Since a Disney Exec said “Infinity War” is the most “Epic Crossover ever” the internet has been set on a mission to disprove this. Stating any number of things being the actual biggest crossover in the history of media. Yet many things seem to have been forgotten about with more abundant meme’s claiming Kingdom Hearts or the Episode of Batman 66 where Batman meets the Green Hornet.
Well now it’s my turn to give my candidate 2011-2016’s War of the Independents published by Red Anvil Comics, boasting 200 characters from various independent publishers over 4 comics. Unfortunately unless you know the american independent comics you’re reaction to every new character will be “Who?” because honestly I’ve only heard of about 6 of them in the book and well it’s also lacking in any form of story (not really a surprise it’s by Scott “why does nobody like me” Lobdell).
The Crossover I’d actually like to talk about has characters even non-Comic readers will know (and a couple of the 200 from War of the Independents). I’m here to tell you about Gen 13 issue 13. So what exactly is Gen 13 issue 13, is it called 13 because thats how many guests are in it?
Created by Jim Lee, Brandon Choi and J. Scott Campbell, Gen 13 is a comic series about 5 teenage runaways hiding from an evil Government agency called International Operations, who gave them superpowers looking for “Gen-Factors” which the team all conveniently inherited from there fathers who where part of the Black Op’s group called Team 7 which also had resident human Grifter from Jim Lee’s other image comics (later Wildstorm when he split from image and later sold his studio to DC Comics). The series was created to increase the number of books produced by image after Rob Liefeld’s departure from the publisher, it was also from Jim Lee and J Scott Campbell to try and distance themselves from image’s style that Rob Liefeld innovated on of lumpy costumes and big guns. So instead we got hot girls in small skin-tight costumes and making wisecracks while smiling. The stories in the series generally focused on 3 out of the 5 characters more than the others, Caitlin Fairchild a 6 foot 6 computer genius who is strong enough to lift a 16 wheeler truck over her head, Caitlin before her transformation was always ignored by boys and many stories revolve around her coming to terms with her new body and releasing what sleazes men can be all while trying not to lose her sweet trusting nature. Roxy Spaulding whose easily identified by the pink streak in her hair and Leather Jacket, youngest member of the team and has telekinetic powers but to avoid the cliche they claim Gravity powers and Edmund P Chang (the focal character of issue 13) who I can best describe as an asian version of Jack Black as a superhero who the artists seem to forget is asian (similar to Jubilee in X-men). Oh and Bobby Lane also known as Burnout and Sarah Rainmaker are also in the team (with the powers of The Human torch from the Fantastic Four and Storm from the X-men respectively).
So other than the titular team of the book who is in Gen 13 issue 13 a comic so big it had to be separated into 3 comics. confusingly marked 13A, B and C which is confusing to anyone who hasn’t read one because A, B and C are often used to mark variant covers of comics, which actually makes things worse considering the meta-commentary of the comic.
The only thing I’ve got left to do is to give you a plot summary because I could just list characters (but I could easily just be listing all my favourite 90’s indie comic characters). The Comic opens with Gen 13 at a comic book store and some nerd takes the variant cover he wants for issue 1 of Captain Pyro, Grunge slips and bashes his head and enters a dream where Sequential Art is under attack from the Frenzy Beast. Grunge wakes up in a Diner with a fairy who looks a lot like Roxy and the Riverdale Gang (Archie Andrews, Ronnie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica) where Ronnie tells Grunge about the Valley of the Dolls which he can get to if he follows the Yellowbrick road accompanied by Roxy-Tink. On his travels on the Yellowbrick road he finds non-other than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trapped in a pile of their own merchandise which the Evil Frenzy Beast trapped them in, and they now only wish to be comic book heroes (a feeling I share anytime I hear news anything about Rise of the TMNT). After saving what was then image comics biggest acquisition he find Fone Bone (from Jeff Smith’s multiple Eisner winning series Bone) in trouble being tortured by the Rat Creatures (also from Bone). Being selfless Superheroes Grunge and Roxy save Fone from his captors and come across the Beans from Larry Marders Beanworld comic strips, who after almost being eaten give directions to image world. Where in quick succession we get Savage Dragon kicking out the Incredible Hulk and Wonder Woman from a club, and a scene of 2 Rob Liefeld character parodies (but they could easily be real ones he was better at coming up with generic characters and team names than finishing comics) reading an evictions notice.
Travelling through Image-Land Grunge goes to a tower where he finds Jim Lee who gives him a magical item from one of his previous jobs. Trying to find this Valley Grunge then meets Spawn who tells him he’d be crazy to go there which causes Mike Allred’s Madman to show up as his escort. Continuing their journey he then meets up with The Maxx and Rainmaker (now in Julie Winters Jungle Queen outfit) who are ambushed by the Frenzy Beasts “Bad-Girls” whose membership includes Witchblade and Lady Mortem (a parody of Lady Death because somebody had to be a spoil sport and not let them use their characters well other than Rob Liefeld). Grunge is then saved by Shi (from her self title series created by William Tucci), Katchoo and Francine (from Strangers in Paradise). They then travel by convertible to the final battle against the Frenzy Beast, where Hellboy, Monkeyman and O’Brien both on loan Dark Horse Comics and created by Mike Mignola and Art Adams, as for Monkeyman and O’Brien just imagine a series where Beast from the X-men and She Hulk team up and you’re not a million miles away. All Our heroes are set upon by the Frenzy Beasts minions (and it’s quite hard to keep track of everyone that is there) until Grunge confronts the Frenzy Beast one on One after getting motivated by motivational speaker Anthony Robbins and using that thing Jim Lee gave him to summon up non other than Wolverine to defeat the Frenzy beasts minions. Grunge one on one with the Frenzy beast realises that the problem with the comics in the 90’s was that there was more a focus on collecting and variant covers than on actual storytelling and defeats him, once conscious Grunge gives up his Chromium variant back to the nerd and realises that there are more important things to comics than hoarding them like enjoying them with friends. A bit hypocritical considering this series opened with 13 variant covers for issue 1 (I also have 2 copies of issue 1).
So is it the most Epic Crossover ever? well it has a story and all the characters. But if you think my summary was jarring the comic has pretty much the same pace, and very few of the cameos actually contribute to the plot. But it is nice to see them all drawn by J. Scott Campbell.
And the actual thing a Disney exec said was “most ambitious” and yes Infinity War is the most ambitious, purely by it being a film and requiring even more people to make, not just by the addition of an actor for each character but special effects artists, musicians for the film score.
But it was nice to dig out this obscure piece of comics history and trivia, especially as due to various right holders changing I doubt there will be another trade of it and the one Image printed people are charging extortionate prices for so you’re only real hope to get it legally is to stumble upon it at a 2nd hand comic store.
