‘PANTHEON: The Elemental Artifact’ Review

Story: Mohsen Ashraf / Art: Willi Roberts / Letters & Design: Lydon White / Edits: Katharyn Blair pantheon – n. the gods of the people. especially: the officially recognized gods Minor spoilers. The back matter of Ashraf’s latest comic series PANTHEON likens it to “Game of Thrones meets American Gods”, a seemingly apt description. Although, I have minimal exposure to Game of Thrones, and I feel like the more apt touch stone is the roleplaying game Scion or perhaps to target an older audience who are/were fans of Percy Jackson. All of this to say, an epic story revolving the offspring of the divine coming together in a vast interwoven narrative where the fate of the entire world is at stake is not exactly a new concept, which is not to say that PANTHEON does not distinguish itself from its peers, but rather to acknowledge that exceedingly human response to be fascinated and enamored with mythology, as Ashraf clearly is.

This was evidenced during the first title of his I reviewed, Syphon, which similarly riffed on a familiar premise in order to engage with a lot of different cerebral concepts and that trend continues here. This particular subsection of speculative fiction asks a lot of questions about the nature and power of belief, and Ashraf and editor Blair are very cognizant that the myths are presented accurately and accessibly. Several of the chapters/issues (depending on how you engage with this comic) are preluded with actual mythological texts with annotations e…