On The Syndicate Of Super Heroes and other matters
The very first comic strip with the Syndicate of Super Heroes was started back in 2001, and was in Portuguese. At the time, I had become seriously fed up with American superhero comics, since they had taken a direction that made them absolutely woeful to read. First, there was a trick of making the reader shell out more money each month, by having the story continue in a different comic. For example, if you only bought Uncanny X-Men, you’d miss out on what was published in X-Men, and later, Astonishing X-Men. That’s not counting the endless crossovers, where you’d have to buy a dozen different comics a month otherwise you wouldn’t understand what the f**k was going on. The art was becoming bad too, with the 90′s winding down and Rob Liefield, Todd McFarlane and computer-assisted colouring being all the rage at the time. This resulted in awful aesthetics, with characters with exaggerated muscles and tiny heads, shoulder-pads and oversized guns, and incorrect uses of manga influence. And worst of all was a trend that was made very apparent by writers (good examples are Fabian Nicieza and Scott Lobdell on the X-Men titles): endless dialogues, overuse of obscure vocabulary, exaggerated drama (even for superheroes), long-winded stories that focussed far too much on mushy crap that was supposed to give characters depth but just made them look like pussies… I could go on, but I’m repeating myself anyway.
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not to say that Marvel and DC are plain bilge and there’s nothing of substance. I like classic comics (as I’ve mentioned before), and I’m the US still puts out the occasional good comic (there was Top Ten, that was really good). 
But take a step away from superheroes and all the warts start to become apparent. Would I start wearing my underpants on top of my trousers if I suddenly gained the ability to fly and shoot rays? It dawned on me that I should put my money where my mouth is and pencil to paper, and draw the hell out of the concept.
So in a few nights I had come up with the characters. Each would represent a specific sort of superhero character, and I’d envisioned a short story where I’d mercilessly lampoon comics starring brightly-clad plonkers. Unfortunately, as was customary at the time, without a previously penned plot, I’d lose focus and the comic would end up incomplete. But then I picked the idea up again in 2004, and you can read the result for yourselves.
The very first strip was actually part of an ongoing series Extra-Caffeine, which I’ve written about before, and set the tone of the future strips. Pants-Man (now Sort-It-Out Man) would be my generic superhero surrogate. The generic superhero is the individual with amazing strength, who can fly, wears a stereotypical superhero costume and is noble and over-dramatic to point of nausea, perhaps epitomised best by Superman and Thor. Flea-Man is the oddball superhero with animal powers, perhaps best exemplified by Spiderman, though if you dig deep enough you’ll find it’s a pretty common type of character in comics.
Then there’s Mavorotheras, who’s a mix of Wolverine, the Punisher, Spawn and other anti-heroes, who are gritty and dark, and punch/shoot/let sparks fly out their arses and ask questions later. The Atomic Fly is my Iron Man, who depends on his armour for powers and thinks he’s a womaniser. Captain Unbelievable is a sort of Batman-esque character, the type of hero who doesn’t have powers but stands around with a cape all about him looking cool. And Multi-man is my rendition of those super hero group members who aren’t that powerful, look f**king weird and don’t seem like they have any business being superheroes in the first place, since they’re so left-field and don’t fit in.
In case you haven’t noticed, there are no superheroines. That’s not by chance, since the truth is no woman would ever join a group of males to cavort with in skin-tight clothing every day, unless she’s either a prostitute or an actress. And foremost, my heroes aren’t incorruptible, noble and flawless. They smoke, they get drunk, they swear like sailors. They will resort to underhand tactics to get out of tricky situations. They don’t have a state-of-the-art headquarters with a super-computer and a futuristic jet on hand.
On a completely different note, I’d like to acknowledge the friends and ex-friends who served as a basis for the characters, especially Sort-It-Out Man, Mavorotheras and The Atomic Fly, who originally came up with the names of their characters. I simply and unashamedly swiped them for use in this comic. Ta, lads.
