Gen13

Every Missing WildStorm Omnibus, Mapped | 2025 Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus Poll

May 13, 2025 by krisis

It’s time to map the DC Universe! In June, I’ll be joining with Near Mint Condition to launch the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 2nd Annual Poll! This post explains every WildStorm omnibus that does NOT exist – all of which will appear as options on the 2025 poll.

Through the end of May I’ll be covering DC entire publishing history by mapping missing omnibus volumes to fill in every gap in your DC oversize shelf! That’s all leading to the kickoff of the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 2nd Annual Poll on Near Mint Condition the first week of June.

In the past year DC has finally acknowledged that they have more WildStorm material to print beyond Jim Lee’s run on WildCATs, the first volume of The Authority, and Planetary. We got a second Authority omnibus, a WildCATs compendium that significantly expanded on the material in the Jim Lee Absolute Edition, and a Compendium of pre-Authority Stormwatch material!

That’s all great progress, but it still mostly collects material that has been collected before. There’s 30 potential omnibus volumes worth of WildStorm material that DC could still collect! While sales on the three recent books might be a good indicator of demand, it would be huge for a WildStorm book to make it into the on-air results of the Tigereyes poll this year.

Wildstorm Omnibus Mapping for the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 1st Annual Poll

May 10, 2024 by krisis

It’s time to dive into the WildStorm Universe – perhaps my favorite shared universe in all of comics! I’ll be loosely mapping missing and most-wanted DC omnibus volumes every day until May 19th! Then, on the 19th, I’ll be joining with Near Mint Condition to launch the first annual Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus Annual Poll! This post covers omnibuses missing from DC’s WildStorm imprint, including WildCATs, Stormwatch, Gen13, Deathblow, Wetworks, and more!

This post explains potential WildStorm Omnibus Mapping for votes on the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 1st Annual Secret Ballot. I’m posting all of these maps before the poll begins to give people the time to consider their favorites, correct our mapping mistakes, and catch books I might have missed.

There are three comic properties where I own every issue from their inception through 2012. One is X-Men, obviously. Another is Wonder Woman, covered earlier this week. The third is WildStorm. I own every floppy comic book ever published by WildStorm and I have them all packaged for binding – basically, I have this entire omnibus mapping already-collected in shortboxes in my garage!

I have to give a special shoutout to two amazing fellow WildStorm fans: WildStorm4Life, who runs the main WildStorm Universe group on Facebook, and Bryan Jose, who runs the Weathering WildStorm reading order blog. WildStorm4Life was instrumental in aiding my collecting every WildStorm issue by sharing his own binding maps with me over a decade ago!

If you don’t know DC well enough to know what to vote for, stick around for my explanations! Learn why the team behind the poll decided on these books and titles – including giving us feedback if we missed the mark.

If voting is now open, you can use this as your crib sheet! Or… just find some great comics to read!

Remember: These mappings are just my suggestion of how DC could assemble these books. They are meant to help you decide on your votes and build your personal reading list, but your vote on the poll is NOT an endorsement of my specific map. It’s a vote in favor of DC creating a book with that title or covering that period.

High-effort, heavily-researched, over-the-top comics posts like this one are made possible via the support of Patrons of Crushing Krisis. For less than the cost of a single comic issue a month you can fuel my in-depth comics coverage, plus gain access to dozens of exclusive collecting guides & reading orders – including all of the Crushing Comics Guide to DC Comics.

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Gen13 (1995) #0-1

November 28, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]After the amazing Gen13 mini-series I (and many other comic fans!) were rabid for more, which arrived in the form of the team’s first ongoing series in March 1995.

gen13-1994-000 The series would go on to be WildStorm’s longest-running book, and it debuted in memorable fashion with thirteen variant covers, which might not sound impressive today in the world of 50-states covers from both Marvel and DC but at the time was unheard of. (Here’s the best recap of the covers I’ve ever seen!)

Gen13 #1 lacks the special magic that imbued each issue of the team’s mini-series – even the gratuitous cameo from Pitt. Yet, despite not enjoying it in 1995 or 21 years later in 2016, I can appreciate that Brandon Choi and J. Scott Campbell made a wise move in their pivot away from the tone of the mini-series.

There are a few key differences between this relaunch and the team’s mini-series., other than the obvious one of the team not being under pressure in life-or-death circumstances the entire time.

First, Fairchild is relegated to the background in favor of breakout stars Roxy and Grunge, with Burnout barely appearing and Rainmaker purely used for titilation. It’s nearly the reverse of the line-up of the mini-series, where Roxy and Grunge broke up the drama with occasional comic relief while the remaining trio handled all the heavy lifting.

Second, the plot. There’s no IO or government intrigue about the team’s origins in sight. Instead, we get a mismatched pair of interdimension assassins hunting down a ridiclous green alien rodent.

Less tangible than those developments is that newcomer J. Scott Campbell’s art has already begun to tip from comic book exaggeration to ridiculous deformity. His long-legged women are nothing different from his prior five issues, but his proportions here are not as consistent, as on Grunge’s once-massive chest. Faces suffer, in particular. This is exacerbated by a lack of backgrounds and a bright, almost-neon color pallette from Wendy Stouts, which strips characters of the muscular heft they had in the miniseries.

Also, what was a depiction of playful teen sexuality in the mini-series is now deliberate pandering, as with the nude Rainmaker (suddenly a sexbomb with long hair) and upskirt shots of Roxy’s underwear.

Those details quickly drove me away from the book back in the 90s, but in retrospect I can see the reason for all of them.

gen13-1995-001 Fairchild was intentionally the most generic character in the original series – a bookworm turned she-hulk – but fans responded more to the other four characters, each a familiar archetype. To force the young team’s new life to be seen exclusively through the eyes of Caitlin the all-night studier would stunt the growth of the book and the cast.

Every character needs her or his spotlight issues, and this is Roxy’s. We still get signs hints that Fairchild’s journey will be as a tactician and leader, and that’s not going to happen overnight.

To make Gen13 all about bashing heads with IO from the first issue would have been foolish. Jim Lee and Brandon Choi had already learned their lesson on WildCATs and Stormwatch, which were each so thick with continuity that they hardly seemed to be about anything other than re-connecting with long-lost enemies.

Also, without a youthful book in the mix at WildStorm they line was missing the chance to do these sorts of stories – stories with cartoonish extra-dimension villains and the annoying green space rats they’re hunting. Gen13 mining this territory is no different than Chris Claremont inserting Kitty Pryde into the X-Men and giving her a pet purple dragon.

As for Campbell? This is only his sixth full-length issue, and he was under enormous pressure. On the whole it has the same high-gloss look of his pencils on the mini-series, just with slightly more room for error in the looser constraints of real world California rather than the tech-festooned hallways of IO’s Death Valley base.

(I have no rationale to offer for the amped up sexuality of the art. I have a lot of affection for this cast based almost exlusively on the mini-series, and I’d hate to see them quickly devolve into a group of sex mannequins. I’ll have to read more to see what fate holds for them.)

Brandon Choi and company also broke up the wait for the big debut with a #0 issue (technically part of the 1994 mini-series) to explain the team’s separate road trips after Wizard #1/2. This issue hits all the great notes of Choi’s mini-series script, comprised of four stories, each with a different artist – Jim Lee on Caitlin Fairchild, Richard Johnson on Burnout and Rainmaker, J. Scott Campbell, and Travis Charest on Lynch. (It’s telling that of the four vignettes Campbell’s with Roxy and Grunge that is the weakest spot.)

Want a recap? Keep reading for a recap of both #0 and #1 Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Tomorrow we go back in time again with Team 7: Objective Hell #1-3, which act as a prologue to Wednesday’s WildStorm Rising – the line’s first multi-book crossover!

Need the issues? Early Gen13 is some of the most reprinted of WildStorm’s first three years of comics.

The 1998 Gen13 Archives (ISBN 978-1887279918) is a comprehensive collection that includes all of debut mini-series and pushes through #13 of their ongoing series; it isn’t too hard to track down (Amazon / eBay).
A Gen13: Complete Collection is due in spring of 2017 that covers both the mini-series and through #7 of this ongoing, plus the special Gen13: Rave issue not in Archives (Amazon pre-order).

Alternately, you can purchase single issues – try eBay (#0 & 1) or Amazon (#0 & 1 and alt search #0 & 1) [Read more…] about From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Gen13 (1995) #0-1

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Gen13 #1-5 & 1/2

November 13, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Gen13 was a massive bombshell when it struck in 1994, a comic about college-aged kids that actually looked and felt like it was about real college-aged kids because it was being drawn by one while also revealing a ton of backstory and connective tissue about the two-year-old WildStorm Universe.

And you know what? It’s still every bit as great today – even moreso after spending the past two weeks reading all of the comics that lead up to it.

gen13-1994-001 The cast of Gen13 were some of Jim Lee’s final creations in the early years of WildStorm. In an interview in Gen13 #1/2, he discusses being motivated to move away from the gear-laden extreme look (and the violence that accompanies it) that many classic characters at Marvel and DC were moving towards. (The irony of the entire team wielding guns on the cover from Lee is not lost on me). He also intentionally created Caitlin Fairchild as a literal strong female who was also super-smart – an obvious choice to lead the team.

It’s Lee’s focus on creating a different book rather than an imitation of something familiar that makes Gen13 so memorable. Caitlin Fairchild may not yet be a Tony Stark level genius, but her hairpin turn from ingénue to terrorist and leader never seems rushed given the breadth of her intellect and depth of her drive. It’s the same way almost all of Marvel’s original generation of male heroes are depicted as super-brains of some sort to explain their mastery of all things. Marvel has scant women who fit the same mold (at the time, just Mockingbird and Kitty Pryde), and none who also lead a team.

(Lee also included a buff, masculine, hyper-sexual Asian male with Grunge (a rarity even today) and an indigenous woman with Rainmaker who… well, we’ll get to that later.)

If we’re going to talk about the unique touches that make this book stand out, we have to discuss artist J. Scott Campbell. Campbell was discovered at age 19 in the talent search advertised in WildC.A.T.s #2! Prior to Gen13, his only published comics work was portions of Stormwatch #0, Deathmate Black, and pin-ups.

That’s it!

To go from obscurity to co-creating one of the most popular mini-series of the 90s is unbelievable. His achievement is made more incredible by the fact that he’s not specifically aping any single Image founder. Campbell draws distended, hyper-tall figures like Liefeld, he details muscles and clothes like Lee, and he has the fussy sketch lines of Silvestri. Campbell’s characters are all visually distinct and exciting as regular people wearing clothes, and his backgrounds and buildings are bristling with detail.

To have a 19-year-old designing 19-year-olds is part of the kinetic magic of Gen13. In fact, Lee reveals that Campbell designed Roxy AKA Freefall, who is by far the most visually distinct of all the Gen13 kids. Yes, Campbell errs on the side of some egregious T&A at points, but he’s seemingly just as eager to show nearly-nude men as he is women – he’s a kid who just wants to draw hot kids being hot. Also, the present-day fashion aspect of his pencils is powerful – Roxy the club kid, Caitlin’s mousy Princeton get-up, Bliss’s S&M dresses, Grunge’s early-90s flannels.

Yet, great art alone does not make for a good Image title – or else I’d be head over heels in love with WildCATs instead of constantly dissing it. The script here is wonderful. Brandon Choi was great on Stormwatch, but he was never better on early Image than on this initial run of Gen13 collaborating with Campbell (who picks up a story credit by the third issue). Characters all have distinct voices, details make sense, and each issue has its own rising and falling action. Caitlin Fairchild as our point-of-view character is so analytical that it makes perfect sense for her to issue a recap via narration at the beginning of each issue.

gen13-1994-005 It’s not just the Gen13 kids who make this story interesting, but I.O director John Lynch finally being fleshed out into a dynamic character instead of just a conniving government villain. If you’ve read any WildStorm up to this point, he hasn’t exactly been a sympathetic character (except for maybe in WildCATs #2 when he doesn’t arrest the team). That’s especially true coming from reading Kindred, where he seemed as hugely unsympathetic as ever!

Here we see another side of him. It’s not a sudden turn, but a transformation that makes sense for his character. For all of his heartless decisions over the years, he does have regrets – chief amongst them the raw deal many of his Team 7 teammates got if they didn’t go underground or let I.O. control their lives. That guilt means he cannot in good conscience support a renewed Genesis program – especially one that preys on the children of his teammates!

As I re-read this mini-series, I repeatedly asked myself: Are you seeing this through rose-colored glasses? Is this the joy of nostalgia talking?

I’ll admit a little buzz of returning to these characters, but given the sheer volume of comics I read, I don’t think my delight in Gen13 can be purely attributed to huffing the fumes of the 90s.

This is a good comic book that’s a perfect artifact of the times – even the gratuitous mid-mini-series guest appearance by Pitt.

Want the play-by-play? Keep reading for an extensive summary of this book, a major influence on me and an early inspiration to my 8th Grade version of Krisis. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Tomorrow we’ll finally make it back around to Deathblow, now with Tim Sale in control of art duties. Will I like it better this time around?

Need the issues? Gen13 was such a massive, game-changing hit that it’s the rare WildStorm book that’s been through several reprints. Here are the three you should focus on:

The 1998 Gen13 Archives (ISBN 978-1887279918) is a great, comprehensive collection that includes all of these issues and pushes through #13 of their ongoing series and isn’t too hard to track down all these years later (Amazon / eBay).
Gen13: Who They Are and How They Came to Be (978-1401211493) is a 1996 collection of just this mini-series (not including #1/2) (Amazon / eBay). If you go that route, also pick up Gen13 Backlist (ISBN 1-887279-41-5), which includes #1/2 and some other one-shots (Amazon / eBay).
A Gen13: Complete Collection is due in spring of 2017 that covers through #7 of the ongoing, but includes the special Gen13: Rave issue not in Archives (Amazon pre-order).

Alternately, you can purchase single issues – try eBay (#1-5 & 1/2, AKA #-1) or Amazon (#1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1/2 AKA #-1 and alternative search #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1/2 AKA #-1) – and note that Amazon offers these issues digitally(!) through Comixology.

Keep in mind that as a key issue #1 can be pricey on its own but there were plenty of these printed, so you’ll probably be better served buying a lot of the entire mini-series. Since several future Gen13 series hit these same issue numbers, be sure to match your purchase to the images in this post (note that #5 has two different covers). The Gen13 #1 with 13 different covers is not this #1 – it’s the first issue of their subsequent ongoing. [Read more…] about From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Gen13 #1-5 & 1/2

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Stormwatch #6-8

November 7, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Are you ready to get political?

This trio of issues of Stormwatch play up the geopolitical aspects of the team in a big way while also serving satisfying action and backstory and fantastic arc. Despite some 90s tropes along the way, the title has hit its stride as a high-quality comic.

stormwatch_v1_006 The opening two-issue arc of this run is firing on all cylinders. Issue #6 is the heftiest WildStorm comic I’ve read so far. It has political intrigue, finally gives the team around Battalion some depth, and continues Stormwatch’s genius streak of nodding to its implied deep well of personnel and their accompanying stories.

Then, #7 is a well-paced battle that limits the amount of reversals and people back from seeming KOs. Thanks to the lack of see-sawing, it has a legitimate “hooray!” moment at the climax, especially when the dispassionate Weatherman joins in piling on the enemies.

Brandon Choi wisely leans heavily on the caption boxes in issue six, helping us get reacquainted with the team – who we haven’t seen together outside of the special since the opening of the first issue.

This is at once a strength and weakness of Stormwatch. It has a large enough cast with multiple teams, historical personnel, supporting staff, and enemy mercs that sometimes I can go issues without ever being entirely sure of someone’s name or power.

That’s emphasized by the fact that we’ve stayed almost entirely with Battalion (and, briefly, Backlash) as our POV characters so far. At this point we know enough about Diva, Fuji, and Winter, but past that trio things get hazier – especially as Choi seems intent for us to pick up on their countries of origin from a few spare foreign words, which is a bit less than we had to go on in Giant Size X-Men.

Issue #8 adds a few surprising names to the credits – H. K. Proger co-scripts, and Jim Lee contributes layouts along with Scott Clark for Trevor Scott to finish. It’s also surprises on just about every page, which makes for an engrossing single issue.

Amidst a lot of great material, two things stick out in a big way:

One is Ripclaw and Rainmaker as indigenous characters without a lot of stereotyping attached. Sure, we get the opening monolog about the Apache Warrior, but otherwise they’re two heroes who the story happens to focus on in a clear callback to the first issue. It’s not “A Very Special Indigenous Episode of Stormwatch.” It also gets the politics right, by identifying the US forces as rogue agents on sovereign land (an interesting contrast with Stormwatch’s role in the prior issue).

Two, is that we get a great, brief training session with Battalion and Backlash that actually deepens their characters and advances the plot! It leads to another strong conversation with Backlash. Sure, it’s just setting up Backlash’s spinoff series, but why can’t Choi manage that on WildCATs!

Want the play-by-play? Keep reading for a summary of these two teams going head to head. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Though both Kindred and Gen13 are referenced in today’s read, we’ve got some more WildCATs ground to cover first, starting with #8-9 tomorrow. Enjoy the light reading day!

Need the issues? You guessed it – never before collected! You’ll need to purchase single issues – try eBay (#6-8) or Amazon (#6, 7, 8). Since further Stormwatch series hit these same issue numbers, be sure to match your purchase to the images in this post.