The Origins of The Sentinels and DreadSkull and the upcoming Special Forces

The Sentinels is my attempt at a team based narrative but it actually stemmed from a solo character in the series named Nicholas. All of both current series were branched from his creation entirely.

Nicholas Blade

 Nicholas was actually the most recent protagonist I've created and it's funny because he didn't start off as a protagonist, he actually started off as an antagonist. Kind of still is really. His first appearance came from a brainstorm on my actual first series creation, Special Forces. He was a mercenary in New York who happened to be hired to kill the wrong person and the protagonist, Jamal, an officer in the Special Forces, was sent to bring him in. What followed was an odd philosophical and physical fight between the two. Their views clashed but they found an uneasy connection between Nicholas' dirty work and Jamal's sense of Justice. The fight itself was a great demonstration of Nicholas' speed too, he was able to fire a shot from a pistol and immediately slice the bullet in two with a Katana, simply as a show of skill. The battle ends up with the two of them being trapped in the abandoned building they're fighting in as it begins to burn to the ground. However there's a kid in the building, a runaway, that Nicholas saves and hands off to Jamal before the building collapses with him inside of it, Jamal barely lives along with the kid. Nicholas' final words were, "I've been in this situation more times than you can count, I bet. Like I told you before, the baddest always survive."

The whole story was eventually shelved but I actually wanted a guy like Nicholas to return. His pessimistic good heart bad world outlook made for some good story opportunities.

The original main cast of Ruin
In my early drawing stages

Enter the story of Ruin. A series based on pessimism and the examination of humanity and religious views and beliefs. Nicholas is home. The series started off very very very different than what it is now. For instance, a main character who will be introduced in The Sentinels #2, Christopher Hughes, was originally introduced as a villain with a purple suit, hat, and cane. A cane the clones... Ok so he was virtually a pimp, but I had to debunk the stereotype somehow, but it didn't work well with his thick Southern accent. He was able to handily defeat Nicholas with clever clone usage a couple times and as I developed ideas around him and designed his personality I realized he's a character that seems more driven to be a hero and a redemption artist.

So BAM! Another story change. This time the themes would stay put but roles were switched around. This time around Nicholas was casted in the role of desperate father trying to get enough money for an operation his daughter needs. His line of mercenary work was lead by people called Contract Vendors, middlemen who legally contracted mercenary work for others under a shady part of the government. But at this time all the contract Vendors in New Jersey had suddenly vanished (through means of a criminal mastermind killing or kidnapping them) but there was one woman who became a rogue vendor, someone who contracts illegally, because she needed to buy enough of her husbands company to keep it out of the wrong hands. The two of them meet and a story follows of friendship and betrayal. This marks the introduction of the Shadow Lady, Evelyn Shield,  a character I'm particularly fond of for many reasons, namely her willingness to cross her own moral boundaries to help save someone, which is why she became an illegal vendor. And her original plan was to have no ties to Nicholas after he completed the contract work for her (vendors got paid a portion of the contract.) And for a while this was the road I wanted to travel, exploring just how far people will go and what people will do for those they love. Nicholas is willing to do some dirty work to save his daughter and Evelyn is wiling to become a criminal to help her husband. The story started off with a crazy fight scene between Nicholas and Evelyn as a prologue to illustrate where the story was headed. Evelyn abuses her shadow abilities to completely overwhelm Nicholas combined with her amazing hand to hand combat. As I developed the relationship between the characters I realized that Evelyn just isn't capable of this, she just isn't. And this story was okay but I wanted something a bit more involved with these two working together.

Evelyn Shields, The Shadow Lady

So, BAM! Story has changed again. For the last time thankfully. I liked the idea of these two working together but I wanted it not to be great at first. At the time I was re-watching Justice League and was absolutely astounded by the character development and how balanced it was among so many characters especially in Justice League Unlimited. It was something I never noticed or appreciated in my younger age, I was too hooked on anime and thought anime was American. Anyway with a deep inspiration in my heart I found where I wanted to take the story and the next couple of characters came in like clockwork. This time the story was still themed around the pessimism and analysis of religion but I wanted the message of "The line between good and evil has no definition" to be clear as day. It went along with the theme of the two previous primary antagonists turning to protagonists. I was inspired to draw that out from the last arc of the Justice League where Hawkgirl's people invade. It illustrated that anyone can be a hero and or a villain and that's how Ruin was to be.

Tonya Harding

That's when I introduced Tonya Harding and Rufio Martin and Everettia Tallow  to finally completed the circle. Tonya originally started out as the supervisor of the Sentinels program which took incarcerated Reavers, supernaturally gifted humans (that society hates) and uses them as a deniable asset team to the government. Eventually that storyline got ironed into what is the Sentinels today. Tonya is now the leader of The Sentinels which was just a special gang unit, however when they get absolutely obliterated by Rufio and his men she decides to fight fire with fire and use some criminal Reavers of her own to combat him.


DreadSkull

D'Angelo

With Dreadskull, the main protagonist, D'Angelo,  came from Nicholas as well. In the picture above of the original cast of Ruin he's all the way at the end at the right. He was originally slated to be Nicholas' partner in crime. He was a man who always had a taste for destruction and whenever he showed up something was gonna get fucked up. But the problem I had with this was I really really liked D'Angelo and he seemed to be a character that was much more than just some wacky sidekick. More and more I inched him in different directions. But the real problem I had with him was What was he about? He just liked destruction. He didn't have any background developed, he was just the Russian Madman. Digging into what I liked and what I liked at that time was One Piece. I absolutely loved the dark storyline hidden under the bright vibrant art style. It seemed like an angle I could work with, D'Angelo was a man who craved living free and loved destruction. But it was still gonna take some work on his background, Why? Why would a man be so obsessed with chaos? I created an origin story that atypically involved mobsters. With this, I had D'Angelo set, he was the man who was hated at birth and got dealt the bad hand. Believing himself to be the cause of his mother's death D'Angelo grew up angry and hellbent on avenging her someday. But that type of pain changes a man, it made him attempt to quell the pain by going for thrill after dangerous thrill. Heist after heist. He's on a path of self destruction and he knows it and he doesn't care. This will be explored more in Dreadskull as the series continues. Will his decisions lead him to fortune or to the grave? Can his crew stop him or will they be dragged down with him? He's already in hot water right now, so stay tuned in for next week's chapter.

Special Forces Incoming

With those two titles off and running I decided to bring back the one that started it all. We all love our first creations and I'm no exception. Jamal Clarence takes center stage in the fantasy world of Special Forces. And because of connections with both series I have to split this series between Jamal's present and past. The reason being is that I want develop him as a character but his appearances elsewhere are further ahead in his timeline than i wanted it to be but he's important to certain parts of other series.

So The next in my flash fiction series will be Special Forces, similar in format to the Sentinels. Jamal is
commander in the Earth Special Forces which is a secret organization that deals with extreme threats like aliens or large supernatural disasters. He has to deal with balancing his private life as well as being the big man in leading a whole force.

The second half of the series is Special Forces: Street Level. Following Jamal in his earlier years after leaving the army behind and first joining the special forces. It's more of a personal drama as it leads up to his decisions to be a hero.

And that's how all my current series came to be. I really wanted to hare my thought process behind creating what I create. Thanks for the read and stay tuned guys!

~Grim