JSA Legacies Project Day 1: The Atom and Atom Smasher #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
For JSApril, I have decided to contribute my art skills to honor a team that means a lot to me. Alongside the X-Men, the Justice Society is my favorite superhero team. The main things I love about the team is that they are a family. As much as they may bicker and squabble, at the end of the day they love and respect each other. Additionally, I find the JSA exemplifies my favorite part of DC comics and that’s LEGACY. So for fifteen days this month I will be posting watercolor art showing the legacy of the Justice Society of America.
The Atom and Atom Smasher
The Atom was fairly easy to draw. He’s one of the quintessential Mystery Men of the JSA. He has no real powers (atomic punch withstanding). He is just a small, agile bruiser which makes him very effective and memorable. I modeled this pose after a random panel from Justice Society of America by Mikel Janín.
Atom Smasher
Atom Smasher is the legacy successor of The Atom. He was originally a member of Infinity, Inc. as Nucleon. He is a true meta human with size changing powers. He joins JSA in the 90’s as Atom Smasher and goes on a wild journey through JSA, 52, and Justice Society of America titles until the New 52 kind of mucked it all up.
As for the process in this one, I modeled this after a cover by Alan Davis. During the inking stage, it went sideways on the mask. It couldn’t be saved so I had to do a literal cut and paste job. While it wasn’t perfect replacement, it did the job well enough.
This project has been a fun one and I am excited to share these with you all over the next few weeks.
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. Looking to getting back into writing those after much, much delay.
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