In 1983, during a period of financial uncertainty for Charlton,.^[4] 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.^[5]

Staton did the artwork, with stories written by Martin Pasko, Paul Kupperberg, Cuti, and Staton himself.^[5] In the course of the run, Staton acquired certain rights to the character from First, although First Comics retained ownership of those stories that had been published by them. As Staton described in an interview published in 2001,

The deal with E-Man was that I had an arrangement with First Comics so that they bought the rights to E-Man from Charlton, and then I was to repay First all their expense out of my royalties. The rights to E-Man were then supposed to revert to me completely. But some of us needed more lawyers than we knew, and the end result of how it stands, as I understand it, is that I have the right to do any new E-Man stories I want to, and I have the right to license any new E-Man material I want. Ken Levin, the lawyer for First, controls the rights to what First published. To keep the rights unified, Ken and I decided he would represent the whole E-Man package. ... [W]hatever I get in, Nick [Cuti] gets 50Several years after the cancellation of the First Comics series, Comico published an E-Man one-shot (Sept. 1989) by Cuti and Staton,^[7] followed by a three-issueminiseries (Jan.-March 1990).^[8] After Comico's demise, Alpha Productions did two one-shot publications, E-Man (Sept. 1993) and E-Man Returns (1994).^[9][10]

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 and Station reteamed for three one-shots by Digital Webbing Press published the one-shots E-Man: Recharged (Oct. 2006); E-Man: Dolly (Sept. 2007); and E-Man: Curse of the Idol, per its cover-logo trademark, a.k.a. E-Man: The Idol, as copyrighted, per its postal indicia (Nov. 2008), each with Cuti & Staton as the creative team, abetted by co-writer Randy Buccini on the third.^{[11][12][13][14]} The indicia for each listed E-Man as copyrighted by "Joe Staton/First Comics".^{[citation needed]}

A previously unpublished E-Man story (done originally for Alpha Productions) by Cuti & Staton, saw print in Charlton Spotlight #6 (2008), along with an unpublished Mike Mauser story.%, but so far, it's been nothing.^[