Marvel Makes Major Change to the Sentry

The Sentry is back in the Marvel Universe and he may be better, or more dangerous, than ever.

SPOILERS for The Sentry #4 and #5 by Jeff Lemire, Kim Jacinto, Joshua Cassara, and Rain Beredo follow.

The Sentry has always been a character with a hidden darkness. Once forgotten by the other heroes of the Marvel Universe, the Sentry has the power of 1 million exploding suns. The problem is that any time he used that power to do good in the world, it ultimately summons the Void, a creature of pure evil from within the Sentry’s subconscious, to do evil in equal measure.

Since making his surprise return to the Marvel Universe, the Sentry, aka Bob Reynolds has been handled by the FBI’s Aberrant Crimes Division, specifically with Misty Knight paying him regular visits. The ACD has created a virtual reality device where Bob can enter to live out his Sentry fantasies, expending that superhero energy and keeping the Void in check.

Bob being able to live this life, even if it is a fantasy, has made the Sentry’s old sidekick, Scout, bitter and jealous. Scout lost an arm and has been working as a short-order cook at a diner with Bob. Scout reaches out the Sentry’s old enemy Cranio and hatches a plan for Cranio to take control of the Sentry’s world.

The Sentry ends up manifesting in the real world while Bob is sent to the Sentry’s world. The Sentry struggles with what to do even as he fights Iron Man in the real world. Bob eventually comes to the conclusion that it may be time to stop fighting his dark side and to embrace it. He goes to the Void for help and emerges for the first time as an “All-New” Sentry with the various sides of his personality supposedly in balance.

The Sentry is forced to kill Scout to stop his rampage. He also easily takes out Cranio. Several of the Avengers show up to try to take the Sentry into custody, but he proves too much for even Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. In the end, the Sentry leaves Earth and the other Marvel heroes are left to wonder whose side he’s actually on.

What’s next for the Sentry is unclear as this is the final issue of his current series, but it certainly seems like Marvel is setting the character up for something big down the road.

What do you think of this new development for the Sentry? Let us know in the comments!

All five issues of The Sentry are now on sale. The collected edition, The Sentry: Man of Two Worlds, goes on sale December 19th.