Sentinel #8 Review

 Writer: Alan Holloway

Artist: Andrew Richmond

Rating: 5 of 8

Sentinel #8

When it comes to a story, there's nothing wrong with a little convention. Yes, telling the same kind of story in the same way can get a little tiring and while a bit of experimentation can help to spice things up, you can have too much of a good thing, which is definitely the case here.

Although the reader already knows the story's fictional, if none of it's actually real for the characters themselves, then it's a lot harder to be invested in the story. Due to a series of reveals throughout the issue, it's hard to tell if most of it's actually real and because of that, it's a lot harder to get invested in any of the stories.

If not for that, it would be a pretty generous slice of superhero action, with some heart warming visual callbacks to Jack 'King' Kirby, like the above image's use of his signature Kirby Krackle. Despite this, I have a number of problems with it, too, as some characters, like the Grimm Reaper (above) can look a lot smaller than they should. When this happens to a villain, especially, it's a lot harder to take them seriously.

Then, nearly halfway through, there's a scene where a man and woman leave the cinema, but initially, you wouldn't realize that one of them was a woman and it's only a few panels later that it's made clear. Later on, we see a meeting between the heroes and the Queen of England and, thanks to Richmond, she looks remarkably like the real thing.

Overall, this is a very mixed issue that, with some artistic changes and less narrative experimentation, could've easily been a lot better.