This column is dedicated to Big Bang fan Nick Ryan, who sent me an email asking “Will we ever see the Pantheon of Super-heroes again?”
As I told him, the Legion of Super-heroes and Teen Titans were my favorite books growing up, and our Big Bang versions of them – – the Pantheon and the Whiz Kids, were some of my most beloved stories.
The Pantheon of Heroes first appeared in Big Bang #s 12, 14 and 18 – the “TimeBomber Saga” guest-starring Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon. During the 100 or so pages of the story, the Dragon bounced back and forth through the Golden, Silver and Modern Ages, meeting up with the BB characters at various times in their careers. The whole thing was a labor of love for me, and many of the artists who worked on it.
Mark Lewis, the man responsible for so many Big Bang logos designed a few of the earliest characters, and the slightly later Butterfly Queen.
Ultiman artist extraordinaire Jeff Weigel drew the mid 60s pages and we had a lot of fun exploring the silliness of the Silver Age.
Jason Howard drew a few pages of the more modern (for 1998) team, and 
Darren Goodhart threw his heart and soul into the project, designing a whole early 1970s roster for his chapter based on the works of Dave Cockrum and Mike Grell. And the coolest thing of 
all – the cherry on top – was getting Dave Cockrum himself to pencil and ink the cover to Big Bang Comics #18 (see featured pic above).
The Pantheon only showed up on a few covers in the two part History of Big Bang Comics in BB #s 24 and 27, and finally reappeared in 2005’s Ultiman Family #1. “Legion of the Dead” was penciled by Greg Kirkpatrick and inked by Tim Stiles (except for page 1 inks by Darren Goodhart who couldn’t stay away).
That’s all for now, but next time I’ll feature all of Darren’s character designs.
See you then.
Gary Carlson
3/14/2016
