Shutterbug: with great power comes a great opportunity to make a lot of money. Scroll down below the page to find out more about this wisecracking peeping tom. And remember you can see all 8 pages of this story so far at the Lady In Waiting Gallery

To the right is Shutterbug’s only other appearance so far, from Graveyard Shift #3. The art is by Ben Torres, but panel 3 was redone by Mark Lewis and dropped in at the last minute by me, probably because I wanted to adjust the costume. Click on it for a better look.

Next time – a lot more about Shutterbug, who he is and how he came to be. Or something like that. Below is the secret: His aunt was Ladybug, created by Carl Gafford. She appeared in Big Bang #21 (by Carl) and #34 in a team-up with Sterling Clark’s Renegade.

And on the seventh day – – Shutterbug who was last seen (for the only time) in the third issue of Graveyard Shift in only a few panels. We get a little further insight into his sparkling personality over the next few pages of this story. Farther down on this blog page is a little bit about the modern Big Bang Comics team known as the Free Agents.

To the left: C.C. Burk’s version of the Free Agents, or at least some of them.

Megaton, Ultiman, Thunder Girl, Dr. Weird and Knight Watchman. The only one missing from their only appearance from the 4th Caliber Press issue is Overdrive, the grown-up Cyclone, kid partner to the world’s fastest man on, the Blitz.

Below is the ad that ran in BB #3. Pencils by Chris Woods and inks by Ben Torres. The Free Agents were the 1990s version of the Round Table of America, who were no longer funded by or associated with the U.S. Government, hence the name change.

The original idea of the mini-series was to do a 64 page Golden Age book introducing the characters, followed by a Silver Age incarnation in issue 2, and then the modern version (this was the 90s, remember) in number 3.

The Golden Ager was split into issues 0, 1 and 2. Number 3 was the Silver Age version and the modern story was slated for numbers 4 and 5, as promised in the ad. There were artist problems and changes in the Free Agents issues, and after requesting newsprint for #s 0, 1, 2 and 3 and getting white paper, the publisher finally switched us to newsprint on #4 which was colored to be on the white stuff and turned out gray and flat. There never was a Caliber #5. We were invited to join Image Comics and took them up on it.

By the way, that’s Overdrive in the bottom right corner. The big guy at the left was a cyborg calling himself the Sub Human. If there had been a follow-up in #5, we would have discovered that he was actually a rebuilt version of the Atomic Sub, who had died in the Silver Age issue. (He was originally known as the Human Sub).

The serial continues:  Chapter 6 in which our heroine prevails over the second of two big mean guys and saves a TV reporter from a fate worse than – – – well maybe from death, anyway. And the last panel sets up Gwen’s real opponent in this story. Be here tomorrow to meet this mysterious stranger. Nope – no clues. See you mañana.

And here’s another look at C.B. Burk’s thoughts on a modern uniform for Ultiman. Everything about this is at odds with the Ultimate Human Being who showed up in Graveyard Shift, an older and out of shape Chris Kelly. (Truth is he wasn’t written that way originally, but Ben Torres’ interpretation was so cool, unexpected and miles away from Frank Miller’s Superman that we had to go with it).

Tomorrow’s bonus art will be C.B.’s rendition of the Free Agents. Remember them? They only appeared in the 4th issue of the original Big Bang Comics mini-series from Caliber Press. It was a modern version of the Big Bang gang of heroes.

Lady In Waiting: Page 4. Our brand new Galahad gets her first taste of action and I think she’s enjoying herself.

The costume design sketch this time around has absolutely nothing to do with this story, unless you count the Knight Watchman cameo in there next to Ultiman. There are a few more of these that I’ll be running. I always preferred the U-Man costume on the left, although I would have preferred for the dark blue color to continue down his legs.

As always, remember you can check out the Lady In Waiting Gallery to see the complete story, or at least the pages that have appeared here in the blog so far. The supplemental sketches only appear here in the BANG! though.

Next time – – Page 6, or did you already guess that?

Page 4 of “Lady In Waiting”. The pace of the story kicks into high gear after this so stay with us. Remember to check out the Lady In Waiting Gallery to see the complete story so far. Click on the cover and page thumbnails will pop up. Click on the icon at the top right corner to expand the page so you don’t need a magnifying glass to read it.

The design at the left is artist C.B. Burk’s design for an updated Knight Watchman uniform.