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One of the first comics I was exposed to as a kid was the New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Perez.  I was in a small bookstore on the Oregon Coast and stumbled upon a black-and-white collection of the New Teen Titans first batch of issues reprinted in a format the size of a paperback novel.  I read it cover to cover in no time flat and then continued to read it for the rest of the summer I bought it.  I fell in love with these characters that I’d never heard of (except Robin, obviously).  I can’t tell you what about this comic struck me as something so compelling, but I can hazard a guess:  Every kid wants to be a super-hero.  The Titans were different, though.  They were teenagers reluctantly dealing with the legacies that were thrust upon them.  In a world that naturally accepted the concept of super-human protectors, they still had to prove themselves as true heroes due to their age and inexperience and that made them twice as formidable.  It’s this charming concept that infuses the pages of a little book that I ordered based solely on the cover and Previews description:  ”Years ago the superhero team, SENTINELS, disappeared. Now their children have taken their place and get pulled into the mystery of what truly happened to them.”  Between this and some of the posted preview pages (and a whole graphic novel packed with extras for $14.95), I placed the Diamond Order number on my list and waited the three months for it to arrive.  Sentinels Book 1: Footsteps was a thrill to read not because it was the best graphic novel I’d ever read (for all its merits, it wasn’t earth-shattering), but because it reminded me of those old New Teen Titans comics I’d grown up on.  That level of nostalgia alone was enough for me to keep an eye out for the subsequent books in the series.  Book 2: Masks, Book 3: Echoes, and Book 4: Hope were all just as good and as the characters developed and went through the trials laid before them as legacy heroes of the greatest super-hero team of their world, I kept wanting to know what happened next for these wayward 20-somethings.  Where New Teen Titans captured the angst of having to prove yourself as a teenager, Sentinels showed the “quarter life crisis” through the eyes of a super-hero.  The fact that these books are completely independently published by Drumfish Productions is an even greater feat for such a title.  Just like the characters they created, Rich Bernatovech and Luciano Vecchio set out a goal and met it: they brought their characters’ saga to the masses and told the complete story arc of their creations.  That’s as admirable as saving the world from the forces of evil, if you ask me.