This Iconic Image Comic Launched in 1994 & Defined Being a Teen in the ’90s (But DC Can Bring It Back for a Whole New Generation)

The ’90s is one of those eras that gets a lot of flack from comic fans and for good reason. While there were some massive successes in the early days of the decade, things went sour as the various companies ended up creating a collectors’ bubble that would burst in the middle of the decade. On top of that, a lot of people talk about how bad the comics were back then; while there some great comics in the ’90s, the industry went all in on style over substance. This led to the creation of Image Comics, a move that would change the comic industry forever. Image was the company of choice for the edgy readers of the ’90s and it had some massive successes in its first few years.

The Image guys knew that their bread and butter was older teen boys. The Bad Girl trend was just heating up and books with busty, scantily-clad women sold like hotcakes. In 1994, Jim Lee’s Wildstrom Studios put out a book that would capture this moment in time, both in the industry and general pop culture, introducing readers to an all-new superstar artist: Gen13. This book hit the industry like a bomb and for a few years defined what being a teen was like in the decade of extreme. Gen13 has been gone for years, but it’s a favorite of many older readers and DC Comics could bring it back for a whole new generation.

Gen13 Was a Monster Hit That Helped Define an Era

Nowadays, Image Comics is known for its prestigious titles, with the best writers and artists in the industry putting out creator-owned books that pushed the boundary of what a comic could be. This wasn’t the case back in the ’90s; Image was a company for artists. These were the “cool” books of the day and they sold like hotcakes. The Image creators knew their audience – they wanted cool art, big action, and beautiful women. Jim Lee’s Wildstorm grew by leaps and bounds between ’92 and ’94, releasing numerous titles that fans loved.

Image was all about finding the best young artists before anyone else and they were able to recruit a young J. Scott Campbell. He was tapped as the artist of an all-new book, one that would star a group of teens. And so Gen13 was born. The book is very simple – the mysterious spy agency International Operations (usually called I.O.) had been experimenting with creating superhumans – basically trying to create their own mutant race – with the Gen13 being the result. The group had five members – Fairchild, Freefall, Grunge, Rainmaker, and Burnout – who banded together once their powers manifested and went on the run from I.O.

This was the plot of the first five issue miniseries and the subsequent ongoing. You’ve seen this idea a thousand times, but what made Gen13 special was the art of Campbell. The above image is part of the cover of the first issue; I’m sure you can see why it sold well. The book sold out completely, becoming one of the hottest issues of the day, with the rest of the miniseries following suit. Gen13 was the talk of the industry and Campbell was a massive star suddenly.

Lee ended up writing the book with Brandon Choi, the two of them doing a really good job of capturing the teen zeitgeist of the time. The characters were sarcastic and hyperbolic; they talked like the teens of the day and they liked the same thing that teens liked. They looked the part as well; Campbell was in his early 20s and he was able to capture the fashion of the day. You had friends like this (or, since comics weren’t cool in the ’90s, you were bullied by people like this) or they looked like people you wanted to hang out with. While all Image books were “cool”, this one was the one that was actually cool. The art got the readers in the door, but it was the characters that kept them there.

The miniseries would lead into an ongoing in 1995 and Image took advantage of that by releasing 13 different variant covers. Gen13 (Vol. 2) hit the industry like a ton of bricks, but it was an Image book in 1995. Delays were the name of the game and Campbell was not a fast artist by any stretch of the imagination. This hurt the sales of the book and it dropped from its lofty place on the sales charts. Campbell would leave to create Danger Girl, a heavily delayed book that didn’t last too long, sales kept going down. It would last until 2002, when a new ’00s version of the team would debut and be gone by ’04. However, by this point, DC had bought Wildstorm and tried to bring them back again in ’06, during their attempted Wildstorm reboot, and it lasted until 2011, when the Wildstorm characters were folded into the DC Universe.

The New 52 changed DC for five years, with the publisher trying to push several Wildstorm characters, with Fairchild debuting in Superboy, but nothing would come of it. Gen13 has been dead even since, a relic of ’90s, but that doesn’t mean it has to be. ’90s nostalgia has been a pretty good seller and DC is hitting right now like they haven’t in years. Gen13 could be brought back rather easily; in fact, I’d love to see a zoomer version of the team. DC has just rebooted the Teen Titans and the Legion of Superheroes, and Absolute Flash is the best teen book on the market. DC has the goods to make Gen13 into superstars again.

Gen13 Defined the ’90s In More Than One Way

In 1994 and 1995, Gen13 was inescapable. Their books sold like hotcakes and they were able to vault over the competition. In the ’90s, teen culture was all the rage; grunge and alternative rock had taken over the world, with even supermodels wearing flannel. If you were a ’90s teen, Gen13 felt like it was being written for you; the characters looked the way you wanted to look, talked like you, and liked the things that you did.

It captured the zeitgeist perfectly and not just because it starred teens. It’s the stereotypical ’90s success story; a book that depended on gimmicks (in this case, the Bad Girl trend and variants) to create a book that was defined by its art and not its writing. It got massive quickly and then kept deflating as the years went on. It captured a moment in pop culture unlike anything else like there and it can do it again.

Are you old enough to remember Gen13? Would you want to see a zoomer or Gen Alpha version? Sound off in the comments below.

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