As far as Gen 13 content goes, these two issues (especially #5 pictured above) are light. This is one of those bits you can safely skip over unless you're obsessed with finding every single point where any of the characters show up in other books. I didn't even know about it until I started building a tremendous back issue library of 90s Image books earlier this year and stumbled across it by accident. Even figuring out where to put it in my own Gen chronology was a headache. I eventually decided on right here, between Gen 13 (Vol. 2) #1 and Gen 13: The Unreal World, but ultimately it doesn't matter for reasons which will become clear.
I'm not going to get into the dynamics of all the nonsense happening in the Union storyline up to this point. He's having girl troubles (as all male super-powered beings in Image comics do), for popping away on a super secret mission during the massive "Wildstorm Rising" crossover event that recently concluded. The city of Chicago wants money from him for all the property damage that occurred when he met up with Savage Dragon and the pair went on a drunken bender. And there's this ultra-powerful asshole named Lord Necros, who rules an army of the undead in the New York of a parallel timeline.
The witch Rhiannon in our timeline (last seen interacting with Gen 13 in the aforementioned "The Unreal World") zaps Union from his world to the parallel New York, with plans to use him as their champion. It's in parallel New York that Union meets that world's last batch of resistance to Lord Necros, and learns one of the reasons Necros was able to rise to power is that no counterpart to Union exists in this parallel reality. Rhiannon is betting he'll be strong enough to topple the sorcerer, with help from the last remaining Super-Powered Beings in this dimension. One of whom just happens to be...
...Caitlin Fairchild, along with Alex Fairchild who is alive and accounted for in this timeline.
Thus ends issue five.
In true comic book fashion, we don't get an announcement of the guest appearance of a crossover character until the issue after her surprising appearance. The thing is, the Fairchilds being in this story doesn't do anything to advance the plot. They're just familiar faces to draw the attention of readers who might not have otherwise been interested in Union. What's more, in the parallel world of this issue, Caitlin Fairchild is just an ordinary teenage girl. She's trained in military tactics and combat, since her father was presumably still a part of Team 7 in this world, and he has his telepathic powers. But in this reality, she was never taken by Ivana, never subjected to the experiments which awakened her Gen Factor, and thus possesses none of the abilities we're used to her having. Because of this, she plays no role in the story except to guilt trip Union into fighting Necros after Alex sacrifices himself to drain some of the wizard's power.
Neverthless, this two issue arc does reveal a couple things about the overall Image-verse that are interesting or at least amusing and may or may not come into play later.
First, in issue #5, Alex remarks that he's already lost one daughter to Necros, and he's not about to lose the other. Given that Caitlin is the one still alive, this is just writer Mike Heisler continuing the long con already running in Gen 13 pertaining to the identity of Caitlin's sister, since Alex never names the one who died, and Union doesn't care enough to ask. Kings of the tease, these Image boys.
Second, and far more interesting to me, is Rhiannon revealing to Union (once he's back to his proper universe) that a Necros exists in this world as well. However, he didn't become the monstrosity the Necros of the parallel dimension did. What's more, she guesses that Union's instinct might be to find the Necros of this reality and do something to him. Immediately after telling him of Necros's existance, she asks if Union would have him killed before he has committed a single crime.
Sure, this is basically a restatement of the old philosophical chestnut about whether it is ethical to go back in time and murder, say, Jeffrey Dahmer when he was still a child. But for a 90s book aimed at a primarily teenage male audience, it poses a question that a certain type of reader will wrestle with for a bit. I'd have been that kid for a few hours at least, and I know I'm not alone.
Also, I can't help but notice Rhiannon's choice of tense when she poses the question. "Before he has committed a single crime" seems to indicate that, in the future, he will become a thorn in that world's side. Does he? Not as far as I'm aware, at least not under that particular name. Also as far as I'm aware, Union heeds the advice of the parallel world's Caitlin to stay away from her counterpart in Union's world, making this the last time Union's apt to crop up in the pages of this blog.
And you know? I think I'm perfectly OK with that.
Final Score:
out of
They're not completely irrelevant to the interests of the serious Gen 13 enthusiast, but unless you care about Union, there's not much to recommend this pair of issues. Even if you did care about Union, you were likely getting sick of the constantly rotating conga line of fill-in artists on the book. Art's fine, and the story from a Union-centric point of view is likewise OK. But let's be honest, Union by this point was a failing book that only had a couple more issues left in the tank, and a half-hearted pseudo-crossover with the parallel universe non-powered version of Caitlin Fairchild (not to mention an Alex Fairchild we'd yet to meet in the "normal" world) didn't do it any favors.