Sentinels is a 2024 five-issue miniseries published by Marvel Comics as part of the X-Men: From the Ashes initiative. The series is written by Alex Paknadel with art by Justin Mason.
While the X-Men regroup in the wake of Krakoa’s fall, the government revives their infamous Sentinel program under the guidance of Mad Scientist Larry Trask, the former Boomerang Bigot son of their inventor. Rather than being an unreliable force for human supremacy, his new Sentinels are a Super Team dedicated to preserving peace between mankind and mutants by performing Precrime Arrests of the mutants Larry foresaw triggering a Bad Future.
The first issue was released October 9, 2024.
For the Sentinels themselves, see here.
Sentinels provides examples of:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Larry asserts that the reason every single Sentinel program ultimately fails is that they're made in the image of their creators with their rigid prime directive to kill all mutants only holding them back, an issue he hoped to resolve by using people this time around.
- Alas, Poor Villain:
- The Blob hadn't done anything illegal in a long time and cooperated with the X-Men in Krakoa, but regardless he was sent to the Graymalkin Extranormal Prison where his first appearance in From The Ashes sees him begging for mercy from their Playing with Syringes.
- The final page of the series has a half-naked Larry Trask babbling incoherently while chained to a wall while Dr. Ellis looks on in sadistic pleasure.
- Back from the Dead: Larry Trask was Hoist by His Own Petard in The Avengers (Lee & Kirby) #104, but was brought back in Krakoa alongside all the other mutants who died before their time with Professor X telling him he deserves a second chance. The same happens for Juston Seyfert from Sentinel, who was resurrected after his death in Avengers Arena.
- Bad Boss: Dr. Ellis is just as cruel to the Sentinels as she is to everyone else, not even bothering to remember Drumfire's name and completely ignoring her concerns over potentially losing the nanomachines holding her together.
- Bad Future: Larry's father Bolivar invented the Sentinels in response to Larry's visions of the Days of Future Past (1981) timeline, both unaware that this action was what led to it in the first place. We see Larry's at it again in the new era, seeing an apocalyptic war between mankind and mutants.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Graymalkin's evil warden Dr. Ellis doesn't take kindly to working with Sentinels created by a mutant, and tries to make her own by turning dogs into cyborgs. After watching in horror as a subject tears itself apart and dies of a heart attack, she angrily demands they try another. We later see that Larry took over the project and improved on her designs.
- Bittersweet Ending: All the male members of the team are KIA, with Sawtooth & Drumfire going on the run with Juston. Meanwhile, Ellis and Scurvy steal Larry Trask's Power Limiter and reduce him to a babbling madman chained up like a dog. To make matters worse, according to him they failed to Prevent the War and the Age of Revelation occurs unabated.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: According to
Word of God the series is centered around "flawed human beings doing a dirty job for a dirty cause", with their enemies being far worse. - Call-Back: Larry's original storyline occurred way back in the 1960s-1970s, and the team's backstories tie into several old storylines.
- Cape Busters: Like the previous iterations of the Sentinel Program, the Sentinels are dedicated to hunting mutants. However, this team limits themselves to hostile ones rather than ordinary people trying to live their lives, and each member has the motivation of having been collateral damage to superhero battles. Lockstep and Sawtooth both recognize that mutants are deserving of basic human decency but argue that the collective resentment over losing Krakoa and having to deal with ignorant humans again makes them more dangerous than ever.
- Continuity Overlap: Issue #3 has the Sentinels face off against someone disguised as Magneto while the real one is in Alaska. We learn in Mystique (2024) that it was the titular villain who was on a mission of her own to capture Fabian Cortez before them. Fabian mistaking her disguising herself as Magneto as the real deal led to him using his powers on her, which temporarily gave her Magneto's powers, explaining what the Sentinels saw and reported.
- Dark and Troubled Past: The Team is entirely made up of people who had their lives ruined by superhero conflicts. The Leader Lockstep almost died from radiation poisoning during The Death of Doctor Strange, Drumfire's mother died in the crossfire of Onslaught and she herself was put into a coma by Knull's attack on Earth in King in Black, Sawtooth was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who resigned in disgust during Secret Empire when HYDRA took over the US, Shellback suffered third-degree burns to most of his body in the War of the Realms, and Voivod was crippled in World War Hulk when Hulk smashed the tank he was in.
- Energy Absorption: Drumfire's power is to collect energy and redirect it as a Breath Weapon.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Scurvy calls Larry a "weird little bastard" for harvesting Juston Seyfert's nanite-infused tissue to use in Fireteam.
- Foreshadowing: While it's made clear from the first issue that Trask is going the Powered by a Forsaken Child route with his new Sentinels, who said "child" is isn't revealed until the end of issue 4. However, there's several major hints to his identity beforehand:
- When Shellback starts grafting, the only thing he says outside of binary speak is "no matter what". As in "Unit will not abandon Juston, no matter what", the prime directive of Juston Seyfert's Sentinel.
- Voivod mentions he spent a week thinking he lived in a junkyard thanks to the nanotech. Juston grew up in his dad's junkyard, which is where he found the Sentinel.
- Scurvy mentions that the nanomaterials found in Lockstep came from Mark VI and VII-A Sentinels. Juston's Sentinel was a Mark VI, and in the second Sentinel miniseries it took parts from a Mark VII-A to repair itself.
- Having a Blast: Voivod's power is to detonate, paired with a Healing Factor to survive the blast.
- Military Superhero: A squad of veterans-turned-Super-Soldier.
- Mini-Mecha: Sawtooth's nanomachines allow her to convert surrounding matter into a mech suit.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: It's eventually revealed that the reason behind the issues with the new Sentinels is that Larry never designed them. He discovered that Juston Seyfert from Sentinel was brought Back from the Dead by his Robot Buddy, with Larry harvesting the nanomachines from his tissue. Once he starts grafting, Voivod makes a Heroic Sacrifice mounting a rescue mission with Sawtooth to save Juston.
- Prevent the War: The team was formed in order to apprehend the mutants Larry foresaw being responsible for an apocalyptic Clash of Evolutionary Levels.
- The Reveal: What exactly is causing "grafting" in the new Sentinels? Answer: it's a corruption of the "never abandon Juston, no matter what" directive that Juston's Sentinel once had. Since the nanomachines used to create the Sentinels were derived from Juston (and thus his Sentinel), they all carry that protocol; as a result, they're directing the Sentinels to Juston's location and mutating them to better serve the protocol.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Drumfire was traumatized by Onslaught, and it's made worse by the augmentations causing her to hallucinate him. Voivod reassures her that it happens to everyone at first until the mood regulators take care of it, and that he spent a week convinced he lived in a junkyard.
- Spicy Latina: Sawtooth is a Hot-Blooded Jerk with a Heart of Gold who acts as The Big Guy of the team.
- Technopath: Lockstep's power is that he can sacrifice his armor to have the nanomachines composing it reach out and take over machines.
- Time Travel for Fun and Profit: The executives of Larry's company try to shut him down, but he quickly gets back in their good graces by pointing out that with his Psychic Powers he can foresee things like the stock market, crop failures, and deposits of valuable resources.
- Undying Loyalty: Juston's Sentinel took its "never abandon Juston" directive seriously enough to revive him using nanotechnology, which would later try and influence the new Sentinels into finding and protecting Juston as well.
- Unwilling Roboticisation: The team has to take Emotion Suppression drugs to prevent "grafting", a Super-Power Meltdown that results in the nanomachines taking over their bodies with a lot of Facial Horror involved. Shellback was the first to go out this way, with Lockstep and Voivod starting to follow.
- We Can Rebuild Him: Half of the team suffered crippling injuries during past crises but had their bodies restored by nanomachines.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Shellback is Mercy Killed in the first issue once he starts grafting, and is immediately replaced by Drumfire which the rest of the team takes offense to.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Professor X makes contact with Drumfire shortly before making his escape. She lays into him for creating Onslaught and seemingly not caring enough to resurrect any of the humans he got killed, i.e. her mother, like he did for all the mutants. He makes it up to her by giving her the means to rescue Sawtooth, in the form of Juston's Sentinel.