Title: The O Men Volume 4: Tricks
Issues: 10-12
Written by Martin Eden
Art by Martin Eden
Lettered by Martin Eden
Published by Obscene Comics
The British don’t do superheroes.
Now that may sound a strange statement when sat side by side with the fact that Mark Millar, Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis are the hottest (full time) superhero writers at the moment whilst Bryan Hitch, Frank Quitely and Trevor Hairsine produce some of the most jaw droppingly gorgeous work on America’s finest heroes. But the fact remains that the British comic scene is bereft of superheroes to call its own. Indeed you can count the number of established superheroes on one hand Captain Britain (Marvel UK), Zenith (Grant Morrison’s most fondly remembered 2000AD work), Marvelman (Miracleman in the US) and my personal favourite The Dandy’s Bananaman*. These are of course all excellent in their own different ways although all (with the exception of Bananaman) owe much to the idea of deconstructing superheroes that Moore would popularize with his seminal work Watchmen. Now one Martin Eden attempts to live up to the legacy of domestic British superheroes with his self-published The O-Men.
The O-Men has blazed a trail on the Small Press scene for some time now and has been the object of gushing praise in the largest British comic magazine (Comics International) with scores of 9s commonplace. Indeed it became a source of controversy with the reviewer/editor disagreeing on whether it warranted a 10**. So the question has to be does it live up to the hype or is the hype…well…er…hype? Well thanks to Shane Chebsey of Smallzone and his providing me of their 4th TPB we can have a look.
The back story is simple (and for one who has read nothing to do with this characters before very effectively established); a former of the superhero team The UK Knights Doctor O has learnt that his nemesis Anathema has return from the dead with the intention on gaining revenge on her enemies. She has possessed the body of a woman named Stephanie and after killing all her friends is spying on Doctor O. Doctor O decides he needs help as he can’t defeat her by himself so he asks a group of semi-retired superheroes to form a new team to defeat her…to be called The O-Men presumably on the grounds that if such rampant egotism was good enough for a crippled baldy its good enough for him. They refuse…or do they?
This is a very good superhero book that is at both times modern and retro. Eden embraces many of the clichés featured in yarns that Claremont spun including the challenge of surprising an eavesdropping telepath, the getting stuck in a trap of many strange and confusing worlds and the classic fighting the villain whilst everyone pretends to go to a party. Eden in many ways embraces them and plays them in a straight (if slightly twisted) way with the strange and confusing worlds being different films/movies including a cheeky send up of the absurd prejudices of early Avengers and a fantastic sequence based around the writings of Sylvia Plath building towards her suicide. It is perhaps this scene that shows the duality at the center of The O Men’s appeal, the scene is in content extremely shocking with electric shock treatment, self mutilation and near suicide all shown yet as its underlying structure is quite traditional with the conclusion an old favourite.
So where does this fizz that breathes new life and adds weirdness to old clichés come from. Well one of the obvious elements is the craftsmanship of Martin Eden as both writer and artist. His art is straight out of the Queen and Country/Love and Rockets minimalist mould with very simple drawings on basic backgrounds. Such art is an acquired taste but bearing that in mind it’s still very good with plenty of energy and life in his artwork. His character designs are distinctive and give you a good grasp of the type of character you’re dealing with especially the designs for Miss Scarlet and Doctor O. Interestingly none of them are presenting as body-beautiful types, indeed they all look rather ordinary. In contrast to this unusual linework style (for a superhero comic anyway) his layouts are quite traditional grid panels although he does cram a lot into each page with six or seven panels a (US format) page being the norm.
His writing bears more than a passing resemblance to the work of Chris Claremont in his eighties heyday in its emphasis on the soap opera of superheroes instead of merely telling the story of their fights and battles with villains. However, despite this similarity you’re dealing with a very different beast for one thing Eden is a very efficient and concise writer with the caption boxes so beloved by Claremont absent in addition to which he’s actually got an ear for dialogue with his characters talking like actual human beings instead of Stars Wars characters. However, the major difference is the range of experiences and “topics” he chooses to cover, for example the love triangle is not between two alpha males and a torn woman but a bisexual woman choosing between a lesbian and a man. He also has raised “issues” such as HIV, mental depression, adultery and incest. By the way, in case you’re wondering the quotation marks around topics and issues is on purpose. Eden unlike say Judd Winick doesn’t come across as grandstanding or preaching when he introduces these issues instead they seem to be there simple as part of the story. Now partly this is because as the ever-excellent Paul O’Brien has argued that Judd Winick is working in a universe founded on the attitudes on the 1940s/60s and so is predominantly populated by straight, white men whilst Eden on the other hand is working in a world designed in the past few years. However, with that allowance made the fact is that Eden simply handles the topics better not uses them to hammer home a point but just letting them speak for themselves, for example the HIV issue is mentioned once in the whole TPB whilst the sexuality of Abby and Sam (the two women in the love triangle) is only ever alluded to in the middle of the triangle and even then there’s none of the “only gay in the village” posturing that writers of Northstar mistake for deep characterization (oh woe-betide this absolutely hideous prejudice). Instead they act as real people in today’s society would…they get on with their lives***.
And that brings us to what may be the primary attraction of The O Men-the characters! Its always been argued as to what’s more important with deconstruction superhero comics-the characters or the deconstruction and its certainly true that for many people the latter is more captivating than former especially as in many cases the former are updated versions of existing characters/archetypes. Neither is true for The O Men as Eden goes to great lengths to give the characters there own identity and voice. For example prospective team leader Rob (and girlfriend of Abby as we start this TPB) is not the vanilla rock cut out of the Captain America/Cyclops mould instead he is an ordinary young man who plays the hero out of awe for his superhero dad. Abby and Sam are likewise extraordinarily well-defined characters with their conversations as they attempt to rekindle their relationship being natural and unforced. Perhaps the best two characters are Doctor O and Miss Scarlet due to the fact that they are the most distinctive in appearance and character with Miss Scarlet in particularly being very mysterious and interesting.
The villain Anathema is interesting as well especially in the amazing second issue (of a three issue collection) which is told entirely from her point of view and sees her battling the remaining conscious of the person whose body she has overtaken. This is an amazing piece of writing (if slightly marred by some confusing scenes) with the fractured narrative and enthralling confrontation making for one of the best single issues I’ve ever read. Sadly the comic doesn’t reach these heights very often either in sheer quality or inventiveness but even so it’s a very good modern take on superheroes with a nice line in mature, no holds barred soap opera and inventive sci-fi.
*Bananaman is a kid’s comic strip about the tales of Derek and can be summed up by its famous intro line “when Derek eats a banana he becomes BANANAMAN”. I actually know the character more through watching the cartoons as a kid and the concept and its execution is fantastic.
**Comics International has a big thing about 10s and how they should be pure perfection itself. Personally I’ve always gone for “extremely excellent” than perfect.
***I must declare the fact that I really dislike Judd Winick’s writing finding it boring, patronising and more white/hetero/male-centric than he realises.
Thanks to Shane Chebsey of SMALLZONE for providing us with materials for this review
