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Ten years have passed since the near-destruction of planet Earth at the hands of the Zentraedi and the subsequent destruction of the Zentraedi Grand Fleet. On planet Earth, civilization continues to mend in the wake of a global apocylapse; while aboard a captured Robotech Factory Satellite in Earth orbit, the Super Dimensional Fortress Three has been constructed to complete a mission vital to the survival of the Earth. The mission of its crew is to travel to the homeworld of the Robotech Masters, the moon Tirol, in an attempt to prevent a second Robotech war--a war which the people of Earth fear their world would be unable to survive. However, when the fortress, manned by the greatest heroes of the Robotech War and a generation of young people who grew up in that war's dangerous aftermath, arrives in Tirolspace, Tirol is found to have been conquered by a new foe--the slug-like Invid.The Robotech Expeditionary Force's peaceful mission had ended in failure, and a battle between the REF and the Invid began. Our heroes managed to drive the Invid from the planet, but at a great cost--the SDF-3 was crippled, unable to return home and stuck in Tirolian orbit until full repairs could be made. And the Robotech Masters were already on their way to Earth.
Enter the Sentinels, a group of revolutionaries from several nearby planets that have been conquered by the vicious Invid. They have banded together to free their homeworlds from Invid rule, but are in desperate need of assistance in waging their war. Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes, along with a contingent of REF personnel and a host of Robotech mecha, agree to help them in their fight.
Artwork from Robotech II: The Sentinels - A New Beginning graphic novel compilation, published by Malibu Graphics.
Robotech II: The Sentinels was originally going to be a 65 episode sequel to the original Robotech TV series, co-produced by Harmony Gold and Tatsunoko Productions. Unfortunately, due to a number of factors it was never completed. From April to August of 1988, Del Rey released five Robotech II: The Sentinels novels by the writing team of Brian Daley and James Luceno-- two men who had previously, under the pen name Jack McKinney, adapted the original 85 episode series into twelve bestselling novels. They took the original concepts and outline for the new series and tinkered with it to their liking, creating a product which resembled the Sentinels story as outlined by Robotech story editor and producer Carl Macek but at the same time seemed somewhat amiss. It was a few months after the novels were all on bookstore shelves that the Sentinels story began to emerge in comic book form, written by Eternity Comics editors Tom Mason and Chris Ulm and drawn by newcomers Jason and John Waltrip.Along with Ben Dunn's Ninja High School, The Sentinels became one of the flagship titles of Malibu Publishing's Eternity imprint. The story in parts did remain somewhat faithful to the original TV scripts--at any rate, more faithful to the scripts than the novels--but also threw in all new ideas from the writers and a LOT of ideas from the Sentinels novels. Over time, either due to the ranting of fans or because it would be easier for the writers, it grew into an adaptation of the novels rather than the cancelled TV series. Following the closure of Malibu's Eternity imprint in 1993 and the Robotech comic book license's move to independent publisher Academy Comics even more new, original ideas from the minds of the Waltrip brothers--now handling the writing chores as well--started to appear in the story, oftentimes improving the tale in some respects.
Ultimately, with the end of Academy's reign as the Robotech comic licensee, so ended The Sentinels at Book IV, Issue 13. As with many previous issues of The Sentinels, it ended on a cliffhanger. Unfortunately, this cliffhanger would never be resolved. Antarctic Press, the next comic licensee, made an abortive attempt to get the Waltrips to continue the series, but a satisfactory deal was never struck. According to a reliable source, the brothers Waltrip did wish to strike a deal with Antarctic--in fact, they have said as much (see Interviews below). They wanted to finish the series. However, Antarctic either wouldn't or couldn't pay them the same salary that Eternity and Academy did. Rumor is that Antarctic was more interested in giving the Robotech saga to their own staffers to play with and develop, but some of these rumors came from a disgruntled former employee, so lord knows how accurate they might be.
In any case, Antarctic did publish a series called Sentinels: Rubicon, but it had nothing to do with the novel of the same name, nor did it have much to do with the original Sentinels property outside of a few side references.
Artwork from Robotech II: The Sentinels - The Marriage of Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes graphic novel compilation, published by Malibu Graphics.
A brief interview conducted as an introduction to the second collected edition of the Sentinels comic book series, mostly about how they got into comics and got the Sentinels job.
Mark Paniccia interviews the Waltrip brothers about Sentinels and Legend of Zor, as well as other projects.
In late August of 2000, I sent the Waltrips a letter containing questions about their work on The Sentinels and where they had been planning to take the series before it was cut short. A few days later, I got a letter back. Here are the results--an exclusive look at the roads not traveled.
