Written by Brandon Schatz

Marvel Month Part 5(of 5) – Another fellow CXer, Brandon Schatz, handled the job this week. All of the regular columnists on Comixtreme swapped pieces for the week, and while I was working on the Fanboy News Network, Brandon did an expemplary job on my column. Thanks Brandon!

Before you get all anxious, set fire to a pile of kittens, and start claiming “the END is nigh”, allow me to explain one thing: Craig Reade (comiXtreme news aficionado and regular SOTS columnist), is not dead, nor has he lost both of his arms to scurvy. He is merely taking a break for this edition so that the whole world can experience a little something called:

The Great comiXtreme Column Switch!!!

Anyway, long story short, all of us columnists here at cX are swapping our respective columns like spit at a cheerleader’s sleepover (or so I imagine), and by the luck of the draw, I’ve been given Craig’s column.

I’m sorry for your loss, but until this thing is over, you’ll have to deal with me. So if you’re ready, let’s get to what you actually came here to read.

I remember the first edition of “Still on the Shelf”. It was a particularly inspired piece on a comic named “Spider-Girl”, which had been marked for cancellation at the time. Key words here: at the time.

You see, a short time after Craig posted his Spider-Girl manifesto, Marvel decided to renew the series for another six issues. Soon after that, another seven were ordered on top of the previous six. Now, I don’t want to blow too much air up Craig’s skirt by making the claim that his little ol’ column single handedly saved the floundering title but… I’m hoping that it had even the remotest kind of pull at Marvel. Why? Well, as everyone should know, Sentinel is about to be cancelled by Marvel, and obviously, I’m a little distraught by that news.

Long story short? My edition of SOTS is going to be focused on the grand majesty that is Sentinel.

Let the pimping begin.

Characters

At the core of every great story, are characters you have feelings for. And I don’t mean feelings as in all that mushy, gushy, “throw me down and make sweet, sweet love to me” kind of stuff. I mean feelings as in hate, and caring and all those other emotions that make us humans. Sentinel has characters that make you exude emotion and cry while your in a room, surrounded by people who are starting to move slowly away from you. Or so I’ve heard from my — uh — my friends…

Juston Seyfert- Juston Seyfert was the new millennium’s version of Peter Parker. The kids at school barely acknowledged his existence, except for when they were slightly bored and wanted to see how fast a geek could run, given a sufficient amount of chasing. His family, although very loving and slightly broken, was practically dirt poor and living off of what they could to get by. And somehow… he seemed to be quite the ladies man, despite himself.

Yes, things were… well, things were not the greatest for Juston. And then, he went and found himself a big ol’ Sentinel, and a whole new world opened up to him.

Suddenly, the problem of going unnoticed, except for things such as “Nimrod Football”, became solvable. The family troubles seemed to become more and more distant, and the ladies… well, you know what they say about women and men who have big robots. Irresistible!

Yes, the giant robot certainly seemed to solve many a problem on the Seyfert front. However, it didn’t seem to make Juston happy. Sure, the Sentinel had brought him almost everything he wanted, but it was all too fake. All to… unreal.

And so, Juston went off to go and fix that problem. He went off to make the fictional life the robot had brought him, into a more realistic life, and he seemingly succeeded in doing so. But for every success Juston has, another failure that needs fixing becomes revealed as something horrible happens to someone very close to him. Such is the never-ending struggle for the “hero” of this piece…

The Sentinel- The Sentinel recap page that appears at the beginning of every issue does not list the actual Sentinel as an actual character, but I’ll be damned if the robot isn’t a fine piece of work in itself. The Sentinel in question, is a bit of an enigma, whose loyalties are very fuzzy. Sure, in times of dire trouble, it has been there to save Juston, but recently, there have been little things that suggest that it has an agenda of it’s own. Gone, obviously, are the carefree days of Juston teaching it to say “Word, Homey”, and here, are the days of mystery.

Alex- Juston’s “Best Friend, Part I”, according to the recap page. Alex is a kid who knows all kinds of crazy, minute facts about Reece’s Pieces and other such paraphernalia, and is too shy to ask a girl out. Apparently, his massive knowledge of a large cross section of topics hasn’t reached as far as “pick up lines” yet.

Anyway, he’s a good friend to Juston, and is always there to point his friend in the right direction.

Matt- “Best Friend, the Sequel” just happens to be almost all the things Alex is not. Matt is brash and angry, and has threatened to take his dad’s gun to school and… well, in his own words, “BAM! BAM!”. Talk about a ticking time bomb…

Matt is, in more ways than one, the foil to Alex’s helpful nature. For all the good Alex suggests, Matt is there to tell Juston what a load of crap it all is. It’s a small wonder how the two of them managed to be in the same circle of friends.

Chris Seyfert- Juston’s little brother is very close to him. So close, he’s the only person Juston has even considered showing the Sentinel to. For a little brother, he is pretty cool, but those nasty migraines of his… boy, I’m sure they’re going to cause him some trouble, which is the last thing the cash strapped Seyfert family need.

Jessie- She is the girl of Juston’s dreams, despite the fact that she’s “taken”, and although she has kept her emotional distance from Juston, you can’t help but notice how she takes a much… deeper interest in him when another (hot!) girl hits on him.

And the rest…- There are more characters to Sentinel than what I just listed, but they’re influence, up until now, has been fairly small and/or no longer plays a part in the current story line. However, each of them are dripping with the stuff that makes you feel.

The bullies, Josh and Greg, did things so despicable and manipulative, you feel angry enough to… well, squash them with a giant robot of some sort. The father, Pete Seyfert, is a genuinely caring man who only wants the best for his sons. The CIA agent, Brian Rinehart is a guy who will do anything to keep his job and get his way, something that I know will cause Juston some major trouble. And the passengers who were in a sinking passenger plane made you litterally hold your breath in hopeful suspense as their lives rested in the palms of Juston’s hand.

All of them are great, moving characters that make up the building blocks of a great story and comic book.

Thoughts

If you haven’t already guessed it by now, I am obviously completely enamoured by the grandeur that is Sentinel. However, other than “great characters”, you don’t really know why I feel this way.

Well, allow me to enlighten you.

Ever since the first issue, I knew that there was something special about this comic book. It almost seemed to tap into my life and distil it’s essence from all the personal sludge that accompanied it. I was Juston Seyfert. Except for the fact that I didn’t live in Wisconsin (although I have met people from there). And, I guess, the fact that I didn’t find a giant robot and the like… but the whole “loner kid with a small group of friends and a crush” formula that had been done so many times in so many different mediums just seemed a lot more… real and meaningful.

And suddenly, I’m starting to sound a lot like an after school special.

But irregardless, my previous statement stands. Sentinel, despite having it’s roots in fantasy, seems very, very real. The situations presented happen very logically. Everyone’s reactions are dead bang on.

It’s something that’s very refreshing, in a world that’s filled with meaningless guest appearances by Wolverine, who just happens to be going through town every two weeks or so.

Yes, Sentinel is a great read, but I’m sure you’ve heard that enough from the “legitimate” critics and other posters on the internet. You don’t need to hear another two pages of it from me, and even if you wanted to, I don’t think sitting here, listing the things that make Sentinel a must read is going to help in the least. If it did, Sentinel would be selling in the millions by now, for all the praise that it gets.

So, instead of writing with stars in my eyes, I’m going to fill you in as to why Sentinel doesn’t sell as well as it should, in hopes that it will help you see the error in your ways, whether you have been going about things the wrong way while trying to get your friends to read the book, or whether you won’t go near the title with a twelve and a half inch pole. And I’m going to start with the biggest reason of them all: Tsunami.

For those of you who just finally decided to crawl out from whatever rock-like substance you’ve been living under, or for those of you who tend to block out anything remotely related to “Nu Marvel”, Tsunami was an idea concocted by the higher ups at Marvel. It’s intent was to tap into new talent and artists, in hopes that their manga-esque styles would bring in all those kids who watched the Saturday morning cartoons religiously to find out what’s going to happen to [manga flavor of the moment] this week.

And while their intentions were good, the way they went executing the whole thing was wrong. For you see, for the hard-core manga fans, the Marvel style of manga was too American to stomach, and for those in the comic book world who didn’t (and probably still don’t) like manga, the style of comics was too cartoony for their tastes.

Needless to say, any of the Marvel Tsunami books immediately became a hard sale, and Sentinel, being one of those title’s, suffered dearly as a result.

Readers would pick up the title, look at the art, and immediately become somewhat turned off. “Browsing” readers who just flipped through comic books before they bought them, didn’t want to give Sentinel a chance.

However, neither of those groups actually sat themselves down to try and read the book. Because if they did, and if they looked past the art that they revile so much, they would see a meticulously crafted story, to which the art merely was the backdrop for.

Sean McKeever is a brilliant story teller. For every action taken in Sentinel, there is a very feasible reaction, something which is missing too much in comics nowadays. And that great action/reaction thing will be missing even more so if the title is truly cancelled…

Reason the second: Nu Marvel. For some reason, some comic book readers hate the way Marvel tastes nowadays so much so, that they’ve taken to calling any new projects the company churns out, as Nu Marvel waste. Sentinel, being one of those Nu Marvel titles, suffers from those who would more than willingly chase Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada around with giant sticks, and that is very sad. Because if certain people are willing to forgo a great title, just because you don’t like the people who helped bring the project to fruition, then comics will be in a sorry state for longer than is really necessary.

Problem the third: lack of trades. This point is almost a mixture of my last two, so bear with me.

When the Tsunami titles came out, it was assumed by everyone (including myself and my comic shop “guy”) that trades would be coming out immediately after the first arcs of each of the Tsunami titles. And while that’s the way Marvel had initially planned things, those little pipe dreams were blown up due to low sales. People who wanted to experience the Tsunami titles at a “lower price” were waiting for the trades, and therefore, not reading the titles.

Naturally, that wasn’t a gooder. But what’s been done, is done. Now, it is time to fix the problem.

What you must do, is go to your comic shop. Ask if you could buy a copy of Sentinel #10, which comes out two days from now and features the beginning of what could be the last story arc. Read the comic. If you like it (and I know you will) immediately phone your shop and ask for it to be added to your list. If they won’t do that for whatever reason, find a place that will save the comic for you.

Then, pimp that thing out to your friends. I have gotten no less than five people into reading comics by showing them Sentinel. And yes… Sentinel is their favorite title.

If we play things right, sales for the comics will start to go on the upswing. And while that happens, all of the e-mail and snail mail (which works much better when one is trying to save a title) Marvel receives, will become more and more meaningful as the sales charts light up.

We can do this people. We can save Sentinel. But first, you have to be willing to try something new, something that isn’t Spider-Man or Batman, or even X-Men, despite the small and obvious tie to the title. What’s there to lose? You can either buy one issue and decide it’s not for you and drop it before you… *ahem*… “waste” all your money, or you can discover a title that would have skipped right under your radar, and you would have never known how much you could really enjoy a comic book.

Either way, it’s not like you’re loosing much.

Signing off…

-b. schatz

Credit Where Credit Is Due…

Sean McKeever – Author
Udon – Artists
Marvel – Publisher

Post your comments in the Forum!