E-Man (alter ego "Alec Tronn") was an unfortunately short-lived superhero created by Nicola "Nick" Cuti and Joe Staton for Charlton Comics. The original series ran for 10 issues, from 1973 until 1975. When editor Dick Giordano left for DC in 1968, Charlton cancelled its superhero titles. New editor George Wildman fought to bring them back and Cuti and Staton took the opportunity to pitch their idea.
E-Man was inspired in part by Jack Cole's Golden Age superhero Plastic Man because Cuti wanted the character to have a humorous side. Together, with his girlfriend Nova Kane (!), their comedic banter gave the stories a light-hearted tone. Staton designed E-Man's costume and purposely colored it in a way that wouldn't be derivative of so many other caped heroes.
With the exception of one detail, this story, "The City Swallower", from E-MAN #5 with a cover date of November 1974, was fairly standard E-Man fare. A well-constructed story by Cuti and the criminally-underrated Staton's unique style of cartoon-inspired art is off the charts wonderful here.
Alec gets sidetracked from his beach date with Nova when he spies a mysterious girl disappear into the ocean. He follows after her (turning his arms into giant fins of course) and passes into another dimension where he helps the girl (named Heidi) and her people defeat the titular bad-ass monster with a big mouth called Empirex the Norwol (a riff on the narwhal whale?).
So, what exactly was this detail I mentioned? Well, the character named Heidi has been suggested by a few sites around the 'net that she was intended to be the 70s convention costume queen, Heidi Saha. Well, folks, she was, and here's the proof: a statement by Nick Cuti confirming what has been suspected from an issue of SPOOKY, THE WARREN FANZINE.
E-Man is my favorite superhero and those first ten delicious issues are absolute gemstones. Thanks for the details about Heidi's "secret origin". I might have known this, but if I did I had forgotten that I did. I'm with you on Joe Staton, a criminally underrated talent.
ReplyDeleteI would not have done this if I hadn't found the page I scanned with Cuti's statement, which initiated this post. He and Staton were one of the great comic book teams and they certainly don't get half the credit they deserve either together or separately.
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