Javaman was created by Reggie O’Donald (art) and Nate Grimaldi (writing) as part of IC Comics Group’s “New Consumers” lineup. The New Consumers were originally intended as a group of foodstuff-related heroes that could provide IC with another revenue source through distribution to local restaurants and eateries. Most of the heroes from that lineup, like Pastaman or the Burger Avengers, were unpopular and quickly canned. Javaman alone survived the cut.

As with many of the IC heroes, Javaman has several origin stories. In the Golden and Silver Age continuity IC used through 1987, he was born Jan Van Aman, an American-Dutch wealthy playboy and heir to the Van Aman coffee fortune. While overseeing a plantation in Malaya that was run like a slave-labor camp, Jan was kidnapped by native laborers and held prisoner. Moved by their plight, he agreed to be infused with the Sacred Coffee Beans of Fuol Gerre, which granted him the power to control coffee-based substances, super-speed, and super strength at the cost of having to constantly drink potent coffee to maintain his powers.

In the rebooted continuity promulgated by IC starting in 1988, Javaman was John Avaman, the owner of an independent Seattle coffee. Upset with his popularity and scruples, agents of the local Stubb’s Coffee empire (changed to the fictional Queequeg’s Coffee after a lawsuit) attempted to assassinate him by puncturing vats full of an experimental super-potent coffee and drowning him. Instead, John Avaman’s cells were hyper-saturated with caffeine, granting him more or less the same powers. Some later limited series and one-shots (like Javaman #391) tried to establish a link between the Golden Age Javaman and the Modern Age one, positing that Jan Van Aman was variously John Avaman’s uncle, surrogate father, wealthy benefactor, or inspiration.

For all the changes in his continuity, Javaman’s rogues’ gallery has been relatively consistent. His most persistent foe has been Unfair Trade, since Javaman #1 an unscrupulous plutocrat with designs on the worldwide coffee market and armies of hired goons and technology at his disposal. The ambiguous Decaffinatrix, a burglar waging a one-woman war on caffeine after a traumatic accident left her unable to enjoy coffee, has been both friend and foe ever since her first appearance in Javaman #55. And the Expressonator, introduced in Javaman #271, has been a perennial favorite as well.

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