Sentinel: Salvage

"Sentinel: Salvage" by Sean McKeever (Marvel Comics, 2004) This digest-size graphic novel is sort of like "Iron Giant," updated for the post-Columbine era. In it, a high school outcast named Juston Seyfert finds a damaged Sentinel robot, and secretly repairs it in his father's junkyard workshop. Juston (and his friends) are pop-culture geeks and the perpetual bullying target of the school's sadistic lettermen jocks. One of Juston's friends harbors violent Columbine-like fantasies about killing their tormentors, and at the end of this book, Juston comes close when he unleashes the Sentinel on the schoolyard so that he can give the jocks a scare. The book is a good, fun read, although its strongest point is in its painful depiction of highschool bullying -- one of the best presentations of this sick ritual that's been seen in the comicbook medium. The humiliation and anger of Juston and his friends are palpable, as is the pressure-cooker environment of the hallways and locker rooms of school. At the end of Book One, Juston realizes that he can't use a super-robot as his own personal toy... What he doesn't realize is that, despite his having "programmed" the Sentinel to his own specifications, the robot appears to have its own agenda, which it is preparing to follow as soon as its own internal repairs are complete. And so, on to Volume Two, "No Hero." Make Mine Marvel! (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain book reviews)

Marvel comics astounds me. They turn out drek like the last few years of "Uncanny X-Men" and then give the writer responsible for that travesty more work, but they cancel a fantastic title like Sean McKeever's "Sentinel." This handy digest collects the first half of that too-soon cancelled series. Juston Seyfert is a teenager with teenage problems -- an absent mother, school bullies, a girl he has a crush on who just likes him "as a friend." Things turn around when he finds a Sentinel in his father's salvage yard. This giant mutant-killing robot bonds with the boy, and they start a series of adventures. This fits the basic framework of your classic "boy and his monster" story -- parallels to the excellent film "The Iron Giant" are obvious -- but this title has a lot of originality to it as well. It's very refreshing to see a father in a teen story who isn't stupid or abusive, but is instead as supportive a character as you could have. Juston enjoys his new friend, but he makes mistakes too, and he has to deal with them. This is very well done. I missed this title when it was first released. I'll definitely pick up the second (and sadly final) digest that collects the book. And then the voices will get raised to ask Marvel to give this deserving title another chance.