Sentinels is a fairly ambitious project, a self-published original graphic novel that is black-and-white and set in the superhero genre. That's quite a gamble in a market that responds largely to full-color serial super-heroes from the big two. Unfortunately, while I respect the ambition and the amount of work that went into the project, I'm afraid that Sentinels didn't really hook me. The high concept, that the sons and daughters of disappeared heroes had to step into their shoes, sounded like it might give way to something quite different, but Bernatovech's execution of this idea is disappointingly familiar, reading sort of like a cross between the Marv Wolfman Titans, your average superhero role-playing game and fanfiction. The plot and character interaction doesn't read like a graphic novel, but instead like a bunch of serial issues put together, complete with unnecessary cliffhangers at the chapter breaks, subplots in the background and a variety of different villains and plots.
Actually, Sentinels might be just the cure for those who aren't finding anything to like in modern superhero books, because it has a very old school feel. The dialogue is very much on the cheesy side, full of exclamations and exposition, and the action and plots are very much the same way. Bernatovech's writing style lends itself to the melodramatic, and though he undercuts it every so often, such as by having the megalomaniacal villain reveal that he's really just looking to expand his realm rather than conquer Earth, the general feel is that this is a book that could have co-existed easily with the superhero titles of the '60s and '70s and possibly early '80s.
The characters of the Sentinels are also very much in that classic (or, depending on your viewpoint, cliched) mode. Energy projectors, an urban vigilante, mystics, someone with aquatic powers, all of the powers and personalities are very much the kind of thing we've seen before. I'll give credit to Bernatovech for not doing yet another riff on the JLA or Avengers, but there's definitely not a lot of originality to be found in the powers of these characters.
Unfortunately, this lack of originality carries over into the plots as well. An evil dimensional warlord who is related to one of the members of the team, a government team organized to take down the heroes and an encounter with a malicious alien race reads like a plot summary of Teen Titans, X-Men and JLA, and the execution of the stories are very similar as well. There's not really a sense that the heroes are in a lot of danger, and there's not much in the way of an over-arching plot beyond the story pages at the beginning and end of the graphic novel. The graphic novel format actually seems ill-suited to this story, because Bernatovech's storytelling style is very much in the serial, cliffhanger style.
The artwork likewise falls into the obviously passionate but substandard category. Vecchio's storytelling is fine, but his costume designs are very average and unexciting, and his characters don't have much of a wide range of expressions. There actually some nicely detailed crowd scenes and plenty of good action sequences, but the general feeling I had was that Vecchio's work was too minimalist for the subject matter, not really conveying the powerful physiques of the heroes and heroines or the unusual settings of the villainous bases.
Sentinels is clearly a work borne of love for the medium, and as such it's tough for me to really give it such a negative review. However, in choosing the superhero genre, Bernatovech chose to compete with the big boys, and his work just really isn't up to the quality that can be found in so many superhero comics today. The book might be a good read for those who miss the simpler, old school days of superheroes, who have a great fondness for the Wolfman Titans (which Sentinels clearly draws a lot of inspiration from) or for those who haven't read a lot of these old superhero tales and won't find the material so repetitive. Unfortunately, that person isn't me, and so I was not crazy about the book.
