One More To Watch: The Sentinels from Standard Comics

I regret not including this among the projects to watch in 2017 when rebooting the blog earlier this year.

Almost five years ago now, I stumbled into Roy Johnson's gallery on Comic Art Fans, probably while looking for Captain Canuck material. Like many, I was momentarily suckered by the image below, believing it to be, at the time, yet another attempt at a Captain Canuck series.

Shortly thereafter, the following image was added which not only included Commander Steel again, but this time added Nelvana and The Penguin.

Unfortunately, it was not preview art for an upcoming team-up book (although Chapterhouse might want to give that option some thought). When Mr. Johnson began collecting commissioned artwork, he chose to apply the name of a defunct publisher to it. The final result appears very authentic.

Mr. Johnson has since created a reference guide to the various characters that populate the Standard Universe, mixing updated (to various degrees) public domain characters and his own original creations.

Standard Comics Encyclopedia (Abridged) is where you will find entries on the colorful characters in the Standard Comics Universe, including information on their personal data, personality, history, powers, and abilities.

Interest in his product has proved to be such that Mr. Johnson is now preparing to publish not only a second volume of the encyclopedia but a "real" version of the Sentinels book. And that book might/should include a Canadian character or two (three?) as there are a handful in the Standard Universe. We'll have to wait until the Kickstarter campaign kicks off soon to know which among them will appear and to what extent, but reading the current line-up in the Encyclopedia makes me optimistic.

In the meantime, additional work had been on Commander General Steel, presumably with the intention of putting him to use at some point, if not in that Sentinels book.

Art by Luis Rivera and Escomic! 

A forceful, dynamic man, Steel is a natural leader. He sees the humor in life, and, although his attitude briefly soured after the murder of his family, he has never let it overwhelm him. 

Jack Steel was mortally wounded by a German shell at the Battle of El Alamein (1942). A strange scientist took him to a hidden cave laboratory and injected the "elixir of life" into the dying soldier, reviving Steel and giving him superhuman abilities. Steel had no idea where he was born or what his true nationality was, therefore, he considered himself a champion of all nations against Dictatorships. His activities during WWII included battling Nazi Werewolves with the Grim Reaper in Transylvania (see Grim Reaper, The Grim Reaper #22), freeing German Prisoner of War camps, leading resistance movements in occupied countries, and so on. 

One of the Canadian Standard Universe characters will be appearing in another project that is expected to be launched through Kickstarter soon.  More on that later but in the meantime, you can track Standard's progress on Facebook here.