Sentinels (comics)

The Sentinels are a type of fictional robots in the Marvel Comics universe. The Sentinels are technologically advanced and are often gigantic in stature. Although many Sentinels are capable of devising tactics in combat, only a handful of unique Sentinels are self-aware. Sentinels are designed to hunt down mutants, especially the X-Men, and so typically function as supervillains or as the tools of other villains. They were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in X-Men volume 1 #14 (November 1965). They have evolved and improved in their capabilities with every new iteration.

Sentinels have a wide array of abilities; they can fly, shoot various weapons from different parts of their bodies, and detect mutants at long range; some of them can even change form and re-assemble after being destroyed. Sentinels' typical attacks involve either direct melee combat or firing concussive energy beams from the palms of their hands. Most dangerous of all, some variant Sentinels have the ability to learn from the attacks they face and create defenses against them which hampers the opponents' chances of defeating them. The "X-Sentinels" created by Steven Lang were capable of mimicing the appearances and powers of specific members of the original team of X-Men. Several groups of Sentinels have been created and/or led by a massive Sentinel named Master Mold.

The Sentinels were first created by Dr. Bolivar Trask, who intended to use them to save humanity from what he saw as a threat to the species' existence in the form of mutants. In a televised debate between Trask and Professor Charles Xavier, Trask revealed and then activated the Sentinels, who promptly decided that the best way to protect humanity was to rule over it themselves. The Sentinels kidnapped Xavier and brought him and Trask to the primary Sentinel, Master Mold, only for Xavier's students, the X-Men, to find them. When Trask realized the error of his ways, he sabotaged the machinery in the Sentinel base, destroying Master Mold and the Sentinels in an explosion, but he died in the process.

However, numerous Sentinels and several Master Molds have since been built since. Trask's son Larry built the next batch of Sentinels, only to be slain by them when he removed the medallion that his father had given him years ealier: the medallion blocked the Sentinels' mutant-sensing equipment, and Larry Trask was himself a mutant. Larry's "Mark II" Sentinels were later persuaded by the Avenger Iron Man to fly into the sun, as he was able to convince them that they needed to destroy the sun in order to completely prevent mutation.

The most long-lived Sentinel project was that of "Project Wideawake", a government agency led by Henry Peter Gyrich and Valerie Cooper that purchased Sentinels from Sebastian Shaw, the mutant Black King of the Hellfire Club. Sentinels created by this project fought the X-Men, the New Mutants, the Falcon, and X-Factor, among others.

During the Onslaught crossover, a number of government-owned Sentinels were reprogrammed by the Dark Beast in the service of the psychic entity called Onslaught. During the "Kang War" against the time traveler Kang the Conqueror, a battalion of Sentinels was sent into space to attack his space station. Kang had, during a prolonged visit to the early 20th century, become an influential pioneer in robotics, and was able to use his knowledge of modern robotics to instantly take control of these Sentinels and send them to attack the Earth. Despite his success in that battle, Kang was ultimately defeated by the Avengers.

In New X-Men volume 1 #115, Professor X's evil twin Cassandra Nova used a distant relation of the Trasks to revive a Master Mold in Amazonia. She used this Master Mold to send a number of massive, highly adaptive "Mega-Sentinels" to destroy most of the population of Genosha. In Mekanix, a number of Sentinels attacked Chicago, where Kitty Pryde was attending university.

A Sentinel series was published under the Tsunami imprint in 2002. This series followed a boy named Juston Seyfert who had discovered and reprogrammed a Sentinel of his own, using it for both good deeds and boosts to his own popularity. The series was cancelled after twelve issues.

In other timelines

In the "Days of Future Past" future timeline first seen in Uncanny X-Men #141, the Sentinels have become the de facto rulers of the United States. The "Omega Sentinels" of this timeline are highly advanced in comparison to those of the present day, and the most powerful of these was Nimrod, who travelled back in time to the present in pursuit of Rachel Summers. Nimrod and a present-day Master Mold became allies and were merged into the being called Bastion after passing through the Siege Perilous.

In an issue of the What If series, Cannonball's brother Josh (who would later become Icarus) found and "adopted" a Sentinel. Unlike every other issue of What If, there was nothing in this story to indicate that it did not occur in the main Marvel Universe (Earth-616), aside from the fact that it was published in What If.

The Morlocks miniseries featured a community of Morlocks living in a city where Sentinels would track down and kill any mutant who ventured above ground. Although this series was solicited as being in normal Marvel Universe continuity, this aspect of the series does not fit with the Marvel Universe's status quo.

In Ultimate X-Men, the Sentinels were already in action at the beginning of the first story arc.

In the joke comic Fred Hembeck Destroys the Marvel Universe, the X-Men were killed by black, silent, man-sized "Ninja Sentinels".

In other media

Sentinels appeared in a number of episodes of the X-Men animated series, most notably the fairly faithful adaptation of the original Sentinel story arc featuring Bolivar Trask.

Sentinels were planned for inclusion in the second X-Men film, X2, but they did not appear. Sketches for the film versions of the Sentinels appear as extras on the film's DVD release. These Sentinels would have been man-sized and would have transformed into large spheres, enveloping their targets.

Sentinels have appeared as major antagonists in almost every X-Men video game, most notably X-Men Legends, in which they are the game's primary antagonists, and X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel vs. Capcom 2, in which a non-standard 8' tall Sentinel is a playable character. In the latter game, it is considered by many fans to be one of the most unbalanced characters in the game. In most computer and video games, the Sentinels appear as man-sized foes rather than the massive figures that appear in most of their comic book appearances.