The Steam Man of the Prairies by Edward S. Ellis was the first U.S. science fiction dime novel[1] and archetype of the Frank Reade series.

[2] Ellis was a prolific 19th-century author best known as a historian and biographer and a source of early heroic frontier tales in the style of James Fenimore Cooper.

[5] The first novel starts when Ethan Hopkins and Mickey McSquizzle—a "Yankee" and an "Irishman"—encounter a colossal, steam-powered man in the American prairies.

The Steam Man, a five issue limited series co-written by Mark Alan Miller and Joe R. Lansdale and illustrated by Piotr Kowalski, appeared from Dark Horse Comics beginning in 2015.

The character also appears in a few panels of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Nemo: Heart of Ice comics.