E-Man Meets the Church of Scien--Er, I Mean Technolography
Back in the early 80s First revived E-MAN with, for a while, everybody's go-to guy for unsatisfyingly reviving old properties(he also preceded Alan Moore on SWAMP THING, which he was also writing at this time--remember the "Quincy"-ish "punk vampires" story?The first one I mean), Martin Pasko. With E-MAN he decided to turn it from a lighthearted and comedic superhero book to a parody book. Which had its moments, and was certainly more enjoyable than the ones Staton did by himself later, sad to say. For instance, his 2-issue X-Men parody helped get me the hell away from them. Here's another: an early assault, at the height of its malevolence, on the Church of Scientology. It's not very hard-hitting(Steve Gerber did a better job on them in STEWART THE RAT, along with Werner Erhard and a few others) but here are some of the better moments. With sweet cartooning goodness from the under-appreciated Joe Staton. Meet Elrod Flummox.
The reference in the first panel below is to Paulette Cooper, who was targeted by the Church of Scientology for writing "The Scandal of Scientology", one of the first major exposes of the cult, in 1970, by, among other things, framing her as a terrorist with false bomb threats.