DV8 was a comic-book series published by WildStorm. A spin-off of Gen13, it was originally written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Humberto Ramos. Later, Mike Heisier took over writing and a string of different artists took over the art.
Following Ivan Baiul's ouster from International Operations, she decides to build her own Gen-Active team, but can only gain access to undesirable Gen-Actives, including feral Evo, alcoholic Powerhaus, and loony Copycat. Since she can't hope to appeal to their better natures, she employs a carrot-and-stick method - those who follow orders get all the access to drugs and sex they could want. Those who rebel... don't. Later, Baiul becomes the new head of I/O, and her "Deviants" are absorbed into the organization.
The original series, often subtitled "DV8 vs. Black Ops", lasted 32 issues. After many fits and starts, a new eight-issue miniseries, Gods and Monsters by Brian Wood, was published in 2010.
This series contains examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Powerhaus drinks heavily when he's not on a mission.
- Blank White Void: In issue #5, Copycat gets stuck in a blank white space after accidentally stepping on a teleportation pad.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Bliss forces herself on her brother Threshold in an attempt to wean him off of Ivana Baiul's control.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Subverted. Frostbite was raped by Ivana when he was a teenager, and Threshold is repeatedly raped by her in the present, and the series does not gloss over the psychological harm that she's inflicted on them through her actions.
- Dysfunction Junction: Copycat has multiple personalities, Evo and Powerhaus are addicts, Threshold has serious Mommy Issues and is sleeping with the boss, Bliss literally screws men to death, and Sublime is suicidal. The only half-way sane person on the team is Frostbite, and even he has his own problems.
- Face–Heel Turn: Threshold ends up betraying the team and going rogue.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: Inverted in issue #5, when Copycat gets trapped in a White Void Room. She's already mad with dissociative identity disorder. Spending time in the void allows her personalities to start integrating.
- Horror Hippies: The Twist, a small superpowered cult-family run by a Charles Manson expy called Menlove, who pushed his young, impressionable charges to commit subversive crimes For the Evulz.
- A Love to Dismember: One character's "girlfriend", Lucille, is a head stolen from a store mannequin.
- Mercy Kill: After the rest of the Twist are killed off by the Deviants, poor Blind Lemon asks that Frostbite just bring their home down on her, because she doesn't expect that she'll survive for very long on her own.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Copycat almost manages to reintegrate the fractured pieces of her psyche while she's trapped in a virtual prison. Alas, her teammates rescue her and the shock of being dragged back into the real world fractures her mind again.
- The Pollyanna: Freestyle is pretty upbeat despite being a member of the team.
- Rape as Backstory: Bliss was sexually abused by Menlove back when he was still working for I/O, which may be one of the contributing factors to her psychotic misanthropy and hypersexuality. Frostbite also confides to Copycat that he was raped by Ivana Baiul when he was a teenager.
- Rape Leads to Insanity: Threshold and Bliss were both subjected to sexual abuse, and are the least mentally-healthy members of the team.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After losing his powers, Frostbite fakes his death so that he can get as far away as possible from Baiul.
- Sleeping with the Boss: Threshold is forced into a sexual relationship with Ivana Baiul early in his tenure as the leader of the team so that she can more easily control him.
- Spiritual Antithesis: The series was created to be a darker answer to Gen¹³.
- Split Personality: Copycat has dissociative identity disorder.
- Villain Protagonist: The Series. DV8 is an absurdly morally corrupt team.
