Dr. Mid-Nite- JSA Legacies Project Day 9 #JSApril
In celebration of JSApril, I am creating art of JSA members and their legacies characters whether it’s their successor, former sidekick, or even their kids. Today we are examining the best superhero doctors around: Dr. Mid-Nite
Dr. Mid-Nite
I love when superheroes call themselves doctor and they actually have a doctorate. This was a tough challenge in that I was debating whether to include Dr. Beth Chapel or Dr. Pieter Cross for this project. Chapel is more associated with Infinity Inc. and making her first appearance in the midst of the Crisis. Pieter is more associated with the JSA and is technically the Dr. Mid-nite of my childhood. In an effort to showcase the diverse history of the JSA and their Legacies, I decided to go with Beth Chapel. Also, because I am in the midst of reading every Crisis Tie-in and I was trudging through the Infinity Inc stories at the time.
Dr. Mid-Nite (Dr. Charles McNider)
I love a lot of things about McNider. First, he’s a real practicing doctor and often treats the marginalized. Second, he has an owl side-kick. That rules. Third, his name is a pun on Midnight. Beautiful. This is a perfect character.
The only real challenge I had in the process was getting the cloak to look right. I really need to practice drapery more. That said I like how the color palette came out. I mixed the greens of the cloak. For both Charles and Beth, I decided to use the same colors since I was using similar costumes.
Dr. Mid-Nite (Dr. Beth Chapel)
For Beth, I was torn on the costume choice. Her Infinity, Inc. costume is fine but outdated for the character. Her current costume is more olive-green than black, but I was using elements from Dr. Mid-Nite’s appearance on CW’s Stargirl for this. In the end this costume was an amalgamation of the original Dr. Mid-Nite, Beth’s current costume, and the CW costume.
This one you can see a lot changes made to the costume during the development. First, I mistakenly just drew Charles costume on Beth. Which isn’t right at all. Also, you can see how much I fiddled with her head shape in the inking and coloring stages. Inks got away from me on her chest, and I tried to make the best of it. Still happy with it, but it could have and should have been better.
Final Thoughts
The Doctor Mid-Nite’s were fairly simple to pull off and I wanted to highlight the similarities. I do wish I took another attempt at Beth’s overall design but following the Wonder Woman incident. I didn’t really have time to redo this. Perfection is the enemy of completion.
Anyway join me next time when we take a look at a couple Starmen.
What is JSApril?
The Justice Society of America made their debut in All-Star Comics #3 in 85 years ago. In celebration, the folks over at Fire and Water Podcasting Network have assembled bloggers, podcasters, and many more creators to honor the world’s first superhero team. Find the full list of participants and more over at Fire and Water Network’s webpage and I truly encourage you all to check out some of the amazing things people have been creating.
Social Media
You can follow along with JSApril all of the other creators on social media with #JSApril. You can always find me here or over on Bluesky and I contribute weekly to The Beat. If you are new here be sure to check out out the archives. Personally, I’m quiet proud of my History of Heroes Reborn posts. You can see my other JSApril posts here.
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