Favorite Male Character: Atom Smasher
Dec. 2nd, 2014 04:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
astrakhan42 posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
scans_dailyIn celebration of Al finally returning in the upcoming Convergence: Infinity Inc. mini-series (an absolute must-buy for me), I want to post the defining moment in the life of Albert "Nuklon/Atom Smasher" Rothstein. He really spoke to me as a fellow tall, shy Jew with a dead parent. Scans come from JSA Vol. 1 issues 9-15, collected in the "Darkness Falls" trade. If this does exist on S_D already, I apologize; I searched and couldn't find anything.
Shortly before this page, Al's mother died in a plane crash caused by the terrorist Kobra. He doesn't take it well.
Like another bad guy with a cobra theme, Kobra tries to fly away from the chaos. Al catches him in a one-page spread that's currently the Wikipedia page image for Atom Smasher. Here's what happens right afterwards.
So after that, time-travel shenanigans ensue when Extant steals a map to time called the Worlogog, which was entrusted to the android Hourman. That's not important right now. What IS important is this next page, one of the most important in the whole "JSA" run.
(I know many of you are Adam/Smasher fans, but for me it's Al+Courtney forever.)
The JSA win by Hourman giving up his "power hour" to the other JSA members a few minutes at a time. That means they can all attack Extant simultaneously. Al delivers the final blows: "For Rex Tyler... for Charles McNider...
That's the Worlogog he's yanking out of Extant's chest. As time starts rebuilding, the JSA have to figure out something to do with the depowered Extant. Metron, who's been sort of allied and sort of against Extant the whole time, decides to place him in another era of history. Al tags along and decides to swap one life for another.
Best. Oh Crap look. Ever.
He would indeed live to regret it, but the arguments over what Al did would happen later. (Personally: if my dad died in a plane crash and I had a chance to swap him out with, say, Charles Manson, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But that's not the JSA's way.)
Shortly before this page, Al's mother died in a plane crash caused by the terrorist Kobra. He doesn't take it well.
Like another bad guy with a cobra theme, Kobra tries to fly away from the chaos. Al catches him in a one-page spread that's currently the Wikipedia page image for Atom Smasher. Here's what happens right afterwards.
So after that, time-travel shenanigans ensue when Extant steals a map to time called the Worlogog, which was entrusted to the android Hourman. That's not important right now. What IS important is this next page, one of the most important in the whole "JSA" run.
(I know many of you are Adam/Smasher fans, but for me it's Al+Courtney forever.)
The JSA win by Hourman giving up his "power hour" to the other JSA members a few minutes at a time. That means they can all attack Extant simultaneously. Al delivers the final blows: "For Rex Tyler... for Charles McNider...
That's the Worlogog he's yanking out of Extant's chest. As time starts rebuilding, the JSA have to figure out something to do with the depowered Extant. Metron, who's been sort of allied and sort of against Extant the whole time, decides to place him in another era of history. Al tags along and decides to swap one life for another.
Best. Oh Crap look. Ever.
He would indeed live to regret it, but the arguments over what Al did would happen later. (Personally: if my dad died in a plane crash and I had a chance to swap him out with, say, Charles Manson, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But that's not the JSA's way.)
