Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Ed Benes
Colorist: Jonathan Sibal
Letterer: Robbie Robbins
Single issue
Published by Wildstorm 1999
$2.50

Reviewed by Christian Adams

Today is a special day in Wildstorm land. It's Roxanne Spaulding's mother's birthday, and Roxy decides to give her a present. Now as a present, in what has to be an even shallower gesture than my last Christmas Present to my mother-in-law, our teenage heroine decides to give her a video diary of "Life in Gen13".

This is a strange way to write a comic book, but Scott Lobdell tries it anyway. And damned if the man doesn't pull it off.

Lobdell breaks all the rules of a good modern comic book by using, throughout most of the issue, identical six-frame-per-page layouts to illustrate the fact that the whole book is a home movie. Sometimes they even have rounded corners.

The actual story is a behind the scenes look at Gen13, that eventually turns into each character hamming it up. And the overall effect is surprisingly amusing. Lobdell does a good job of creating a humourous and easy to digest story that does little more - but no less - than entertain.

"Lobdell is taking the mickey out of the same style of writing that made him famous"

There are problems, however. On page 8 there's a lovely piece about Sarah Rainmaker, that echoes back to the student activist the character was when we first met her. Nice one, Scott, you've obviously done your homework. On page 21, Caitlin Fairchild has been possessed by Hank McCoy from the X-Men. As one of my favorite comic characters ever (because she's my ideal woman, but ignore that bias for a second, if you would) I cannot forgive this flagrant disregard for characterisation.

At the end, I actually laughed a little. And it turns out I was supposed to. This book was a filler issue, so as is standard, we have a subplot form. In fact, we have two subplots form - and it's done for laughs.

Five of the square panels (which must have upset the penciller no end) show Rainmaker, and an ominous grey hand punches a CCTV button and predicts, even more ominously, that Rainmaker will be the cause of a global cataclysm. As Lobdell puts it in a panel at bottom right, "End Subplot One".

Enter "Subplot Two" and, after a small text box at the bottom of Subplot One, we have another small box that contains text from Lobdell "talking" to the audience about how that Subplot One setup wasn't spine-tinglingly thrilling. Then Subplot Two contains an even worse five panels of drivel. Again, a text box from Lobdell explaining how naff it was.

This is progress, people. Lobdell is taking the mickey out of the same style of writing that made him famous.

"I can't recommend this, because it's a parody of poor writing by one of the pre-eminent writers of poor comics"

But I have to admit, I was entertained. I have enjoyed GEN13 since it was first released as a miniseries, but stopped reading it recently because it had become a forum for terrible teenage stereotyping and poor storytelling. This issue was a breath of fresh air, because at least it wasn't about teen superhero battles and all that crap. But it wasn't about Gen13 either.

It was about self-parody, and Sensational She-Hulk did it far, far better. But I can see what Lobdell was attempting. I normally hate his writing but I admire what he tried to do with this issue. He didn't turn Gen13 into a superhero/teen/parody/slapstick book. But what he did in this issue was write a fairly good book in that vein.

I can't really recommend this, because it's a parody of poor comic writing by one of the pre-eminent writers of poor comics. However, Lobdell does it entertainingly enough to earn at least one brownie point, so if you just want to be entertained, I guess you could do worse than pick up this comic.

Not recommended

Christian Adams is a regular contributor to PopImage.

Back

Attitude | ProFile | Industrial
Interviews | Reviews | Pi Comics
Talkback | Archives | Gallery