| The Sentinels | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Members |
Helio, Mentalia, the Brute |
|
First Appearance |
Thunderbolt #54 (1966) |
|
Original Publisher |
Charlton Comics |
|
Created by |
Gary Friedrich |
Origin[]
The Sentinels are a team of superheroes operating out of Greenwich Village. Originally an obscure '60s folk-rock band known as 'the Protesters' (also spelled 'the Protestors'), the band members consisted of:
- Rick Strong - The bandleader and a brilliant 21-year old college graduate with an interest in pursuing a career in teaching, but is quite cynical and pessimistic.
- Cindy Carson - A young adult woman of stunning beauty and intelligence, hoping to make a big break in Hollywood as a film star.
- "Crunch" Wilson - A boisterous, muscle-bound college athlete who only joined the band to sustain enough income till he could sign a professional football contract.
The trio were experiencing hard times and frequent infighting between Rick and "Crunch" over their future careers threatened to disband the group. That is until their ailing, bedridden landlord, Mr. Jones, summoned them together to disclose a closely kept secret - that his true identity was a Russian scientist named Kolotov, who had fled the country when it fell under the Soviet occupation. With his dying breaths, he gifts each of the band members special experimental inventions he made in an effort to combat the crime and injustice he saw across the world.
The band experienced difficulty announcing their newfound identities to the public, leading to public disturbance and property damage when attempting to foil a mugger and their agent, "Colonel" Juniper Julep, to bail them out of jail time. But things continued to escalate when the leaders of Russia and the United States succumbed to the mind-controlling influence of their arch nemesis, Mind-Bender, Kolotov’s former cohort who threatens to escalate the Cold War.
Powers & Abilities[]
With these devices granting them super-powered abilities, each respective band member is given the new aliases of:
- Helio - With a special dialed back-strap that sends electrical impulses through the human body, Rick can shift his molecular density to become lighter than air and fly.
- Mentalia - Cindy is given an extra-sensory perceptive headband, granting her telepathic powers like mind-reading and clairvoyance.
- The Brute - And for his incredible strength, "Crunch" is granted specialized combat gloves that magnify his fierce strength up to superhuman levels of power.
Public Domain Appearances[]
- Thunderbolt #54-59
Notes[]
- Like many Charlton Characters such as Tyro Team, Shape, and Spookman, the Sentinels are in the public domain thanks to a lack of a proper copyright notice. This is because any work published without a proper copyright notice between 1923 and 1977 are in the public domain.