Sentry Thoughts?

[z1co80]

I having been reading Bendis Avengers run and i am just reading Siege at the moment when i came to the point where Sentry rips Ares apart. Now, I know Sentry has probably been talked about to death but up to this point i am struggling to imagine that their is a more pointless character in all of comics than the Sentry. Throughout Bendis run i have seen him do three things:

-Flee when someone hurts his feelings
-Refuse to fight because he his struggling to hold it together
-Rip someone in half(Carnage, Ares and i may be mistaken but there might be someone else)

I actually made this thread because the fact he ripped Ares The God Of War apart really irked me, I mean he's the God Of War, And i thought he was made to look like a punk here because Sentry took him apart with ease. The same Sentry who has the emotional stability of a teen girl just coming into puberty.

I have only been reading comics for a year but since i started i have been reading from the start of the Avengers up through to Siege and i am really struggling to think of a more pointless Avenger than Sentry. I just don't see it with him, Now i i am overreacting or missing something i'd love some thoughts but i am genuinely puzzled why this guy has been made this powerhouse who could end a fight in an instant.

[ChristianJCote]

Sentry was a shitty, intolerable character and that's really all there is to it. He represents to me something of a dark ages in Marvel Comics when the hope that he would just die already and we could move on was really the only thing that kept us going, kind of like a metaphor for Dark Reign.

[z1co80]

Sentry was a shitty, intolerable character and that's really all there is to it. He represents to me something of a dark ages in Marvel Comics when the hope that he would just die already and we could move on was really the only thing that kept us going, kind of like a metaphor for Dark Reign.

I just finished Siege and saw him ripping Loki in half, and laughed.

What a one note character he is. What you described about just wanting him dead so you can move on well that's exactly what i fell like just now.

[XPac]

I having been reading Bendis Avengers run and i am just reading Siege at the moment when i came to the point where Sentry rips Ares apart. Now, I know Sentry has probably been talked about to death but up to this point i am struggling to imagine that their is a more pointless character in all of comics than the Sentry. Throughout Bendis run i have seen him do three things:

-Flee when someone hurts his feelings
-Refuse to fight because he his struggling to hold it together
-Rip someone in half(Carnage, Ares and i may be mistaken but there might be someone else)

I actually made this thread because the fact he ripped Ares The God Of War apart really irked me, I mean he's the God Of War, And i thought he was made to look like a punk here because Sentry took him apart with ease. The same Sentry who has the emotional stability of a teen girl just coming into puberty.

I have only been reading comics for a year but since i started i have been reading from the start of the Avengers up through to Siege and i am really struggling to think of a more pointless Avenger than Sentry. I just don't see it with him, Now i i am overreacting or missing something i'd love some thoughts but i am genuinely puzzled why this guy has been made this powerhouse who could end a fight in an instant.

He was he was always powerful enough to rip Sentry in half with ease. The point of his mental instability was to limit what he could do, since he's SOOO powerful very few things were powerful enough to take him if he actually got in in the fight.

Plus... I think "gods" in the MU at times get a bit overrated simply because they are called gods. Thor is uber powerful... and Skyfathers like Odin and Zeus are uber powerful. But your atypical god is really just a guy with super strength who happens to live for a very very very long time. Ares has class 70 strength... characters like Thing and She Hulk are actually stronger than him. Guys like Hulk and Thor are actually MUCH stronger than him.

[Juggernaut Punch]

He was complete and utter garbage in everything outside of Dark Avengers. He was this golden boy that made Superman and Captain America look like the Punisher in terms of how beloved, powerful and ridiculously idealised he was. The worst part of it was that he didn't earn any of it. He was just retconned into the Marvel mythos and essentially raped every story he was retconned into, like his holier than thou bullshit to the Thing or the fact that he took Rogue''s virginity. He just degraded everything he touched.

The only redeemable thing about him was Dark Avengers, because he was fucking terrifying. Every issue was pretty much "is this the one where Sentry goes apeshit and kills everyone?". I'm not a fan of Bendis on anything outside of street-level books, but he made Sentry tolerable during Dark Avengers, and that's a herculean feat of writing.

[erwinrafael]

Too bad because Sentry in the original Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee series was a good character. I loved that mini-series.

[XPac]

He was complete and utter garbage in everything outside of Dark Avengers. He was this golden boy that made Superman and Captain America look like the Punisher in terms of how beloved, powerful and ridiculously idealised he was. The worst part of it was that he didn't earn any of it. He was just retconned into the Marvel mythos and essentially raped every story he was retconned into, like his holier than thou bullshit to the Thing or the fact that he took Rogue''s virginity. He just degraded everything he touched.

The only redeemable thing about him was Dark Avengers, because he was fucking terrifying. Every issue was pretty much "is this the one where Sentry goes apeshit and kills everyone?". I'm not a fan of Bendis on anything outside of street-level books, but he made Sentry tolerable during Dark Avengers, and that's a herculean feat of writing.

I think even prior to Dark Avengers, Bendis was slowly buidling Bob to be a pretty scary character (with Dark Avengers being the pay off). But I think PART of the problem was that because he was being jobbed off in other stories, it sort of watered down the effect he was going for. At least until Dark Avengers.

I recall Human Torch driving Sentry off in Avengers vs Invaders. Not to diss the Torch, but he's probably a few leagues below a Sentry. So when a guy like that can drive Sentry off, the notion of Sentry being this uber big bad that everyone should be afraid of IF he goes nuts is somewhat watered down. All along I think he was essentially this bomb waiting to go off... but I think Dark Avenger was the pay off.

[XPac]

Too bad because Sentry in the original Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee series was a good character. I loved that mini-series.

I honestly liked all 3 of the Sentry minis.

Jenkins second one was pretty good, though not as good as the first. And I thought the Age of Sentry book was a lot of fun.

[PupsOfWar]

Aye, I liked Age of Sentry fine, but in most of the attempts to make him an ongoing character, hands were really overplayed.

[Juggernaut Punch]

I think even prior to Dark Avengers, Bendis was slowly buidling Bob to be a pretty scary character (with Dark Avengers being the pay off). But I think PART of the problem was that because he was being jobbed off in other stories, it sort of watered down the effect he was going for. At least until Dark Avengers.

I recall Human Torch driving Sentry off in Avengers vs Invaders. Not to diss the Torch, but he's probably a few leagues below a Sentry. So when a guy like that can drive Sentry off, the notion of Sentry being this uber big bad that everyone should be afraid of IF he goes nuts is somewhat watered down. All along I think he was essentially this bomb waiting to go off... but I think Dark Avenger was the pay off.

That's true. I never really read anything with Sentry prior to Dark Avengers, so I wasn't really affected by that, but I can see how that would water things down a bit.

[BraveSirRobin]

Aye, I liked Age of Sentry fine, but in most of the attempts to make him an ongoing character, hands were really overplayed.

Maybe he just isn't really suited to be an ongoing character really. I mean, uberpowerful characters, they have a niche (Thor, Superman both hold down series just fine) and even mentally unbalanced characters can be interesting. But having a mega-powerful character who is ALSO stuffed to the gills with issues and mental health problems gets old really, really fast. Every fight he either beats the other dude to a paste (or rips them in half), the rest of the time he doesn't fight at all because schizoparaclaustrowhateverphobia. Boring as hell.

[ragnarok]

z1co80, you forgot "Suggest to throw things into the sun"!

I liked the original bitter-sweet Sentry miniseries (and the one shots that went with it), but IMHO nothing of value was done with him "in continuity".

After using four issues of New Avengers to re-retcon him into continuity, Sentry did nothing for the whole NewAvengers Volume One (I skipped Volume 2), and while the whole point of Dark Avengers seemed to be, to show just how logic defying unkillable the Sentry is (well, that an giving the Dark Avengers time to exchange quips), he finally got a little hammered to death. Mjolinr or not, after surviving being dissected atom by atom or being erased from time, this as a payoff for his awful long introduction/nonusage just seemed laughable.

The original mini was memorable, no he's just forgetable.

[ragnarok]

Maybe he just isn't really suited to be an ongoing character really.

In my eyes this was the message of the original mini: "This is why a character as good as superman simply wouldn't work in continuity". Sure, you could also see it as an analogue to alcoholism or as a struggle between id(void)/ego(robert)/superego(sentry), but for me the former thing stood out the most.

[AntiPatriot]

He sucks, is boring, a Mary-Sue and should stay dead for good.
He is on par with the (original) Red Hulk in terms of PIS feats.

[BraveSirRobin]

In my eyes this was the message of the original mini: "This is why a character as good as superman simply wouldn't work in continuity". Sure, you could also see it as an analogue to alcoholism or as a struggle between id(void)/ego(robert)/superego(sentry), but for me the former thing stood out the most.

Well I don't know if that was the point they set out to make, but made it most certainly was. I can't remember if the original mini was pitched as a one off or as a springboard to a series, but I'm inclined to the former. Same as Blue Marvel, uberpowerful, admittedly you would swap the mental health issues for all the race/racism hoopla that would ensue but in the end it would be a similar problem. A character that powerful just can't function very well in the mainstream Marvel U. Even Thor seems to be extremely powered down nowadays judging by the beat-downs the poor guy gets subjected to, his own Aaron-written series aside.