Sentinel Squad O*N*E 1 - Review & Spoilers

[hbkabdul]

Book opens with several Sentinels chasing down the Hulk. The voiceover explains the reasons the Sentinels are dealing with the Hulk and not a super team is because they government doesn't have any control of super teams. We learn the voiceover is Val Cooper. She is speaking with some senators. The Sentinels have the Hulk down and we learn that it is actually a simulacrum of the Hulk for the purpose of demonstration. The Sentinels' AI decides not to destroy the Hulk since they recognize that the Hulk is also Bruce Banner who could cure cancer inevitably. Val says this is a fatal flaw in their programming. The Hulk bot destroys the Sentinels and makes its way to Val and the senators. They are promptly saved by another Sentinel piloted by Jim Rhodes. The senators decide to sign off on the idea if Sentinel's being piloted by humans.

5 months later we several various soldiers getting off a bus. Val introduces herself before Rhodey flies in and informs the troops he is their commanding officer. One of the troops is a mutant and another troop says he isnt working alongside any mutants and is excorted away by some MPs after Rhodey has him removed. Rhodey goes through some exposition about working together as a team etc etc and has one of his cadets named Skylark pilot a Sentnel against an entire regime of tanks, airplanes and misslaunchers. The other cadets seem worried for her safety but when the smoke clears we see that Skylark was joined by several other Sentinels during the fray and was able to win the battle through teamwork.

Later in the mess hall the mutant is eating by himself obviously isolated because of his DNA sequence. Two cadets Jake and Nixon discuss the finer points of Skylark. Jake likes his women more exotic and attempts to hit on an Hindu Indian cadet named Rajani who is the squad's computer scenarios expert. She brushes him off and he makes a racists remark about the squads tech support being from India. She knocks him on his @$$ and walks off.

Cut to another cadet named Lex trying to get into his room. His swipe card wont let him in so he uses his mutant power which i guess is electricity based and gets the door to slide open. Our other resident mutant spots him using his powers. Lex tells him to not say anything to anyone about it at all.

Last page we see Val looking over some of the recruits including Nathaniel Briggs we is introduced briefly in the beggining and Eric Winston. a character named General Lazer shows up and tells Val not to get too attached. In his hand he is holding a file that says OPERATION: SAVAGELAND and holding a picture in his other hand of a T-Rex with some cybernetic equipment attached to its head.

All in all a decent issue. Nothing to go crazy about. Felt like a lot of setup as a first issue should. The new characters were each given about the same amount of space to acquaint ourselves with. More time seemed to be devoted to why the Squad exists and in 22 pages that didn't leave a lot of room for roughly 8 new characters. Mild recommendation on this book.

[Will.S]

Pretty decent issue. I knew what to expect with regards to setting the characters up, nearly every military type of book or movie/anime establishes the cast so that you would care for them which I can't say I have yet exactly.

Most likely we'll see them become more interesting during missions but I liked all the tech being shown here. They tried to separate each design by the chest plates and some of the arms, I would have differentiated the headgear a bit but otherwise it's a really neat idea similar to the japanese anime Mobile Suit Gundam (which I love).

Anyone who's seen Gundam 08th MS Team, which is sort of Platoon meets robots, would like this. Seeing as how Savage Land is a pretty harsh environment, I wouldn't expect all of them to survive but that's what makes the book so interesting. Most likely those dinos were part of another gov't experiment gone awry so they get the Sentinel Squad to erase that mistake. It'll be cool to see the squad become resourceful with their Sentinels in the jungles and I look forward to seeing them fight smart dinos.

The fact that Tony Stark and Jim Rhodes are involved with manufacturing/leading is neat and fairly logical considering the tech, I'm sure IM fans got a kick out of seeing Rhodey in a Sentinel/Iron Man hybrid armor. I'm glad they're putting a new spin on Sentinels, it keeps things fresh and exciting by Marvel putting tech to such good use.

Aaron Lopresti's art is solid, better than his Excalibur work even although his Sentinels could use a liiiiiitle work.

Overall I'd give it 7/10 given the way it's being used for set-up but it has alot of potential. Great covers by Pascual Ferry BTW.

[Jack Flash]

Does anybody else have a problem with Tony Stark designing Sentinels? I thought he was dead set against Mutant Hunting? Weird how an avenger would personally design a robot that the Military and US Government have used to track, hunt and kill mutants.

Beside that fact, it was a good ish. I picked it up on a lark and will likely pick up the next.

[StoneGold]

Does anybody else have a problem with Tony Stark designing Sentinels? I thought he was dead set against Mutant Hunting? Weird how an avenger would personally design a robot that the Military and US Government have used to track, hunt and kill mutants.

Beside that fact, it was a good ish. I picked it up on a lark and will likely pick up the next.
From what I can tell, while they may look more or less like Sentinels, this new version doesn't have a mutant hunting priority. With the human pilots, and the threats that were shown, they seem to fulfill more the function of souped up Mandroids than Sentinels.


Although this is probably a sign of what side Tony is going to fall on in the Civil War.

[Chou Blaster]

Yeah and the Hulk was a Hulk Bot given by Reed Richards.

hey wait a tick: In Plane thulk Arc, it was Reed, Tony, and dr. Strange who showed up, to explain him to why he could not return to Earth.

So does that mean the guys NOT showen out of the Illumanti pic, will be the other side of Civil War? One can only think about it.

[StoneGold]

Yeah and the Hulk was a Hulk Bot given by Reed Richards.

hey wait a tick: In Plane thulk Arc, it was Reed, Tony, and dr. Strange who showed up, to explain him to why he could not return to Earth.

So does that mean the guys NOT showen out of the Illumanti pic, will be the other side of Civil War? One can only think about it.
Already discussed in the Planet Hulk thread. And Blackbolt was on the panel also, directly behind Tony, just covered slightly with static.

[Ryan K]

Does anybody else have a problem with Tony Stark designing Sentinels? I thought he was dead set against Mutant Hunting? Weird how an avenger would personally design a robot that the Military and US Government have used to track, hunt and kill mutants.

I had a problem with that too. And that Reed Richards was supplying a Hulkbot to test them. Did neither of these guys think to tell the X-Men that new Sentinels were being created. What about mention it to Xavier in their Illuminati meetings.

I get that these aren't bad guy Sentinels, but that shouldn't matter. Would you put a bunch of guys in Nazi uniforms outside the homes of Jewish people and tell them "no no these are good Nazis, here to protect you". Even if Richards and Stark felt these Sentinels were being created for good and everything, they should have had the sensitivity to realize what the Sentinels mean to the X-Men and mutants everywhere.

Other than that, I thought this was a good issue. It surprised me.

[steve2275]

Does anybody else have a problem with Tony Stark designing Sentinels? I thought he was dead set against Mutant Hunting? Weird how an avenger would personally design a robot that the Military and US Government have used to track, hunt and kill mutants.

Beside that fact, it was a good ish. I picked it up on a lark and will likely pick up the next.
we know where all his money went ;)

[Zero Hunter]

What get me is that Stark has always been very protective of his armour tech, and doesn't give out it to anyone. Especilly after all he went through in the Armour Wars story. I just can't seem him giving tech like this to the government of all people without some from of failsafe built into it to keep it from being ubused. Maybe he does have something buried deep in the system that he can trigger to fry the systems if they are used in a way he thinks is wrong.
Actull I think the whole concept of manned Sennitiels is kinda flawed anyway. How many of these characters do you really think are going to survive if they go up against a really powerful mutant? Every version of the Sentiels so far uasully end up torn to pieces in the end, and I don't really think I would want to be inside one when that happens.

[Fats Tuesday]

I liked this book.

My favorite part though was right at the beginning, where one of the Senators asked if the whole thing could be set up in the three months that had been proposed, and the very next page had "5 months later" - behind schedule straight away!

[Hiromi]

It had mechs, it has Jim Rhodes, how can I not like this book? I absolutly love having specific purpose Sentinels.

[Tobias March]

Good to see Rhodes in a new book. The man's titles have been somewhat maligned in the past for various reasons (The Crew, War Machine...etc.).

[Chou Blaster]

What get me is that Stark has always been very protective of his armour tech, and doesn't give out it to anyone. Especilly after all he went through in the Armour Wars story. I just can't seem him giving tech like this to the government of all people without some from of failsafe built into it to keep it from being ubused. Maybe he does have something buried deep in the system that he can trigger to fry the systems if they are used in a way he thinks is wrong.
Actull I think the whole concept of manned Sennitiels is kinda flawed anyway. How many of these characters do you really think are going to survive if they go up against a really powerful mutant? Every version of the Sentiels so far uasully end up torn to pieces in the end, and I don't really think I would want to be inside one when that happens.


Not to mention they are Human beings with minds.

So unless got 24/7 Telepathy protection, the piolts could be mind screwed by a mutant telepath.

[Hiromi]

According to X Men Deadly Genesis they do have Telepathic shields built in, though Emma Frost found a way around them.

[Jack Flash]

I can't imagine Wolvie and Tony Stark being on the same team if he ever finds out. It really damages Tony and Reed's characters, but hopefully it will play out in the story.

[StoneGold]

What get me is that Stark has always been very protective of his armour tech, and doesn't give out it to anyone. Especilly after all he went through in the Armour Wars story. I just can't seem him giving tech like this to the government of all people without some from of failsafe built into it to keep it from being ubused. Maybe he does have something buried deep in the system that he can trigger to fry the systems if they are used in a way he thinks is wrong.
Actull I think the whole concept of manned Sennitiels is kinda flawed anyway. How many of these characters do you really think are going to survive if they go up against a really powerful mutant? Every version of the Sentiels so far uasully end up torn to pieces in the end, and I don't really think I would want to be inside one when that happens.
Read the arc where Tony became secretary of defense. Basically, after he outed himself as Iron Man, the government took it as open season to copy and reverse engineer Iron Man tech. Which is what led Tony to become the SoD, because the crappy knockoffs were killing people. And got him designing less than lethal tech for the military, since, as SoD, he was in fact controlling them. Sort of changed his status quo a bit.




As for telepaths, if Tony can designed anti-psy deviced for the IM armor, I'm pretty sure he can outfit the Sentinels with the stuff.

[Tien Long]

What get me is that Stark has always been very protective of his armour tech, and doesn't give out it to anyone. Especilly after all he went through in the Armour Wars story. I just can't seem him giving tech like this to the government of all people without some from of failsafe built into it to keep it from being ubused. Maybe he does have something buried deep in the system that he can trigger to fry the systems if they are used in a way he thinks is wrong.

Perhaps. I also think Stark made it very clear that he would want someone he could trust to oversee the training and handling of his tech, namely James Rhodes. I felt it was cool to see that the intentions of the Sentinel O*N*E program aren't the old "herd mutants into concentration camps" or "kill mutants on site" ideals, but honestly to fulfill a need for national security. Rhodes made it very clear to one of the recruits (through booting him out) that he doesn't care if your black, white, male, female, HUMAN OR MUTANT (remember there was a mutant on the team), if you can't get along and learn to trust your team, your out.

Damn, reading this ish kept me up all night and reawakened my love for giant robots. Read in an article as well that there would be MORE Sentinel designs and types shown in the book. Looking forward to it!

[StoneGold]

Actually, if there's a question about motivations, it should be Rhodey's. Last we saw him, he was stealing dirty government money. Now he's working for the federales. An odd shift in character.

[Neolucifer]

Well about Tony , this is the same guy we saw give to cap a certain speech about how the NA will need in the future to do what needs to be done (when recruiting wolvie) ...
Not to mention what's happening with the Illuminati and Hulk .

[StoneGold]

Well about Tony , this is the same guy we saw give to cap a certain speech about how the NA will need in the future to do what needs to be done (when recruiting wolvie) ...
Not to mention what's happening with the Illuminati and Hulk .
The funny thing is, what this book says to me the most is that Captain America is more likely to come down on the anti-registration side in Civil War.


Which is good, because him being pro-registration makes less sense than Iron Man.

[Neolucifer]

Thats my take as well . There is no way a Cap that already rebelled against extremely authoritative govts , would agree to this registration act .
While Tony , even though used to hide his identity , is nowaday becoming quite ambiguous .

[sschroeder]

This was an all around competent effort. The idea of a government run Sentinel Squad, piloted by people, is at least interesting. I didn't think I would pick this up, but in reading the preview pages and noticing that Rhodes was in it, with a possibly new armour suit, during a flip through, I was intrigued enough to give it a chance.

So I wonder if Rhodes' suit will have any interesting abilities.

However, I'm also wondering why they'd go build an army of Sentinels. Who owned all the Sentinels that have bothered the X-Men in the past? Was it the US government? Why wouldn't they just have a unit of Iron Men? Perhaps retrofitting Sentinels was cheaper. Seems doubtful though. Of course, Sentinels might also seem more imposing. I'm not sure if there have been too many Iron Man vs Sentinel battles in the past to see which was more effective.

[StoneGold]

However, I'm also wondering why they'd go build an army of Sentinels. Who owned all the Sentinels that have bothered the X-Men in the past? Was it the US government? Why wouldn't they just have a unit of Iron Men? Perhaps retrofitting Sentinels was cheaper. Seems doubtful though. Of course, Sentinels might also seem more imposing. I'm not sure if there have been too many Iron Man vs Sentinel battles in the past to see which was more effective.
In the real world, trying to use something reminiscent of the Sentinel designs, when we all know they always go haywire and start tearing through New York like they always do, would be the stupidest move the government made since Nixon ran the Secret Empire.

But as far as Marvel goes, there's some level of marketing cache with the Sentinel name. Sells a book better than Mandroid Mob ONE.