Justice Society Of America, circa 1942 - from an unused back cover design for DC 2000

A new commission - from artist Val Semeiks - and there's a bit of a back-story to this one.

In February this year I spotted that Val had posted some material from his sketchbook on his website, including some character sketches from the DC 2000 series - as well as a proposed layout for the back cover design, which unfortunately went unused. This gave me an idea, so I dropped Val a line to see if he'd be happy to revisit it - and luckily he was.

The orginal layout had a couple of placeholder figures, so I asked Val to add in the Golden Age Wonder Woman and Johnny Thunder, neither of whom appear in DC 2000, but who are the logical "missing" JSA members for a story set in 1942. Val was also kind enough to take my "if there's a way to fit Johnny's Thunderbolt in as well, that'd be great" request on board - and I think that Johnny and his T-Bolt are probably my favourite part of this!

(Just to forestall any nitpicking - yes, I *know* Hawkgirl wasn't strictly a part of the JSA in 1942, but she played a role in the DC 2000 series, so I wanted to keep her in, and she gave a nice balance to the Wonder Woman figure at top right. And no, I didn't "forget" Wildcat, Mr Terrific or Black Canary - or honorary members Batman and Superman - I made a conscious decision to use these specific characters.)

It's rare I get commissions which aren't full covers, including logos etc, and/or aren't adapted from existing published covers - but I think this one has come out superbly. Hope you agree!

PS: I think I owe Brian Philbin a hat-tip, as I'm fairly sure that the central logo is his work - the eagle-and-shield are from All-Star Comics #4, and the JSA wording is from the Strazewski/Parobeck series, but I think it was Brian who digitally combined them - and when I found it online it seemed to be the perfect centrepiece for this commission.