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Don't be fooled by the above shot. In some issues, they were completely naked.

Gen¹³. So many genres and incarnations, so little time. This was a WildStorm universe based comic series that used to be owned by Image until Jim Lee sold the imprint to DC Comics. DC gave it no less than three different reboots.

The book was created by Brandon Choi, Jim Lee and artist J. Scott Campbell, and any familiarity with those three should already give an idea of what the book was going to entail. The characters were introduced in Deathmate Black (September, 1993). In 1994, they got a 5-issue mini-series. It sold well enough for the introduction of an ongoing series in 1995. It focused on the exploits of five teens who were invited to participate in a government research project, but who all later discovered it was nothing more than a prison used to locate children with "Gen-Active" genes that the government would later attempt to experiment on and use as weapons, of course.

The roster consists of:

  • Caitlin Fairchild a.k.a. Fairchild, redheaded Shrinking Violet geek girl turned Amazonian Beauty & team leader.
  • Roxanne "Freefall" Spaulding, the smart-mouthed smart ass spunky chick, with gravity manipulation powers.
  • Percival "Grunge" Chang, a diminutive perverted slacker, and resident ditz, with the power to absorb the properties of any material he touches.
  • Robert "Burnout" Lane, the angst-ridden musician who can Play With Fire.
  • Sarah Rainmaker a.k.a. Rainmaker, a weather-controlling Native American lesbian.

Their mentor was John Lynch, a gruff and grizzled former soldier and ex-agent for the conspiracy that gathered them, who was basically, for lack of a better term, the hybrid love child of Clint Eastwood and Wolverine. Lynch freed them and acted as Team Dad for this Secret Project Refugee Family.

While the book was derivative of the millions of other books focusing on ridiculously attractive teens or teams with superpowers, it occasionally took it upon itself to hang a lampshade on the very conventions of the genre, including the constant Clothing Damage, the rambling villains, and more, which allowed it to cater to its audience, yet give them a wink as well.

Gen¹³ and its spinoffs have also tended to gather a wide variety of talent. To start with, this is the book that made J. Scott Campbell famous before Danger Girl. Warren Ellis wrote the first eight issues of DV8, a book starring the titular Psycho Rangers and series Arch-Nemesis Ivana Baiul. Adam "Empowered" Warren did two well-received parody miniseries ("Grunge: The Movie" and "Magical Drama Queen Roxy") and was the writer for what turned out to be the final issues of the original series. In an unexpected twist, the entire cast were Killed Off for Real by a nuclear weapon.

Following this, Chris Claremont was brought in to write an all-new, all-different Gen¹³, but the new version was poorly received. Set in an alternate universe, the story featured a strangely alive Fairchild mentoring an all-new team. This version was cancelled after sixteen issues, ending with the resurrection of the original team.

Finally, Gail Simone launched a Continuity Reboot of the original team in 2006, which was also critically well-received but couldn't last. The series had been Retooled yet again, along with the rest of the Wildstorm universe, as part of the World's End Crisis Crossover.

After that, it seems to have been folded into the DC Universe along with the rest of Wildstorm as a result of Flashpoint (DC Comics); there are no plans to revive the book, but some Gen¹³ characters have shown up in the "DCnU"; notably, Fairchild got connected to Superboy's new origin story, as part of Project N.O.W.H.E.R.E..

There is a little known direct-to-video animated film that was released overseas, titled Gen¹³: The Movie.

See also Team 7, where Lynch as well the fathers of various of this team came from.


So many tropes, so little time:

  • Aborted Arc: Numerous throughout the comic's various incarnations. Notably, Adam Warren had planned a lengthy character arc for the oft-overlooked Sarah Rainmaker, only to have the book cancelled after only one issue of said arc was completed.
    • Claremont's entire run became this, cut short to sixteen issues and its last arc being about resurrecting the original team.
  • Alcohol-Induced Bisexuality: In an early issue, Sarah Rainmaker, already established as a lesbian, wakes up after getting drunk only to find that she and Bobby had done it the night before.
  • All Just a Dream:
    • The penultimate two issues of Warren's run feature an over-the top hedonistic party night complete with skinny dipping and hook-ups between the team and their other Gen-active friends. It turned out that this was all happening in Fairchild's subconscious in the microseconds before she and the others were vaporized by a nuclear weapon
    • Claremont's run turned out to be this as well, with the entire continuity existing inside Fairchild's mind as she restructured reality to bring her team back to life.
  • Amazonian Beauty: Caitlin Fairchild, although her muscularity varies Depending on the Artist. It's explicitly stated that a muscular physique is part of her powerset and characters in the series have described her as muscular, but her depictions go anywhere from skinny to slightly ripped to muscular powerhouse. Regardless of how she's depicted, she is considered extremely beautiful by a lot of characters; her teammate Freefall has a long-standing inferiority complex because she feels she can't measure up to Fairchild's ridiculous beauty, for instance.
  • Ambiguously Bi: Zigzagged with Rainmaker. Despite originally being presented as a lesbian in early stories by Mike Choi, later stories by Scott Lobdell insisted that she was bisexual and even dating Burnout. When the Wildstorm universe was rebooted, this was undone, and Rainmaker became a lesbian again.
  • Ambiguously Brown: There's a running gag of sorts that nobody can guess what Sarah Rainmaker's ethnicity is when they first meet her. An entire issue during Adam Warren's run features Sarah in the background waiting for drinks at a bar, all while an idiot next to her tries to guess her background, getting further and further from it as he goes. (She's half American Indian.)
  • And This Is for...: In one story arc, Caitlin Fairchild became the only person on Earth unaffected by an insipid song that possessed mind-controlling qualities. Finally as she faced off against the creator of this mind-controlling song, she declared war against all bad music (in her opinion); "This is for Creed's 'With Arms Wide Open'! This is for the entire Oasis catalog! And this is for that 'Sunscreen' speech song! I mean, what's that all about?"
  • Animated Adaptation: A pilot was completed, but never went to series.
  • Asian Airhead: Grunge, a Chinese-American California surfer/skater/slacker dude, was presented as an extremely rare male version of this at the beginning. He tested well in school, however, thanks to his Photographic Memory.
  • Balloon Belly: Issue 62 features a very subtle use of this after a main character binges on junk food.
  • Beach Episode: The second issue of the first ongoing series is a veritable beach/swimsuit extravaganza, made even more notable by the revelation of a major cast member as a lesbian.
  • Bed Trick: While living in Tranquility, Freefall started a relationship with M.T. of the Liberty Snots. However, a sadistic clone of Freefall tricked M.T. into having sex with her thinking she was his girlfriend. Clone!Freefall even gloated about it.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Freefall and Grunge. He was unfaithful, insensitive and immature and their relationship often broke apart.
  • Between My Legs: The cover of Issue 2 with Fairchild.
  • BFG: In the first arc, the newly gen-active Fairchild picks up a massive laser/rifle type weapon she obtained from one of the fallen I/O ops to brandish in her fight to save her new comrades... though it seemed to be more of just a chance to see a hot spandex wearing redhead brandish a gun considering she was now about 6'5 and superhumanly strong regardless.
  • Blob Monster:
    • Caitlin became this following her death and rebirth, displaying a nifty teleportation ability with it as well, though it remains to be seen whether or not she retained these powers following the DC 2011 reboot when the series was merged with DC.
    • Gwendolyn at some point is transformed into the chrome variety.
  • Book Ends: Adam Warren's run on the title begins with everyone sans Grunge dead which turns out to be just a dream with the team being alive. Ignoring the epilogue, it ends with a giant party eventually revealed to be an illusion of Fairchild's as the team is vaporized by a bomb.
  • Boxing Lessons for Superman: Caitlin had super strength and superhuman agility and speed, but in one issue Sarah Rainmaker started to teach her how to fight.
  • Break the Haughty: Warren Ellis' run on DV8 consists almost entirely of this happening to the cast. Even sociopath like Bliss and Threshold ends up broken or close to breaking point.
  • Breast Expansion: When Caitlin first transforms, her muscles grow and her breasts follow suit.
  • The Cameo: In Grifter (Vol. 2) #4, the titular character is walking in a crowd scene and, in the foreground, there is a teenage girl with black hair with pink streaks smiling at an Asian guy with ear piercings.
  • Captain Ethnic: Unsurprisingly, Claremont's run had two of these.
    • Hazma Rashad who was a Black Muslim and began every damn sentence with "Oh, Allah!" or variations thereof.
    • Gwen Matsura, who was Asian-American, and whose powers came from a magic spirit dragon. Really.
    • One of the earlier runs had the Gen13 kids battle an Italian superhero team who worked for the Vatican.
  • Character Development: Ellis' take on DV8 has a lot of this, as the cast actually gains some, if twisted, sense of morality and starts to care about each other.
  • The Chikan: Issue 51 has Fairchild riding a train with a crowd of men around that don't miss the chance to rub against her using the train's exit as excuse.
  • Clothing Damage: The number of times Caitlin Fairchild's outfit gets blown up or torn up is beyond counting. Heck, the first issue shows her wearing a torn up nightgown.
    • Lampshaded by protagonist Caitlin after realizing that a raft crash has somehow completely removed her khakis and belt: "For some strange reason, I always seem to lose articles of clothing whenever we get into trouble."
    • In a recent remake, Fairchild managed to get most of her skintight body suit ripped nearly to shreds in the space of five minutes. To be fair, she did take out several commandos and jump clear through a roof to do so.
    • The very first time her powers manifested, increasing her muscle mass among other things, she went from petite to Amazonian Beauty and busted out of her clothing.
    • The first issue of Adam Warren's run was a recap disguised as a Behind The Music parody; in the (imaginary) "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, Caitlin died after defeating a supervillain in sub-zero weather... of exposure.
    • For a male example, Burnout once incinerated his swim trunks while flying up to a plane and ended up having to fight naked.
  • Continuity Reboot: No less than four (!) times now, not bad for a franchise that's only existed since 1993...
    • The first came at the end of the original Wildstorm run when the entire team was killed off
    • The second came at the end of Claremont's run when the comic was rebooted again and the original team were bought back to life.
    • The third occurred with the Worldstorm reboot of the Wildstorm universe, which was complicated by the fact that the Wildstorm's editors couldn't decide just how far the reboot was supposed to go, and failed to keep Gail Simone in the loop.
    • The fourth occurred with the launch of the DC "New 52", with Fairchild and Grunge both appearing in the rebooted DCU.
    • The start of Warren's run could also count as a minor reboot as he effectively reset the comic to where it was two years ago. Given the "quality" material of those two years, this was not exactly a bad thing.
  • Continuity Snarl: The Gail Simone run ended up being this due to Executive Meddling. Wildstorm's editors flip-flopped back and forth over whether the Worldstorm re-launch of Wildstorm's titles were going to be a full reboot, a soft-boot or not a reboot at all, and then failed to tell Simone when they reached a conclusion. The result was her run being a full Continuity Reboot at odds with the rest of the relaunched Wildstorm Universe.
  • Crossover: Not counting the fact the team debuted in a massive crossover with Valiant Comics, they did have a new non-Image crossovers, including with Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. The latter made it a point for Burnout to get into an argument with the Human Torch, since both have basically the same powers. They also met Generation X, their Marvel counterpart & had a single crossover issue with The Maxx.
  • Deal with the Devil: Caitlin Fairchild resolves a Brought Down to Normal storyline by making a deal with villainess Ivana Baiul: restore her powers now, in exchange for performing one mission for Ivana sometime in the future. The plot hook is left alone until Adam Warren's run, where he has Ivana call in the favor for one issue — only to reveal that she'd been repeatedly using Fairchild on missions, only to erase her memory of the job, and of repaying her debt, every time.
  • Depraved Dwarf: Mr. Luv. His mother was infected with Gen-Factor chemicals while she was pregnant with him and he lost the ability to grow physically, but instead grew very intelligent. He runs the Luv Industries toy empire and has a tendency of dressing up like Max from Where the Wild Things Are. His encounter with the team was for the purpose of finding a mate so that he could create a new generation of Gen-Actives.
  • Differently Powered Individual: The standard phrase used by the Government Conspiracy is SPB, short for "Super Powered Being".
  • Downer Ending:
    • The end of the first volume as a whole.
    • Magical Drama Queen Roxy has a really depressing one. Roxy goes to sleep feeling unwanted and unloved, has a wacky dream about being a magical girl but begins realizing it's all a dream when at the end everyone begins treating her with love and respect. She wakes up, still feeling unwanted and unloved, and even more depressed than before.
      Roxy: God, I frickin' hate having pleasant dreams, 'cause... 'cause... 'cause I always wake up.
  • Dude Magnet: Fairchild. No man is immune to her body and sometimes this crosses with So Beautiful, It's a Curse.
  • Embarrassing First Name: Grunge goes by "P. Edmund Chang", because the "P" is for Percival.
  • Even the Girls Want Her: Fairchild has many male admirers and at least one female admirer.
  • Evil Counterpart: The Deviants of DV8 are Ivana Baiul's answer to Gen¹³. Like our heroes, they're also Gen-Active teenagers with attitude problems — only they're all borderline psychotic and at I/O's beck and call.
  • Fad Super: The name Gen13 refers to the "Thirteenth Generation," another term for Generation X (the generation, not the comic book) that has since fallen out of use. "Grunge" began as a term for the raggedy casual flannel clothing style popularized by alternative rock bands like Nirvana, and then more generally for those bands' style of music and The '90s youth culture associated with it.
  • Fanservice: From the cover of the first issue, it's clear that this is a major point of the series.
  • Five-Token Band: Claremont's version of the team.
    • Fairchild (Female team leader; could be also considered this because she's the only "real" person in a world that exists otherwise in her subconcious)
    • Ethan York (Irish-American son of a firefighter who was killed in 9/11)
    • Ja'nelle Moorhead (Black female, ambiguously bisexual)
    • Gwen Matsura (Asian-American Female)
    • Hazma Rashad (Black Muslim paraplegic. His superpowers include being able to walk)
  • The Flame of Life: Ethan York is capable of summoning flames that have a variety of effects, including restoring life. He uses this power to save Hamza Rashad's life after the latter is badly burned in a car accident.
  • Forced Orgasm: Nicole Callahan / Bliss' psychic powers let her overwhelm people with emotions, either via intense pain or extreme bliss, and she frequently uses the latter for sexual purposes, giving people "pleasure pulses" that cause extreme sexual pleasure to the point of orgasm, even if against their will, which makes her a Sex Goddess In-Universe. Although it's often used for Fandisservice when she uses her powers on her brother to seduce and manipulate him into doing her bidding. She has also been known to kill some of her lovers during sex due to using her powers beyond the point they can take it.
  • Gangsta Style: The page illustration is from the "Grunge: The Movie", where writer/artist Adam Warren parodies the tropes of Hong Kong wuxia and Heroic Bloodshed through Grunge's fantasy movie script, featuring other Wildstorm characters in supporting roles. Grifter holds his gun sideways, Jackson Dane holds his upside down, and Jester holds his right side up but pulls the trigger with his tongue.
  • Genius Bruiser:
    • Caitlin Fairchild.
    • Grunge is genius-level too, with a photographic memory. He just puts a lot of effort into pretending to be a dumb slacker.
  • Go-Go Enslavement: Has happened to Caitlin Fairchild at least twice. The first time it's a mad scientist; the second (or at least a subsequent) time it's an alien warlord. Unlike most heroines, she actively dwells on the fact that this means the villain saw her naked.
    • In a borderline third case, she becomes indebted to a villainess who forces Fairchild to go on a mission for her in a fetishistic latex costume. She's not technically a prisoner (except to her debt and/or sense of honor) but at the end of the mission, the villainess erases her memory, leaving her thinking that she still owes a favor (and suggesting that this isn't the first time she's done it).
  • Gravity Is Purple: Freefall's gravity is often represented with purple-pink sparkles. Nowadays, light blue may be used instead.
  • Gravity Master: Freefall has the ability to manipulate gravity to various effects. She can nullify gravity beneath her allowing her or others to levitate. She can also increase the gravity around a specific area inflicting damage or just making it impossible for an enemy to move.
  • Growing Muscles Sequence: In the animated adaption, when Caitlin first transforms.
  • Her Codename Was Mary Sue: "Grunge: The Movie" and "Magical Drama Queen Roxy" are fantasies on the part of Grunge and Freefall (respectively) that cast them as amazing heroes over whom everyone is in awe. In the former case, it's a literal story thought up by Grunge.
  • Heroic BSoD: Post-Worldstorm, Grunge suffers through a bad version of this when he's forced to kill Kid Apollo to save his teammates and spends the next few weeks suffering from depression.
  • Hormone-Addled Teenager: All of them, to some degree, but Grunge is the king of the trope.
  • Hospital Hottie: Nurse Nancy.
  • Hypocrite: Rainmaker frequently admonishes Grunge for being perverted, but she herself makes perverted comments towards women. For example in Issue 17 she yells at Grunge for staring at them when they were kidnapped and dressed in teddies, but two pages before remarks to Caitlin that a Coda Warrior has a "nice ass."
  • I Know Kung Fu: Pulled by Grunge on a rather physically unimpressive scientist who had developed a power-nullifying device. After the team spends almost all issues helpless, he hands the scientist his ass in about three panels.
  • Informed Ability: Fairchild was supposed to be a genius. Instead, most of the series' writers depicted her as being an outsized bimbo with the odd reassurance that she was smart.
  • In Name Only: Grunge in the New 52. The only thing left of the character is the name, the costume, and the powers; the Grunge we meet in the New 52 is not only tall and clearly Caucasian — he's also a sadistic, murderous bad guy who scoffs at ideas like "mercy," "compassion" and "morality".
  • Intimate Lotion Application: An early issue saw the virginal Roxy asking Sarah to apply some sunscreen to her back. After hearing Sarah enthuse about their teammate Caitlin and realizing that Sarah's a lesbian, Roxy freaks out at the prospect that Sarah might have ulterior motives.
  • Involuntary Shapeshifter: During the Claremont run, Fairchild was turned into a shape-shifting, purple goo-monster. Of course this being Claremont...
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: With the notable example of Nice Girl Caitlin, the entire team falls into Jerkass behavior from time to time — Grunge and Sarah being particularly likely to act like self-centered jerks — but it's mainly because they're teenagers. When it comes down to it, they are still heroes, and will do the right thing.
  • Lipstick Lesbian: Sarah Rainmaker although it took a while for her to truly come out as one. She is often actually seen attending protests and demonstrations on behalf of the LGBT community and has a tendency to lecture her teammates when they (often) fail to live up to her standards of political correctness. (Usually without much success.)
  • Lovable Sex Maniac: Grunge is a pervert and often tries to hit on Caitlin Fairchild constantly, in many maneuvers that sometimes violate her right to privacy. And sometimes also with Rainmaker.
  • Male Gaze: On all the girls, but especially on Caitlin Fairchild.
  • Matriarchy: The Koda.
  • Mistaken for Masturbating: Inverted. In the Gail Simone version, Grunge was shown as being a geekish, mommy-boy kid. Wanting to "reinvent himself", he cleverly and systematically rebels against it, for example disposing of all his anti-asthma medications, vitamins and dietary supplements in the toilet while faking a double-entendre laced The Immodest Orgasm just to mess with his family.
  • Morality Pet: Rainmaker attempts to serve as the voice of reason for Grunge's attitude, going roundly ignored.
  • Most Common Superpower: Caitlin, as shown in that trope's page image. In a bit of a twist, Caitlin's physique is a direct part of her powers, and whenever her powers are transferred, so are the boobs. When working alongside power-absorber Grunge, Hilarity Ensues.
  • Ms. Fanservice: All the three main girls, especially Caitlin that is the poster girl of the comic.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: There is the occasional hint that Grunge might be smarter than he lets on, though this Depends Heavily On The Writer. The original writing team of Brandon Choi and J. Scott Campbell had him mostly as The Ditz, but occasionally displaying some surprising Hidden Depths. Adam Warren's Grunge, however, is pretty much exactly as stupid as he appears — whereas Gail Simone's Grunge is directly stated to be the most intelligent member of the team, just acting the carefree fool as a means of rebellion.
  • Oblivious to Love: Freefall has feeling for Grunge, but he never note because too interested in Fairchild. Shortly afterwards, Grunge finally returned her affections and the two became romantically involved.
  • Photographic Memory: Grunge has this, but tends to keep this fact to himself for fear of being thought a nerd.
  • Power of Friendship: Ellis' DV8 had really dark take on this trope - friends watching each other's back becomes a necessary thing to survive for the entire cast.
  • Psycho Rangers: The Deviants from DV8.
  • Reality Warper: Fairchild became this after her death, creating an entire universe (the Claremont run) as a way of bringing her team back to life.
  • Redhead In Green: Caitlin's powers awaken when she wears a green nightgown. The now torn-up dress is featured on the cover of the first issue.
  • Robotic Reveal: Anna's a demure maid who cooks and cleans for the group, looking very much annoyed when her carefully cooked breakfast goes ignored in favor of various snacks, junk food and cold pizza. Then she turned out to be an assassin droid with concealable blades and weapons of destruction.
  • Secret Project Refugee Family: The kids are all escapees from a secret government program.
  • Similar Squad: The "Mongolian Barbecue Horde" from Adam Warren's run.
  • Smoking Is Cool: Present, but downplayed, with Roxy. She smokes cigarettes, though this habit only really comes up when she's in her "Bad Girl" mode. The rest of the time her smoking is barely even mentioned.
  • Soapbox Sadie: An oft-mocked facet of Sarah's personality
  • Spiritual Successor:
    • Of Team 7, being the group formed by children of some of The Squad, and being aided by John Lynch and Alex Fairchild, original members of this team.
    • The Spin-Off Gen 12 has Gen¹³ teaming-up with the surviving members of Team 7, like Deathblow, Grifter, Backlash and Wetworks' Dane, apart of Lynch of course.
  • Statuesque Stunner: Caitlin, of course!
  • Steven Ulysses Perhero: Much of the cast had names or nicknames that would come to perfectly symbolize their powers. However, there may actually be a legitimate yet subtle explanation behind it: Their parents (Gen-12) all had Super Serum psychic powers, which they could barely control. As such, it's likely that when Gen-13 inherited their powers, their psychic nature meant the powers would manifest themselves as reflections of their wielders in terms of their subconscious desires and motivations:
    • Caitlin Fairchild was a nerdy shy wallflower who wanted attention and to be strong, and now she has a very fair body to say the least.
    • Percy "Grunge" Chang is a wannabe who changed his appearance and colors his personality to not be seen as nerd and thus has the power to mimic the properties of anything he touches.
    • Robert "Burnout" Lee is an angsty musician who's burnt-out regarding his passion for music and thus may be looking for something to re-ignite his passion or fire for music.
    • Roxanne "Free Fall" Spaulding was a Shrinking Violet who was always pushed around and now wishes to push back against people and force them down and levitate herself above them.'
    • Sarah Rainmaker is pretty self-explantory. Furthermore, consider what practice that is commonly associated with Amerindians regarding supernatural abilities.
  • Superpowerful Genetics: They inherit powers from the genetic Super-Soldier project that produced Team 7 and other gen-actives. Naturally, these powers have nothing to do with their parents' powers, which were psychic powers they could barely control (though as noted above, said powers appeared to become a reflection of them.)
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Near the end of Simone's run, Grunge is forced to kill Kid Apollo in order to stop the Authoriteens from killing the rest of his friends. Since this is the first time Grunge ever had to kill someone, instead of simply brushing it off he spends weeks feeling guilty as a result of PTSD.
  • Take That!: Issue #8 of Simone's run has the kids fight The Authority, with Roxy going on a tirade about how much they suck and how they're always ruining everything. This may have been a dig at Grant Morrison, whose aborted run on Authority was supposed to set the tone for Worldstorm but which ended up being cancelled, leaving writers like Simone to fend for themselves as people became increasingly unsure of what Worldstorm was supposed to be.
  • Team Dad: John Lynch, who asembled and protects the group. Also Alex Fairchild, Caitlin and Freefall's father, who reentered his daughters lives and helps the group until his death during the series.
  • The Movie: In 1999, Disney, of all companies produced an animated direct-to-video adaptation of the film. It can be noted that despite being Disney, it is much Darker and Edgier than their other direct-to-video projects that borders between PG-13 to R with intense action violence, profanity, brief nudity and blood and gore. Never officially released in the US.
  • Town Girls: Rainmaker (Femme), Fairchild (Neither) and Freefall (Butch).
  • Took a Level in Badass: Grunge. He starts out as your more than average nerd with genius IQ and photographic memory. And the first name... Percy. So he starts working out, hides his book smarts and his photographic memory, starts using his middle name, trains in martial arts and starts skateboarding. And turns into a stereotypical 'stupid' musclebound frat boy slacker by the start of the series when we first see him. And then he gets superpowers.
    • In the current reboot is made clear that Grunge is actually a kind Papa Wolf to his teammates, feeling compelled into amassing degrees in Badass to better care for them, hiding behind the slacker facade.
  • Too Much Information: One issue is kind enough to add to Freefall's misfortune of being kidnapped by pirates and forced to cook for them by telling us that she's "riding the crimson wave." Thanks, Roxy.
  • Totally Radical: When Grunge is nearly killed, then recovers, he declares this is "Gnarly!". Freefall declares "Grunge, baby, that is so totally mondo rad!". The first story-arc is full of dialogue like this.
  • Twofer Token Minority: Sarah Rainmaker, Native American lesbian. Her personality rarely went beyond that.
    • Claremont's run had Hamza Rashad, a Black Muslim in a wheelchair.
  • Villainous Incest: In between flirting with every other male in range, Bliss comes on to Threshold, her brother, brazenly and constantly. He doesn't seem to mind too much.
  • Vomit Discretion Shot: Caitlin's developing powers came with powerful migraines and nausea, to the point she vomited off the side of her bed on the night of her transformation.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: With the cancellation of the first run a number of outstanding storylines - most notably the disappearance of Lynch - were never resolved.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Hotness:
    • Caitlin Fairchild's gen-activation changed her from a redhead Shrinking Violet geek girl to an Amazonian Beauty.
    • Ja'nelle Moorhead's gen-activation turned her from a short, overweight wannabe-rapper into a Statuesque Stunner, so basically the same as Caitlin's.

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