Atom Smasher Versus… The Super-Adaptoid!!

The Atom Smasher (from the Black Adam film) stands at his normal height before the towering Super-Adaptoid, his head barely at the same height as the android’s belt. “You’re the what?” Atom Smasher asks. “Super-Adaptoid,” it answers.

Angered by the presence of this villainous machine from a whole other comics continuity, Atom Smasher declares, “Never heard of you! But, you don’t get to stomp all over my town without a fight!”

Summoning his size-altering abilities with a dramatic THWRRSH, Atom Smasher increases in height and mass, announcing, “It’s time to atomize!”

Disappointingly, the Super-Adaptoid is still a good head taller than Atom Smasher, and substantially bulkier. “You’re still taller?” Atom Smasher asks. “That blows.” The Super-Adaptoid lifts its in-scale duplicate of Mjolnir - Thor’s hammer - and starts to say, “They say -“

As the Super-Adaptoid swings its hammer at Atom Smasher, it continues its remark from the previous panel, “- one out of five -!” But, Atom Smasher dodges the android’s attack, retorting, “Even I know that’s a Tony Stark line!”

Atom Smasher catches the false Mjolnir as the Adaptoid tries to bring it crashing down on his head. “Are you that unoriginal?” Atom Smasher taunts his android attacker.

As Atom Smasher puts all his strength into an attempt to yank the Super-Adaptoid’s weapon from its hand, he says, through strained grunts, “Maybe your grip is as weak as your wit!” Trying to retain its hammer, the Adaptoid yells, “Stop! I demand you -“

Atom Smasher wins the tug-of-war, coming away with the Super-Adaptoid’s replica Mjolnir. As he THUMPS it in his hands, he observes, “You know, when you’re swinging a big hammer, even big guys can seem small!”

The credits for this comic strip, listing the original creators of each character and series, the use of fonts by Blambot, and the photography, script, and lettering, which were done by me, Phil Wrede.

I don’t think I’m saying anything new when I say that I didn’t like the Black Adam movie very much, nor do I think I’m blazing new territory when I say that I did like the Justice Society actors and characters. I’ve been a fan of Dr. Fate’s since I first saw his helmet in a comic (his appearances in Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited only fed my enthusiasm; I’m not a big Young Justice fan, but even I have to agree that Fate was awesome there, too). Plus, I’m always going to be there for Pierce Brosnan. I’ve been an Aldis Hodge fan going back to Friday Night Lights, and I enjoyed seeing him whip around a mace as Hawkman. And, one of the first comics I read and fell in love with when I got back into comics in college was Geoff Johns and Dale Eaglesham’s JSA, so including Atom Smasher and Cyclone in the movie was wonderful, from where I sat. Every time the JSA was on screen, I was totally engaged. As for the rest of the movie, enough has been written about it that you should go ahead and read that, if you haven’t already.

The inspiration for this comic came from clearance sales, to be… inelegant about it. I hadn’t planned to get the oversized Atom Smasher action figure, but sometimes stores are basically giving it away. As for the Super-Adaptoid, well, I’ll always have about a hundred uses for a giant, malicious android. I wish I could say that the idea came to me when my copy of the Amalgam Age Omnibus got delivered, but it’s just because I couldn’t find a good spot to store these figures separately, and they had to live on a shelf together for a few weeks, before I could reconfigure my action figure storage to accommodate them.

For such an inauspicious beginning, I like the way this comic turned out!

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