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Mike Mauser

kevinburtonsmith

Created by Nicola Cuti
Pseudonyms include Nick Cuti
(1944-2020)
and Joe Staton

“My name is MAUSER…which is also the name of my pistol. In my profession, it’s the only reliable friend that I have. I’m a private eye and this is my story…”

MIKE MAUSER, he of small stature, coke bottle glasses and repulsive eating habits, has had one of the longest, strangest trips of any comic book private eye I’ve found. He first showed up as a sometime sidekick to a superhero way back in 1974. The superhero, E-MAN, is an alien with the power to rearrange his molecular structure at will. In the third issue, Mauser is hired by E-Man’s (very) human girlfriend, Nova Kane, a part-time geology student and exotic dancer (stripper) at the Moist Palms Club, to rescue her kidnapped friend, Rosie Redd. Seems E-Man’s too busy off saving the world or something, so Nova turns to Mauser for help, after spotting one of his flyers which reads, “Michael Mauser, Private Eye. No job too big or too too small.”

Eventually, E-Man and Mauser meet and hit it off, and Mike became a more-or-less regular in the series, with even an occasional back-up story all his own. (Check out the hilarious Magnum P.I. spoof “Mauser P.I.” that appeared in E-Man #4).

But the weirdness goes on… E-Man, in his human identity of Alec Tronn, poses as Mauser’s assistant, making Mauser “the only private eye in town with a sidekick who was a superhero from outerspace.”

You could look it up…

There were other characters who popped up now and then, including Teddy Q., a dancing, singing koala, and Donald Dukes, Mauser’s yuppie nephew.

Creator Joe Staton claims he based Mauser on Ratso Rizzo, the Dustin Hoffman character in Midnight Cowboy. He was never intended to be anything more than a sidekick/straightman to E-Man — one more comic figure in the light-hearted adventures — but eventually he began to take on a life of his own. He started showing up regularly as a backup feature in another short-lived Charlton mag, Vengeance Squad, in 1975. Unlike the E-Man stories, however, these were straight-ahead detective tales, definitely on the harder-boiled, if not noir, side. No superheroes, no dancing, singing koalas. It was in Vengeance Squad that Mike first acquired a secretary, Bambi Baxter, soon to be replaced by Nova’s old friend, Rosie Redd, who in turn was eventually fired for breaking Mauser’s favorite coffee mug (Mike loves his coffee). His current secretary (and love interest) is Angela Thi Phuong, a Vietnamese war refugee.

Charlton, alas, finally petered out in the late seventies, and Mauser, E Man, et al faded into history. And cult status.

But you can’t keep a good idea down for long. In 1983, First Comics brought E-Man and Mike back for more original stories, (including Mauser’s origins in #24) as well as reprinting the entire Charlton series. And in 1985, Mike teamed up with Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty’s Ms. Tree in The P.I.s, a special three-issue miniseries. In late ’91, Mike even landed his own comic book, although it only lasted one issue. Still, Mauser’s a plucky little scamp, and he keeps popping up in the weirdest places.

Like in a trio of E-Man specials between 2006 and 2008, put out by Digital Weebbing, in which he teamed up with his old pal. Or an old back-up, “Fish Story,” which had originally been intended for Vengeance Squad that finally made it to print in Michael Ambrose’s Charlton Spotlight  in  2008. Or in “Homecoming,” the first chapter of a three part E-Man story published in The Charlton Arrow, in which Mike and Angela finally tie the knot — despite a few wedding day jitters from Mike.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Nicola Cuti, known as Nick Cuti, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, and a sci-fi novelist. Besides creating E-Man with artist Joe Staton, he was responsible for Moonchild, Captain Cosmos, and Starflake the Cosmic Sprite. He also worked as an animation background designer, magazine illustrator and screenwriter.

Joe Saton is just a comics legend, both as writer and artist. He co-created a couple of different versions of DC’s Huntress and P.I. Mike Mauser, and has drawn everyone from Mike Danger, Dick Tracy, E-Man, Green Lantern and Superman to Scooby Doo and Bugs Bunny, as well as—of course—Chris Mills’ Femme Noir and Red “Rusty” Nales, both of whom we ran it right here on this site, back in the day.

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Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

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