A few years after the Fantastic Four took their first steps, Charlton came out with their own superhero group as a backup feature in the pages of Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt for six issues. Gary Friedrich created the idea along with Roy Thomas who unfortunately couldn't take any credit for it because he was officially working for Marvel at the time, and it was drawn by Sam Grainger who also eventually went on to work for Marvel. First printed in '66, we open up on an offbeat and tone-deaf singing trio billed as the Protesters who share an apartment run by the sickly old Mr. Jones who's not just another cranky landlord but a former-Russian scientist that fled to America and leaves his self-made super suits with the three of them, each one containing its own particular power. Rick Strong's suit allows him to fly now going by the name Helios, token girl character Cindy Carson wears a tiara giving her telepathy and calls herself Mentalia, and the oblivious strong guy Crunch Wilson gets special mitts that enhance his punches so he uses the alias of Brute. The Protestors decide to brand their new secret identities as The Sentinels just as Mr. Jones kicks the bucket. The Sentinels take their new suits for a test drive by just walking around the neighborhood in their tacky blue tights which gets them arrested for property damage. Fortunately, their manager bails them out just as the evil scientist called the Mind-Bender comes after them by sending in a hulking robot, which of course the Sentinels trash. As the Protestors, they get a gig on the Ed Sullivan Show even though for some reason they wear masks with their civilian duds while performing in public but don't use masks when they are acting as the Sentinels which raises even more red flags for any snoopy reporters that would be out to expose their secret identities. Mind-Bender sends a more human looking android after them calling himself the Titan which ends up giving Helios amnesia with the other two members destroying it. Then of all things, Charlton had the crazy idea of having a totally different character from his own comic, Sarge Steel, making a crossover with the Sentinels by trying to arrest them for possibly being Commie spies, even though it turns our Sarge was under Mind-Bender's control the whole time. Mind-Bender hypnotizes people into attacking them and capturing the heroes to help finish them off once and for all, but Helios gets his memory back and possibly finishes the bad guy off by knocking him off a ledge like he was a Disney villain. The entire Sentinels saga keeps bringing up how the world is on the brink of an atomic apocalypse as the Cold War causes global suspicion and paranoia, but these three band members are supposed to be the solution for preventing World War III, despite the fact they can barely pay to bail themselves out of jail.
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