E-Man #1

History

The creative seeds of E-Man were planted when Charlton editor George Wildman convinced the publisher's management to attempt a superhero revival, then tasked assistant editor Nicola Cuti with developing a lead title. Cuti's initial concept — a factory-accident victim transformed into an energy being — was rejected by artist Joe Staton as too similar to Charlton's own Captain Atom and Marvel's atomic-origin characters; Cuti reconceived the origin as a packet of sentient energy born from a stellar nova, an idea drawn from his admiration of Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction. Staton designed the visual, basing E-Man's face loosely on Roger Moore, while Cuti specified no cape and insisted the E=mc² formula serve as the chest emblem; Cuti then colored Staton's black-and-white design in yellows and oranges, deliberately avoiding the reds and blues dominating other superhero costumes. To build pre-launch awareness, Cuti distributed photostat illustrations and letters to fanzines including Rocket's Blast ComiCollector and The Comic Reader, announcing Charlton's superhero re-entry and the anthology backup-feature format that Wildman had proposed as a testing ground for new properties.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance and origin of E-Man (civilian alias Alec Tronn — a pun on 'electron'), a sentient energy being born from a stellar nova, written by Nicola Cuti and drawn by Joe Staton; cover-dated October 1973, published by Charlton Comics.
• First appearance of Nova Kane (real name Katrinka Colchnzski — a pun on 'novocaine'), an archaeology/geology grad student at Xanadu University in New York who works as an exotic dancer; she becomes E-Man's partner and love interest.
• First appearance of The Brain, a giant alien intelligence encased in a plexiglas dome who crash-lands on Earth intending to detonate a 'hate bomb'; the story is told in two parts: 'The Beginning' (7 pages) and 'The Brain and the Bomb' (9 pages).
• First appearance of The Knight, a superspy agent of the organization C.H.E.S.S., in the backup story 'Operation: Rotten Apple,' written by Nicola Cuti and fully illustrated (pencils, inks, and letters) by Tom Sutton.
• Cover and interior art on the lead feature are both by Joe Staton, who also lettered the main story; Todd Klein has confirmed the logo design credit.
• The series was designed from the start with an anthology backup format — one-third of each issue was reserved for a new or rotating superhero feature, an editorial directive from George Wildman intended to audition new Charlton superhero properties.
• The issue was later reprinted under the Modern Comics label (1977–1978) for sale in bagged sets at North American discount department stores, though a one-page prose feature from the original printing was the only non-advertisement content omitted from that reprint.
• The original Charlton series ran only ten issues (October 1973 – September 1975) before cancellation, yet the character was subsequently revived at First Comics (25-issue run, 1983–1985), Comico (1989–1990), Alpha Productions (1993–1994), and Digital Webbing Press (three one-shots, 2006–2008), with creator Joe Staton drawing every appearance across the character's entire publishing history.

Cast · 5 characters

Full credits

Key issues in E-Man

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#3 1st appearance — Samuel Boar

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#6 1st appearance — ROG 2000

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#8 1st appearance — Teddy Q