"The City Swallower" featured a character based on Heidi Saha, the science-fiction and comic-book costume and cosplay legend. "Liberty Belle", by artist Joe Gill and artist Steve Ditko, was featured in issue #5. The character was to be the company's "women's libber". Artists Mike Vosburg and Dan Adkins worked on the character's development but were replaced by Ditko. "Rog-2000" was featured in issues #6, #7, #9 and #10, written by Cuti with artist John Byrne making his professional comics debut. Rog-2000 was the most popular of the back-up features and Byrne had several ideas to expand the character into its own title. Staton and Byrne formed a friendly rivalry during the feature's run, with each of them inserting sight gags to jab at the other. A supporting character, the grubby but right-hearted detective Michael Mauser, got his own backup series in Charlton's Vengeance Squad. In 1977, six issues were reprinted under the Modern Comics label for sale as bagged sets in North American discount department stores. First Comics When Staton became art director at First Comics, the publisher acquired the rights to the character from Charlton and launched a series. Cuti was asked to write the title, but his obligations to DC Comics prevented him from accepting. The series was initially written by Martin Pasko, who had previously worked with Staton on Plastic Man and Metal Men. After Pasko's run, Staton and Paul Kupperberg wrote the series until Cuti took over as writer with issue #24. As a direct-market publisher not distributed to newsstands, the First series was not obligated to seek Comics Code Authority approval and could address more mature topics than Code-approved comics. Where the Charlton series featured broad whimsical themes, the First Comics series engaged in more specific satire directed at targets including the X-Men, Steven Spielberg, and Scientology. The first 10 issues each contained a one-page parody of the Hostess snack advertisements that ran in comics through the 1970s and 1980s. These parodies were written and drawn by different creators and featured characters from across the independent comics industry. These parodies included: Rog-2000 by John Byrne Mike Mist by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty Pudge, Girl Blimp by Lee Marrs Teddy-Q by Bruce Patterson Omaha the Cat Dancer by Reed Waller Fred Hembeck by Hembeck himself Cutey Bunny by Joshua Quagmire Nexus by Mike Baron and Steve Rude Buck Godot by Phil Foglio Issue #10