Under The Radar: Sentinels
Under The Radar: Sentinels
Jun 30Sentinels is better than it has any right to be.
The indie superhero book got a good deal of buzz from Newsarama, CBR and Ain’t It Cool around the time its second volume – “Masks” – was released, but I never got around to tracking the book down, and then it vanished under the radar again by the time I remembered. I found the entire series of OGNs at Wizard World Philly and have spent the past two weeks digging into it. I finished it up last night.
If you like the Chris Claremont run on Uncanny X-Men, you’re probably going to dig Sentinels. It delivers a page-turning combination of angst, romance, aliens, demons, government conspiracy, daddy issues, Bronze Age-style ass-kicking, frequent costume changes and a long form plot that spans three generations of heroes and manages to pay off satisfyingly, something that few Big Two titles can accomplish these days. Things happen in Sentinels – death, resurrection, betrayal, sex, sacrifice, et cetera.
The most entertaining part of Bernatovich’s magnum opus, though, was watching the evolution of the creators in elapsed time. Much like J.K. Rowling, Bernatovich and Vecchio’s early work is still entertaining and engaging, but becomes much more polished and craft-aware from volume to volume, especially Vecchio’s pencils, which gain added depth over time without sacrificing his Marvel-meets-manga style.
Like I intimated above, Sentinels is very easy to recommend to 80s X-fans, and to superhero fans in general.  The book may be a harder sell for Golden Age/DC die-hards, however. It’s the most competent and interesting superhero project I’ve read from a nonmajor publisher since Rising Stars.
Ohh, I’ve never heard of this, but it sounds cool! Thanks for the review.