gen-active teenagers to the mainstay characters like Fairchild and Burnout make an appearance. Even International Operations (I.O.), Wildstorm’s rogue government agency slash S.H.I.E.L.D. knockoff, rears its ugly head, although it does depart a little bit from the original in the form of the tyrannical splinter group Tabula Rasa.

The biggest departure though, is the fact that instead of being guinea-pigs for a government funded program, the characters are spread across the country and are already prisoners of I.O. They just don’t know it until units of government storm-troopers inexplicably appear and exterminate their would-be parents, or at least those who haven’t already committed suicide out of guilt. It’s not a departure that is necessarily bad or doesn’t work, but it all happens so quickly that it makes the story feel disjointed.

As it is, a slower pace to the book is what’s missing for me. It’s something that the first one had, and it actually allowed the characters some room to breathe and be able to introduce themselves in more clever ways. As it happens, what we get with Simone’s take are one page spreads filled with stereotypes that seem too dark, too tired and done before. I’m not saying that there adversity should be absent in a comic book, especially one that centers on super powered individuals, but I’m not sure that the tone fits. And even if it does, I’m not sure that it’s
interesting. It’s just sort of depressing.

The worst culprit in Gen 13’s failure to entertain isn’t Simone’s script though, it’s Talent Caldwell’s (Fathom: Killian’s Tide/Wildcats:Nemesis) art. It is the polar opposite to the energetic and enjoyable work that Jason Scott Campbell achieved on the original. Caldwell’s feels cold and as a student of Michael Turner, it slips into the same pitfalls that Turner’s does. One of them being that all of the women characters in the book look like clones of each other, and while that’s somewhat forgivable, the fact that his pencils have a very sketch-like vibe to them and makes the entire thing look a bit unfinished, is not.

As you can see, a lot of my problems with the new Gen 13 come from the variances it’s taken from the original, a book that I actually enjoyed. If this is your first outing into the Gen 13 universe, is it something that you’ll like? I can’t say for sure, but I’ll go out on a limb and say no. There isn’t much to it and what is there is too dark and humorless for it to stand out amongst Gail’s more interesting titles.