E-Man

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Publication information
E-Man
E-Man #1 (First Comics)
Publisher	Charlton Comics, First Comics, Comico, Alpha
First appearance	E-Man #1 (1973)
Created by	Nicola Cuti, Joe Staton
In story information
Alter ego	Alec Tronn
Abilities	energy-based

E-Man is a fictional comic book superhero created by writer Nicola Cuti and artist Joe Staton for Charlton Comics in 1973. Though the character's original series was short-lived, the lightly humorous hero has become a cult-classic sporadically revived by various independent comics publishers.

1 Publication history
2 Fictional character biography
3 Footnotes
4 References

[edit] Publication history

[edit] Charlton Comics

The character premiered in E-Man #1, the first of ten issues (Oct. 1973 - Sept. 1975) published by the Derby, Connecticut-based Charlton Comics. For the last four, artist Staton created painted covers, a comics rarity at the time.

The stories were humorous and lighthearted, in the style of Plastic Man, especially as E-Man could form himself into anything he wanted.

E-Man #4 (Aug. 1974). Cover art by Joe Staton.

Backup features were Cuti and Tom Sutton's "The Knight", starring a superspy agent of C.H.E.S.S.; Joe Gill and Steve Ditko's "Liberty Belle"; two stories of writer-artist Ditko's fascinatingly bizarre, superhero Objectivism tract^{[citation needed]}, "Killjoy"; the time-traveling "Travis", by Cuti and Wayne Howard; and, in the color-comics debut of John Byrne, four stories of "Rog-2000", written by Cuti and starring a wiseacre, cigar-smoking robot Byrne had created in his fan-artist days.

A supporting character, the grubby but right-hearted detective Mike Mauser, got his own backup series in Charlton's Vengeance Squad. An additional E-Man story, which introduced his energy-being "sister", Vamfire, appeared in the company's in-house fan magazine, Charlton Bullseye #4.

In 1977, the original 10-issue run was reprinted by a company called Modern Comics for sale as bagged sets in discount department stores across North America.

[edit] First Comics

In 1983, during a period of financial uncertainty for Charlton, the company sold independent publisher First Comics the rights to E-Man. First's E-Man ran 25 issues (April 1983 - Aug. 1985), with the company also publishing a seven-issue miniseries, The Original E-Man and Michael Mauser, that reprinted those characters' Charlton stories.

Staton did the artwork, with stories written by Martin Pasko, Paul Kupperberg, Cuti, and Staton himself.In the course of the run, Staton acquired the copyright to the character from First, although First Comics retained ownership of those stories that had been published by them.

Steve Ditko's "Killjoy", a two-issue backup feature

[edit] Later publications

After First Comics went out of business, Comico published an E-Man one-shot (Sept. 1989) by Cuti & Staton, followed by a three-issue miniseries (Jan.-March 1990). After Comico's demise, Alpha Productions did a one-shot in (Sept. 1993), as well as three ashcan previews of that issue.

E-Man appeared in the two-page story "Come and Grow Old With Me", by Cuti and Staton, published in the magazine Comic Book Artist #12 (March 2001).

Cuti & Station reteamed for two one-shots by Digital Webbing Press published the one-shots E-Man: Recharged (Oct. 2006) and E-Man: Dolly (Sept. 2007), each with Cuti & Staton as the creative team.^[1] The indicia for each listed E-Man as copyrighted by "Joe Staton/First Comics".

[edit] Fictional character biography

E-Man is a sentient packet of energy thrown off by a nova. Traveling the galaxy he learned about life, how to duplicate the appearance of life, and good and evil. Reaching Earth, he met exotic dancer/grad student Katrinka Colchnzski, also known as Nova Kane (novocaine), and formed himself into a superhero he called E-Man, with a civilian identity he dubbed "Alec Tronn" (electron). His emblem was the famous mass-energy equivalence formula "E=mc²", and his powers included firing energy blasts from his hands, changing his appearance, and transforming part or all of his body into anything he could envision (e.g., turning his feet into jet engines so he could fly).

Nova would later be caught in a nuclear explosion and gain the same powers as E-Man and become his partner; later still, she would lose her powers and become a normal human being again. During their early adventures they picked up a pet koala named Teddy Q, whose intelligence grew to the point where he had a job waiting tables in a cafe.