We're slated to kick things off with a bang tomorrow, 9/14, but just to have some fun, I want to showcase a couple of ads that showed up prior to the launch of the original five-issue mini-series. June of 1993 saw the publication of issue one of the WildC.A.T.s Trilogy, so named because it lasted for three issues and featured the WildC.A.T.s. This is about as straightforward as 90s comics ever got, so be grateful.
Because the cover is a chromium-infused abomination, my scanner went for my balls when I tried to get an image of it, so I won't be showing you one. Thankfully it isn't the cover we're interested in, but rather four pages in the back, which advertised a forthcoming title from Wildstorm via full-page pinups from J. Scott Campbell and Alex Garner. My scanner was far more cooperative with these, so here they are:
Campbell and Garner finished it up with this little beauty right on the inside back cover, so boys who felt their groin stirring could go to the local comic shop in August of 1993 and remind the owner to stock the new book, which Wildstorm planned to call . . .
"Gen X".
On the one hand, the title makes sense. The kids depicted are all teenagers, thus making them members of the so-called "Generation X", which comprised people born between 1965 and 1980. Also, 'X' is just, you know, cool. It's a letter with street cred. If there is a single letter of the English alphabet that knows a guy who knows a guy who knows how to get you hooked up with some primo weed, it's definitely 'X'.
The problem was the letter X's specific association with one of the consistently best-selling comic books of the decade. Compounding the issue was that Marvel had their own book, entitled Generation X, ready to debut in 1994. This was an off-shoot of the X-Men line, featuring a team of six mutant teenagers all struggling to cope with the transition to adulthood while learning how to kick some supervillain booty. Marvel's lawyers quickly told Wildstorm that their idea for "Gen X" was a non-starter, and since Marvel was the 900-pound gorilla of the industry, Wildstorm was like, "It's cool, we can work this out."
Two months later, when issue #2 of WildC.A.T.s Trilogy arrived on store shelves, it came with a new two-page ad featuring some slightly re-worked art:
And just like that, "Gen X" became Gen 13, which was now "Coming Soon". If you saw this back in the day, you had to wait until February of the following year to get your Gen 13 on. Today, however, you only have to wait a little over twelve hours, which means I am theoretically better at managing deadlines than all the Image staff combined.
I guarantee, this is the only time in my life where that will be true. See you all tomorrow!