Sentinel (comics)

For the comic book, see Sentinel (comic book). For the DC Comics superhero, see Alan Scott. For the fictional imprint label, see Sentinel Comics.

The Sentinels are a group of mutant-hunting robots appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. They are typically depicted as antagonists to the X-Men.

Sentinels
The Sentinels. Art by Alex Ross.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	The X-Men #14 (Nov. 1965)[1]
Created by	Stan Lee Jack Kirby
In-story information
Base(s)	Sentinel Headquarters, New York
Member(s)	Sentinel Squad Office of National Emergency Nimrod Master Mold Bastion Prime Sentinels Wild Sentinels

The Sentinels played a large role in several X-Men animated series, and have been featured in several X-Men video games. The Sentinels are featured prominently in the 2014 film X-Men: Days of Future Past, and made brief appearances in the 2006 film X-Men: The Last Stand and the 2016 film X-Men: Apocalypse. In 2009, The Sentinels were ranked in IGN as the 38th Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.^[2]

Publication history

Sentinels' debut in The X-Men #14 (November 1965). Art by Jack Kirby.

Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, they first appeared in The X-Men #14 (Nov. 1965).^[3]

Sentinels are programmed to locate mutants and capture or kill them. Though several types of Sentinels have been introduced, the typical Sentinel is three stories tall, is capable of flight, projects energy blasts, and can detect mutants.^[4] Pursuing genocide as the means of dealing with a threat has made the Sentinels an analogy for racial hatred and other negative types of fanaticism in Marvel stories,^[5] represent the horrific consequences of humanity's actions based on hate and ignorance, along with a caution of the risks of AI takeover.

Characteristics

Sentinels are designed to hunt mutants.^[6] While many are capable of tactical thought, only a handful are self-aware.

Sentinels are technologically advanced, and have exhibited a wide variety of abilities. They are armed (primarily with energy weapons and restraining devices), capable of flight, and can detect mutants at long range. They possess vast physical strength, and their bodies are highly resistant to damage.^[6] Some are able to alter their physical forms or re-assemble and reactivate themselves after they have been destroyed.

Some Sentinel variants have the ability to learn from their experiences, developing their defenses during an engagement. Several groups of Sentinels have been created or led by a single massive Sentinel called Master Mold. Some Sentinels are also equipped with an inconspicuous logic loop in case they should go rogue to convince them that they are mutants.

Because of their power, sophistication, and high mass production, Sentinels are sold on the black market.^[7] Entities obtain them—often in poor condition—for their own purposes (not necessarily mutant-related).^[6][8]

During the "Iron Man 2020" event, a Sentinel appears as a member of the A.I. Army.^[9]

Types of Sentinels

Evolution of the Sentinel. Art by Ardian Syaf.

There are different types of Sentinels that appear in the comics:

• Mark I and Master Mold - Created by Bolivar Trask. First appeared in X-Men #14. Trask sacrificed himself to destroy the Master Mold.
• Mark II - Created by Larry Trask. This model was capable of adapting to and counteracting superpowers almost instantly. First appeared in X-Men #57.
  • No.2, the robotic leader of Larry Trask's Sentinels, later "mutated" with the capability of creating space warps.^[10]
• Composite - Created by merging the remaining portions of five Sentinels destroyed by the X-Men and came under control of Ashley Martin. It rebelled against her and was subsequently destroyed.
• Mark III - Created by Stephen Lang and Project: Armageddon, secretly funded by Edward Buckman and the Council of the Chosen. Based on incomplete notes of Trask and inferior to Mark II. First appeared in X-Men #98.
  • X-Sentinels - Created by Stephen Lang. They are androids who were duplicates of the original X-Men. First appeared in X-Men #99.
• Mark IV - Created by Sebastian Shaw. First appeared in The Uncanny X-Men #151.
• Mark V - Created by Shaw for U.S. government's Project Wideawake. First appeared in The New Mutants #2.
• Mark VI - Created by Shaw Industries for Project Wideawake and used by Onslaught. Also incorporated parts of Project Nimrod.
• Mark VII - Created by Shaw Industries. They were experimental and remote controlled.
• Nimrod - A prototype Super Sentinel that arrived from the "Days of Future Past" timeline and was later reactivated by William Stryker.
  • Project Nimrod - Created by an offshoot of Project Wideawake and was in the experimental stage, Project Nimrod was actually a self-awareness program that Nimrod implanted before its demise into the base's military computer cybernet, the program served as a sleeper virus that awaited the opportunity to access a Sentinel development program so it could use it to re-create Nimrod itself. Cancelled after X-Force interfered.
• Prime Sentinels - Bastion's humanoid Sentinels. They were at first disabled humans infected with Nano-Sentinel technology at Prospero Clinic under the belief that they were being equipped with cybernetic nanotech implants to replace their lost limbs. Unbeknownst to many of them, they became sleeper agents for Operation: Zero Tolerance, as they would, upon activation by a mutant attack or near the presence of one, transformed into armored cyborg beings with powerful weapons systems.
  • Omega Prime Sentinels - The second generation of Prime Sentinels. Often simply called Omega Sentinels, their nanotechnology is far afield's in advancement to their brethren. Omega's have an 8 step cycle of transformation they undergo before transmuting from full organic to complete machine entities; which are Infection, Nesting, Replication, Dormancy, Activation, Union, Adaptation and finally Omega.^[11] Karima Shapandar is one of them.
• Wild Sentinels - Built in secret by Master Mold in Ecuador, activated and used by Cassandra Nova for the genocide of Genosha.
• Mark VIII / Sentinel Squad O*N*E - Sentinels designed by Stark Enterprises which, unlike other Sentinels, requires a human pilot.
  • T.O. Sentinels - An intended upgrade to the Squad O*N*E Sentinels conceived of by director Robert Callahan who sought to use techno-organic substance to increase the effectiveness of the Sentinel program.^[12] Failing in his first attempt he would get a second chance after obtaining the Warlock infected New Mutants to use as experimental fodder for further technoforming augmentation to the Sentinel Squad Armor unit.^[13][14]
• Bio-Sentinels - Human mutant corpse infected by a technological virus created by Kaga.^[15] They come with the innate capacity of weaponizing bio-technological apparati such as Brood designed missiles as a means of offense.^[16]
• Stark Sentinels MK I - The Stark Sentinels debuted during the AXIS storyline. Under the influence of the Red Skull (who also had erased from him any memory of their construction), Tony Stark created a model of adamantium-constructed Sentinels outfitted with Pym Particle technology with databases withholding knowledge of different super heroes he acquired after the 1st Civil War storyline.^[17] When Red Skull became the Red Onslaught, and the Avengers arrived to Genosha to stop him, he deployed the Stark Sentinels.^[18]
• Mother Mold - A self-aware and capable of adaptation Master Mold variant head designed to create "Master Molds" which in turn create Sentinels. It was built in secrecy near the Sun by the group Orchis, which is made up of various members of human organizations such as A.I.M., S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra, Alpha Flight and others. Mother Mold will lead directly to the creation of Nimrod, the ultimate nanotechnological Sentinel form.^[19]
  • Nimrod - Created in the modern era solely from contemporary technology and independent of its time-travelling counterparts by Dr. Alia Gregor on Orchis's Mother Mold.
• X-Sentinels - Orchis' new era of Sentinel, which is a modern Sentinel created by Mister Sinister's clone Doctor Stasis. He pulled this off by building over his gene-spliced animal/human Chimeras and used the many corpses of Wolverine to perfect a process and converting them into Sentinel units, combining Wolverine's adamantium skeleton and claws with the latest Sentinel casing and systems prove to be a lethal combination.^[20]
  • Sentinel Zero - The first X-Sentinel to come online and built over the frame of Wolverine's adamantium skeleton. Firestar incinerated Sentinel Zero's Sentinel parts, leaving a smoking Wolverine skeleton.
• Stark Sentinel MK II - A new version of Stark Sentinel created by the anti-mutant industrialist Feilong after he embedded himself in the Stark Unlimited company and secretly funneled its resources in the construction of Sentinels based on the technology of the Iron Man Armor. Once Feilong publicly took control of the company, Iron Man investigated his movements and found out the first Stark Sentinel in the final process of assembly. Feilong had the robot come online to chase off Stark and herald his plans for mutantkind.^[21]
• Fireteam - A group of cyborg sentinels created by Larry Trask from the harvested nanites inside Juston Seyfert to create human sentinels of his own. This led to the creation of a new Sentinel Program which he uses to track down and capture the world's most dangerous mutants.
  • Lockstep (Bradley Hansen)
  • Voivod (Dragos Teodorescu)
  • Sawtooth (Camila Rivera)
  • Shellback (Michael Babineaux)
  • Drumfire (Patricia Pham)
• Bloodhounds - The Bloodhounds were captured wolves that were turned into sentinels to hunt mutants for the Graymalkin Prison.^[22]

Related mutant-hunting creations

The X-Men battle Sentinels in X-Men: Schism #1 (July 2011). Art by Carlos Pacheco and Cam Smith.

• Tri-Sentinel - A giant-sized, six-armed, three-faced combination of three Sentinels created by Loki and acquired by the Life Foundation.
• Soviet Sentinels - Created by the Soviet Union and later purchased by Cuban government officials.^{[23][full citation needed]}
• Super-Sentinels - Using Nano-Sentinel technology, Weapon Plus created artificially evolved superhumans at The World. Three of the creations were chosen to form the mutant-hunting Super-Sentinels: Huntsman, Fantomex and Ultimaton, who were intended to be presented to the public as superheroes to make the extermination of mutantkind look "like a Saturday morning cartoon".
• Colcord's Sentinels - Some of the Boxbots created by Madison Jeffries (aka Box) to serve the Weapon X Program, run by Malcolm Colcord. In one variation of the Days of Future Past timeline seen in the Weapon X: Days of Future Now limited series, one of the Boxbots evolves into a new Master Mold and a new breed of Sentinels.
• Hardaway - A cyborg created at Camp Hayden, killed by the Mutant Liberation Front, who called himself a Bio-Sentinel.
• X-51 (Machine Man) - Captured by Bastion and "infected" with Prime Sentinel nano-bots which reconfigured and reconstructed his systems thereby giving him similar capabilities to Nimrod,^[24][25] such as adapting to almost any situation and programming that at times forced him to attack mutants.^[26]
• Juston Seyfert's Sentinel: First appearing in Sentinel #1, this is a rebuilt Sentinel (likely a Mark V or Mark VI), reprogrammed to obey Juston Seyfert. Initially, Seyfert controlled the Sentinel by riding on its shoulder; he now has built a cockpit into it. Seyfert and his Sentinel are former members of Avengers Academy and featured in Avengers Arena.
• Sentinaughts - One of the types of sentient robots who live in the free robot city of The Core,^{[27][full citation needed]} Sentinaughts are apparently based on the Sentinel design. They vary in size from roughly human to the large stature of traditional Sentinels.
• Nano-Sentinel - Microscopic Sentinel type of tech created by Cassandra Nova and implemented in various ways by other users.^[28] They attach themselves to the brains of humans and mutants alike.^[29]
  • An unknown form of human made Sentinels created by Simon Trask using a nanite based Sentinel Tech virus. The victims become anti-mutant activists who later, at Trask's command, are fully transformed into lifeless robotic Sentinels mindlessly following Trask's orders.^[30]
• Adamantium Cyborgs - Near-fully mechanical mutant hunter killers refitted by Weapon X with the titular metal as an endoskeleton using sentinel based nanotech. Coming in numerous alphabetical categorical batches, these bionic weapons can shed their skin revealing a murderous automaton with the abilities of various X-Men heroes and villains integrated into them.^[31]
• Core/Central Command - A biotech Master Mold variant behind the design parameters of the new Prime Sentinels.^[32]
• Box Sentinels - Smaller and faster Sentinels based on the Box technology created by a joint venture between Department H and Orchis to track down and capture mutants in Canada.^[33]

Other versions

The following are alternative versions of the Sentinels, which appear outside of regular Marvel canon.

Age of Apocalypse

In the Age of Apocalypse timeline, Bolivar Trask created the Sentinels with his wife Moira MacTaggert. These Sentinels are equipped with several body-mounted gun turrets, and their primary directive is to protect humans rather than to hunt mutants.^{[citation needed]} They are capable of cooperating with mutants to further this mission.^{[34][full citation needed]}

Days of Future Past

In the Days of Future Past timeline, which takes place in an alternate future, the "Omega Sentinels" have advanced technologically and become the de facto rulers of the United States. The most powerful among them is Nimrod.^{[volume & issue needed]}

Hembeck

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

Here Comes Tomorrow

In the Here Comes Tomorrow future timeline, a Sentinel named Rover is Tom Skylark's companion and protector. After more than 150 years of being active, Rover has become self-aware and, possibly, capable of emotion.^{[volume & issue needed]}

House of M

In the House of M storyline, Magneto is victorious in a mutant/human war. The Sentinels are adapted by Sebastian Shaw, now the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., to serve a reverse purpose, and now aid in the hunting of human rebels.^{[volume & issue needed]}

MC2

In the MC2 timeline, Wild Thing encounters a Prime Sentinel that has accidentally been activated by a faulty microwave.^{[volume & issue needed]}

Ronin

In the alternate reality of X-Men: Ronin, the story is played out in Japan. A police unit called "Sentinel Force" designs, builds and pilots the robots. These are aesthetically similar to regular Sentinels, but each is subtly different from the others.^{[volume & issue needed]}

Star Trek

In the comic crossover X-Men/Star Trek: Second Contact, the X-Men work with the crew of the Enterprise-E to battle Kang the Conqueror. An away team composed of Captain Picard, Deanna Troi, Nightcrawler and Colossus encounter an approximation of the "Days of Future Past" timeline, in which the Sentinels have merged with the Borg.^{[volume & issue needed]}

Ultimate Marvel

The Ultimate Marvel version of Sentinels were created by Bolivar Trask, were already in action in the Ultimate X-Men story arc, hunting down and killing mutants on the streets, in a program apparently openly and publicly acknowledged by the U.S. government. Later on, there were also the New Sentinels that were sixty of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top agents in Sentinel battle armor and they were described to have enough hardware to take on a fleet of the old Sentinel models. A new breed of Sentinel robots, created by Trask under the Fenris twins' orders, was later created. After the events of the Ultimatum Wave, Nimrod Sentinels was deployed to hunt, capture or kill mutants that refused to turn themselves in. William Stryker, Jr., using Sentinel tech, later displayed an ability to summon a fleet of Sentinels after being attacked by the Shroud.^{[35][full citation needed]}

What If?

• In What If... Starring Cannonball's little brother Josh—and his pet Sentinel", shows Josh (who would, in normal continuity, later become Icarus) finding and adopting a Sentinel.^{[36][full citation needed]}
• In "What if... Starring Secret Wars: 25 Years Later", the children of Marvel heroes are teleported back to Earth where, sometime in the last 25 years, a variation of "Days of Future Past" is shown when the group is attacked by Sentinels.^{[37][full citation needed]}
• In "What if... Starring Juggernaut: The Kingdom of Cain", Juggernaut has killed the X-Men, and as a result there is no one to oppose the Sentinels, so the world is ravaged by them until they are destroyed by Juggernaut.^[38]