The world is not kind to slowly-paced series these days, especially series with a borderline popular creative team and completely new characters taking over a mediocre previous property, which means Gen 13 is in a lot of trouble. Claremont is writing a very slow "gathering the team" story that hasn't let the readers in on its purpose yet, effectively three issues in, and while Garza and Hope's art is undeniably flashy, it isn't always completely clear in its storytelling. The less spandex approach here is interesting, but Claremont's understanding of modern-day teenagers seems a bit weak, and thus the characters come off as plot objects rather than interesting characters. The new Gen 13 needs a compelling hook, and soon.
Claremont has made his reputation on strong characterization, and so I'm surprised to see how weak it actually is here. The bickering/trust relationship between Dylan and Ethan seems like a lazy shortcut, and their reaction to Caitlin is as unbelievable as it gets. Hey, our mom hired a super-hot young girl to take care of us... let's get mad about it. Ditto the first time we meet Gwen Matsura and her parents, as she doesn't even bother trying to explain her situation to them, but just assumes they wouldn't understand and heads out. It's a teenager type thing to do, and I can accept that part, but what I don't accept is that her parents wouldn't say anything more than basically "have a good day at school." Probably the best character moment comes in the conversation between Dylan, Ethan and their mother. It's remarkably real in contrast to the fake hipness that most of the characters sport throughout.
Leaving aside weak characters, the central premise of the book is still so shadowy as to be non-existent. Something is giving apparently random teenagers powers, and telling them they'll be judged. Not a bad premise, as things go, but with no villain in sight and no clear purpose to these powers, not to mention spectacularly unimpressive origin sequences, it's already getting boring. Claremont has to throw in a convenient mob tie-in to one of the teenagers in order to give some kind of adversary, and in order to get Ethan into the story, he has to again act in what seems like a completely random and plot-subservient manner.
The artwork is stronger this issue than in the last, however, due in no small part to much clearer and strong colors from the always-excellent Studio F. Garza and Hope show off some very impressive crowd scenes, including the morning walk into the high school and Gwen's DJing job at Rockhound. And the characters are much more distinctive than they seemed at first, with even Dylan and Ethan being reasonably easy to tell apart. In addition, the battle in the subway is visually impressive, though it's a shame that Ethan's confrontation with May-Yin couldn't take place on panel a little bit more, although the "Ethan can't even see the blows coming" effect is clearly what Garza was going for.
To be fair, Gen 13 would probably have been a great book back in the late 70s or early 80s, when super-hero team books like New Teen Titans and Uncanny X-Men hadn't been done. In 2002, however, super-hero team books and teen angst has been done to death, and creators need a new hook or at least an incredible talent to really capture readers' attention. So far, Gen 13 is more of the same, and I haven't seen a compelling reason for its existence yet.
