Gen13

Rainmaker

Sarah Rainmaker is an Apache Indian and a lesbian who can control the weather. She can fly as well.

Fairchild

Caitlin Fairchild, a brainy, well-built redhead. She acquired super strength and is the unofficial leader of the team.

Burnout

Bobby Lane can create fire and is invulnerable to all kinds of heat. He can fly too.

Freefall

Roxy is the youngest member of the team. She can alter gravity in the area around her and fly by levitation.

Grunge

Percival Chang can turn his body into whatever type of substance he is touching. However, he can't fly.

One thing that bears mentioning about the comic book series Gen13 is that it's drawn rather lasciviously. J. Scott Campbell is a great artist, and he likes to draw the female form. Often when Fairchild uses her powers, her clothes seem to self-destruct magically, leaving her barely covered.

Gen13 was written with the intent of drawing in a teenage crowd in the middle 1990s. The main characters were young, teenagers themselves, and not only had to deal with superhero issues, but also with growing up and finding a place for themselves in the world, both as an adult, and as a superhero. This is also the same topic that Spiderman the comic, and more recently, Spiderman the Movie covered. Smallville is also exploring the issues of growing up superhero, as it pertains to Superman.

Gen13 was popular in the beginning, but as seemed endemic at Image Comics its initial popularity waned, and the comic seemed doomed to fall into obscurity.

However, Image is attempting a rebirth, starting with the release of a new series starting with Gen13 0 in July 2002.

Gen 13 was made into a full-length animated feature in 1998, but, as far as I know, was never released in the US. It's about 1.5 hours long and details the origins of the Gen 13 team, their training, how they came into their powers, etc. The friend I borrowed it from believes it may have been a pilot for an animated series, but given the amount of adult content, I doubt it would fly for an American audience. Though most of the nudity is censored out in the version I saw, there is an extended shower scene, and Fairchild's first transformation is fairly explicit. There's also a great deal of strong language (uncensored).

In spite of the above, the movie is surprisingly well-made. It was directed by Kevin Altieri, best-known for Batman: the Animated Series in 1992, and features the voice talents of Mark Hamill as Threshold, Elizabeth Daily as Freefall, Flea as Grunge, Alicia Witt as Fairchild and John DeLancie as Colonel Lynch. As far as I know, it's only available on VHS in Australia.