(No Spoilers)

Well this is the first issue that didn’t sport a backup story, but it seems Beatty and Huddleston prepared this issue long before the decision to end the backup stories was made.  Which makes sense because Wildstorm had stated a while back that their new policy allows them to be months ahead on issues.  So we still get an 18 page story but Beatty and Huddleston do make up for the backup story being absent with an interesting insert at the end which I’ll cover in a bit.

The SK8-GRA-LA story comes to fun action-filled conclusion in this issue.  Beatty and Huddleston have really had a lot of fun with Grunge’s powers during their run.  And that doesn’t stop here as he uses his powers a couple of times to get out of some sticky situations.  Speaking of power use, Roxy has a bright idea about using her powers that I thought was one of the coolest moments in the issue.  Watch for it during a scene where she needs to ‘escape’.  Megan and Dr. Cross’s story are still taking some interesting twists (as seen by last issue’s cliffhanger) and the last scene of this issue has me curious to see what Megan is up to next.  And once again, Rainmaker is not forgotten as we get a quick update of her whereabouts which also shows us what a character from the Number of the Beast series is up to.  Finally, as if Fairchild hadn’t had enough happen to her already, there’s an incident with her that left her scratching her head in story (and in a bad situation), and I’m sure it’ll cause the reader to be scratching their head as well.  And Breakdown of Gen 14 shows another wicked display of her power.  It’s just nasty what she does to this one guy.

Finally, there’s the insert in place of the backup story.  We get two slash-pages of Gen 13 and Gen 14 in place of the backup story which are labeled as being taken from the files of Dr. Cross.  It’s obvious they had to come up with something to quickly fill this space and at first I wasn’t too excited about this.  But then I started reading Dr. Cross’s notes which are scribbled next to each character.  On the Gen 13 picture he drops some interesting information that leaves me wanting to know more about what he means (I think fans will also get a kick at what Grunge’s ‘official’ codename is that Dr. Cross gave him).  The Gen 14 picture was not as informative but it’s good to see that these characters are being given some attention now so we’ll feel like we know them when they inevitably show up later. 

Overall, a good solid issue.   I like how Breakdown is interacting with the team.  She is such a cool character and I look forward to more with her.  It’s too bad this title has gone bi-monthly because now the wait to find out what happens next is twice as long!

Synopsis:

http://wildstormresource.wetpaint.com/page/Gen+13+World%27s+End+%2329