All super-teams seem to wear some form of Spandex. Whether it’s actual Spandex, like the X-Men, or the Fantastic Four’s unstable molecules, super heroes have always been partial to form-fitting costumes. Writer/artist Martin Eden’s new independent super team comic book “Spandex” breaks new ground, though not by its costumes, awesome as they may be, but by the people wearing them. “Spandex” is an England-based comic that features an all-LGBT lineup, including lesbian, gay, and transgender crime fighters, with names such as Glitter, Diva, Mr. Muscles and their leader, Liberty. Together, the team fights villains like a 50-foot tall lesbian who tears through Brighton in southern England, while also trying to remain focused on the task at hand when teammates start to become more than just teammates.
In the last years the author Martin Eden has been tirelessly plugging away at creating and self-publishing his own mini-comics, chiefly his superhero soap opera “The O Men”. He’s never been short of critical plaudits, and The O Men is surely one of the most successful British small press comics ever published, but that success never quite translated to mainstream acceptance. That all changed late in 2009, when Martin created his new mini-comic series, Spandex, featuring what was touted as the world’s first gay superhero team. The story was picked up by national newspapers and sales of the comic quickly outstripped those of The O Men. Nominated for a prestigious Eagle Award for “Best British Colour Comic“, Martin Eden’s small press super-hero team book Spandex has garnered an incredible amount of mainstream attention. With radio, television and national newspaper coverage, Eden’s group of all-gay super-heroes has certainly caught the media’s eye.
Spandex live in a recognizable Brighton (where else would a British gay superhero team be based?), and while the comic is ostensibly a superhero saga, Martin’s more interested in the relationships between the team-members – who spend a sizable proportion of the story hopping in and out of bed with one another (and with their nemeses) – than he is in bouts of fisticuffs. There are those too, of course, but the charm of the comic comes in its quieter moments – the team’s “off-duty” home lives, their intimate exchanges, irreverent conversations, catty squabbles and fleeting, sometimes furtive glances.
But beyond that, beyond the brilliantly simple idea of a gay superhero team, beyond the deft characterization (each member of the team is color-coded, but also possessed of their own individual personality, with team leader Liberty, a guy who wears a female power-suit, being particularly well-defined), culturally specific references, jokes and fight scenes, what makes Spandex work is its emotional core. As with all of Martin’s work, there’s an intimacy to the piece, born of his personal thoughts and fears and concerns, something he explores more explicitly in a handwritten note at the back of Spandex’s first collection book published by Titan Books. As he says: “Whether you’re gay or straight, sometimes the pressures of day-to-day life can take their toll. This story deals with that (if you read between the lines a bit), and beyond the ‘gay zombies’ and hermaphroditic villain of this issue, it is a very personal story to me.”
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