Marvel’s X-Men have always had to be ready to battle humanity’s mutant-hunting robots The Sentinels, and all the upgrades that come with them. The X-Men’s latest era has been a major evolution of their world, as mutants have all banded together to create a new island nation called Krakoa. As mutants have found new meaning in a shared community, their many enemies have also evolved – and the Sentinels are no different.
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The latest upgrade are the “X-Sentinels,” And the deadly robots are now being (literally) built off the bones of the X-Men and other Marvel heroes!
In X-Men #22 we find the mutant-hating ORCHIS organization on the offensive, with MODOK and Mr. Sinister clone Dr. Stasis field-testing their sabotage of Krakoa’s miracle medicines, which have become Trojan horses for a signal that basically turns normal humans taking Krakoan drugs into rabid animals. If that wasn’t enough, ORCHIS is using a front of offering medical help to mutants seeking a “cure” for the X-gene to kidnap and forcibly operate on mutants – which is exactly what brings the X-Men to their doorstep.
While attempting to rescue one mutant from ORCHIS doctors, the X-Men team (Cyclops, Forge, Domino, Firestar) are ambushed by “Sentinel Zero,” ORCHIS’ new era of Sentinel, which is a modern Sentinel robot built over the frame of Wolverine’s Adamantium Skeleton.
X-Men’s X-Sentinels Explained
A major part of the X-Men’s new Krakoa nation is their ability to “store backups” of and resurrect any mutant that dies, using a combination of powerful mutant abilities used in coordination. With resurrection perfected, the X-Men and other mutant heroes have literally laid down their lives over and over again going on missions – with Krakoa’s black ops squad X-Force (featuring Logan on its roster) having special resurrection protocols that allow them to send a never-ending wave of Kamikaze fighters at ORCHIS and other enemies. The problem that the mutants never saw coming was how resurrection could be corrupted by their own (such as Beast cloning his own army of brain-wiped Wolverine assassins), or what threat could arise from leaving so many mutant corpses in enemy hands.
It’s revealed that Dr. Stasis’s gene-spliced animal/human hybrids (the apes) have perfected a process of taking corpses like Wolverine’s and converting them into Sentinel units. Sentinel Zero proves to be a major threat, as Wolverine’s Adamantium skeleton and claws, combined with the latest Sentinel casing and systems prove to be a lethal combination. In the end, the X-Men win by having Firestar incinerate Sentinel Zero’s Sentinel parts, leaving a smoking Wolverine skeleton.
…However, the cliffhanger of X-Men #22 reveals that ORCHIS’ “Human/Resources” team has ten X-Sentinels with Adamantium Wolverine skeletons already going online. A teaser for X-Men #23 hints that more Marvel heroes could be used to create X-Sentinel models, as “Stark Sentinels” are teased to be on the way, with a teaser image of the X-Men battling a classic giant Sentinel robot – this time incased in Iron Man armor.
X-Men #22 is on sale at Marvel Comics.
