Vengeance Squad #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeVengeance Squad #1 (July 1975) marks the debut of three characters — Eric Redd, Candy Orr, and Tulsa Coyle — who together form one of Charlton Comics' few Bronze Age action ensembles built around a team concept rather than a single lead. Structurally, it anticipates the vigilante-for-hire team formula that television would popularize later in the decade, giving the Bronze Age Charlton lineup a rare multi-protagonist street-level adventure title. The issue is doubly significant because its backup feature launched Michael Mauser's first solo stories, promoting a supporting detective from the E-Man series into his own recurring strip — a character whose harder-boiled sensibility outlasted the Charlton era entirely, continuing through First Comics, Digital Webbing Press, and into the 2010s. That dual role — as the origin platform for two separate properties — gives this otherwise modest issue an outsized place in the Charlton catalogue.
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The lead feature was written by Joe Gill, Charlton's extraordinarily prolific staff writer who, over three decades, produced scripts for virtually every genre the Derby, Connecticut publisher released, working at a pace that sometimes yielded a finished manuscript in a single day. Managing editor George Wildman oversaw the book's production, and the cover and lead art were handled by Frank Bolle, while the backup Mauser story was scripted by Nicola Cuti and drawn by Joe Staton — the same team behind E-Man — allowing Charlton to leverage an existing creative relationship and an already-established character. The series ran six issues before concluding in mid-1976, after which all six issues were reprinted in 1977 under Charlton's Modern Comics imprint for sale as bagged three-packs in North American discount department stores.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance and origin of Eric Redd (a former Treasury agent framed for a crime he did not commit who forms the team), Candy Orr (ex-policewoman), and Tulsa Coyle (ex-Marine) — all three introduced and given origin context in the lead story 'Tycoon for the Taking.'
- First solo appearance of Michael Mauser, Private Eye, in the backup story 'The Inheritance,' written by Nicola Cuti and drawn by Joe Staton; Mauser had previously appeared only as a supporting character in E-Man (debuting in E-Man #3, cover-dated June 1974).
- Cover and lead story art by Frank Bolle; the lead story scripted by Joe Gill; the Mauser backup by the E-Man creative team of Nicola Cuti and Joe Staton.
- Managing editor on the issue was George Wildman (credited as George R. Wildman), who oversaw Charlton's line at the time.
- The issue shipped on-sale April 8, 1975, with a July 1975 cover date, per The Comic Reader #117.
- The series ran six issues total (July 1975 – May/June 1977); all six were later reprinted under the Modern Comics imprint in 1977 for discount-store three-pack bags.
- The Mauser backup stories in Vengeance Squad were tonally distinct from E-Man — played straight as harder-boiled detective tales rather than the whimsical superhero style of the parent book.
- First Comics later published a seven-issue miniseries, The Original E-Man and Michael Mauser (1985–1986), reprinting the entire Charlton E-Man run alongside Mauser's Vengeance Squad backup stories, giving this issue's content its first wide-distribution reprint collection.
Cast · 4 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Comic Reader #117 (1975), The Original E-Man and Michael Mauser #2 (1985), Michael Mauser Private Eye #1
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