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Underground > Comic Books >

Adam Warren's Gen13

02:00 / 21.04.06

I did a search for "Adam Warren" but didn't come up with anything. I'm relatively new here, so I hope this isn't an old or passé topic or something. Also, I hope my commentary is up to par for the Barbelith standard.

After reading the first three issues of Nextwave, I got to thinking about superhero parody and satire. Adam Warren's run writing the last 17 issues of Gen13 is probably one of my all-time faves as far as the superhero parody genre goes. I'd not read Gen13 before Warren picked it up; I bought it specifically for Warren's wit and I was not disappointed.

I thought this run was fantastic. The pacing of the storyline and jokes was very well done. My fave bit was that each and every part of the book seemed to imply a little wink and a nod to the audience that this was all good fun. Somehow, Warren managed to parody everything that Gen13 was about without being insulting or overly deconstructive of the book. A fine line to walk, and even harder to walk successfully.

(Since you guys don't know me or my tastes, I feel I should give an example of what I would consider an unsuccessful parody: Mark Millar's first story arc in The Authority, called "The Nativity." I found it to be incredibly heavy-handed, with far too much emphasis on superheroes being portrayed as bigoted and hateful rapists. Too bad, since Quitely's art is so good.)

But back to Gen13. The artwork. Warren did a little of the artwork on the run. I've always liked his brand of art, and felt he was one of the few who affected the Japanese style quite nicely. Rick Mays, another pretty solid "anime-imitater," did a pretty good job on some of the run. Kaare Andrews stuff is a gas and fit very well with the writing style of the book. Ed Benes' work is a little too "generic Wildstorm" for me, but I thought he did a really good job. I've certainly seen worse work come out of the Wildstorm gang. A lot worse.

So what are your thoughts on this far-too-short run of work? What did you like about it? What didn't you like about it? Is this the first time you're hearing of it? Will I one day be telling my grandkids about how after I was invited to join Barbelith I was laughed out of town for posting a thread about Adam Warren?

Post away, guys and gals.

02:57 / 21.04.06

Warren managed to parody everything that Gen13 was about without being insulting or overly deconstructive of the book.

Okay. So can someone tell me what Gen13 was about?

03:11 / 21.04.06

Okay. So can someone tell me what Gen13 was about?

From what I've seen of the pre-Warren issues, teenagers with powers, with an emphasis on lame pop-culture references and finding as many ways to portray the female characters in skimpy outfits and pinup poses. Storyline optional, but melodrama galore. Fanboy fodder.

Warren turned it into a sort of meta-fiction by emphasising those aspects of it in a self-aware way, and as I said above, with a literary knowing wink and a smile.

[potential rot]
I wish I could explain a little more clearly, but I was in the hospital this past weekend, and I'm still feeling the after-effects of the experiences and it's muddying my thinking.

[/potential rot]

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

10:31 / 21.04.06

Oh, man! Adam Warren. The guy's got to have the best good writer:amazing artist ratio on the planet.

I only ever read the Gen13 stuff he drew though. Grunge: The Movie and the Roxy one were outstanding. He's really quite adept, in these instances, at deflating the specifically 90's approach to comics (and film) all while drawing literally the best looking manga art on Earth.

10:37 / 21.04.06

Yeah, this was a really great, funny, hip comic - the various artists, to one degree or another, all managed to blend some Japinfluence, and it was really very fresh. I lobbied briefly for Warren to replace Grant on X-Men, because he'd be ideal, although core fans would probably melt down.

I've only got the very last one, with the Mongolian BBQ Avengers (quite touching, actually, and one of my single ish faves - alongside New X 126 - in the year it came out; 01 - 02?) but anyway, there's one where one of the others is asking Grunge about his codename, and that's basically what Sandman2012 is talking about here to a tee. If someone could post that dialogue, I'd be quite grateful.

There is a small Livewires thread somewhere...

15:07 / 21.04.06

Here in fact, and I failed to contribute, which is a disgrace, really. Livewires was about the best and most inventive comic Marvel put out in the last two years, up to Dead Girl anyway, and approx 5x as good as Nextwave.

17:20 / 21.04.06

I like Adam's work. He has this technophilic streak that expresses itself in weird sci-fi, but he never takes himself seriously. And he has the craziest taste in code names.

13:55 / 22.04.06

Are either of these series still running? It's amazing that some of these series come out, go unnoticed by folks who might like them (like me) and then have little to no back catalogue action in case people (like me) discover them later.

HUMAN TARGET and SLEEPER are two titles that I just discovered and wish there were easily available trades to dip back into as well.

14:22 / 22.04.06

Well, all of Sleeper's traded, innit? And there's three or four HT collections. You can get a manga-size digest of Livewires, and most of Warren's Gen13 is collected; there's one from an earlier fill-in called 'Meanwhile', iirc.

14:25 / 22.04.06

Here we go - 'Meanwhile' and 'Superhuman Like You'. Do not, under any circumstances, touch the Claremont version.

16:17 / 22.04.06

Thanks! I should have Amazoned it. I guess because I've never seen a single trade (except the first one for HUMAN TARGET) in any of the Barnes and Nobles where I usually pick up trades I assumed they were out of print. Stupid human. I should have known online was the way to order. Ignorant no more!

01:42 / 26.04.06

And here I was thinking my thread had died (I'm still getting used to navigating Barbelith).

Mario said: "I like Adam's work. He has this technophilic streak that expresses itself in weird sci-fi, but he never takes himself seriously."

That's what really draws me to his stuff. That, and the fact that he always does his thing in a deliberately over-the-top way. It reminds me very much of Neil Stephenson's novel SnowCrash.

Another thing that Warren does very well is to parody the hyper-sexualization of females in comics by doing it in an overblown way while meta-commenting on it in the narrative. Here's a page from his first issue, where he parodies the fact that in the pre-Warren issues of Gen13, Fairchild's costume always got ripped and tattered when she was fighting super-villains:

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

It cracks me up every time.

04:01 / 27.04.06

I've been out of the comics loop for a while now, and didn't even know of some of his more recent stuff. I just picked up the Livewires TPB. I'm going to read it tonight.

I can't wait.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

06:04 / 27.04.06

Livewires is fun, so far, although I'm only partway through the trade. I quite enjoy the design of the Mannites mentioned only in passing, including the one guy that looks like the Leader Junior.