Comments on: In Defense Of… the Sentry

By: snap judgments » All You Need to Know - Mighty Avengers #14

snap judgments » All You Need to Know - Mighty Avengers #14 — Mon, 26 May 2008 02:28:21 +0000

[...] me just a moment to just… remember why I liked the Sentry. Because this issue is trying to convince me [...]

By: Blog@Newsarama » Meanwhile…

Blog@Newsarama » Meanwhile… — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 07:27:40 +0000

[...] Our own Carla Hewitt defends the Sentry: I like the Sentry. I like the ordinary man given extrodinary powers and abilities who has to struggle with being human first, and a hero second. I like seeing how the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. I would have loved to see Bob show up in books as this lonely man looking up to the sky, watching the heroes overhead and knowing that could have been him again. I like my character’s flaws to be central to their everyday life. [...]

By: admin

admin — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 20:19:57 +0000

Michael Rawdon: Hoorah! I agree wholeheartedly (though I’m not up on my Astro City) and know that he was very much pegged as ‘Superman in the Marvel Universe’ when they put him into the New Avengers. The thing is, we’d been doing just fine without a ‘Superman-esque’ character in the MU, why would we need one now? And, as said below, what was wrong with Thor?

BeaucoupKevin: I’ve never had the opportunity to read Miracle/Marvelman and while I do see a lot of design parallels, I’m not up on my big glaring rip offs. Maybe this is another way to introduce the same concept to people like me?

Fortress Keeper: It makes no sense to have the Sentry in the MU. He becomes really cheap and shallow on a regular team that doesn’t really care if he’s there or not. The Avengers, before at least, always seemed like guys who could hang out with one another, but I mean… Bob doesn’t want to even hang out with himself.
My money’s still on that’s not Thor, but this maybe just wishful thinking.

By: Fortress Keeper

Fortress Keeper — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 17:39:53 +0000

The first Sentry mini was a great meta-commentary on Superman and the Marvel universe. To be honest, I haven’t been as thrilled with him as a member of the MU proper.

For my money, the Superman role has always been filled by Thor – not that he’s acting particularly heroic right now.

By: BeaucoupKevin

BeaucoupKevin — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 04:45:58 +0000

The problem is that The Sentry is essential Marvelman/Miracleman dropped into the Marvel U without very much in the way of obfuscation. I’ve read Moore’s stories, and it’s really hard for me to enjoy the original Sentry series for very long without going “Hey…wait a minute!”

It is beautifully drawn, however, and has a few genuinely great moments, but it still comes up sort of hollow for me.

By: Michael Rawdon

Michael Rawdon — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 20:10:36 +0000

I like The Sentry, too, and like you I loved the first mini, enjoyed the second mini, and don’t have a lot of interest in New Avengers (although I buy it, sort of like watching a car wreck in slow motion).

As I recall, The Sentry was originally supposed to be “Superman in the Marvel Universe”, and more specifically an exploration of why Superman in the Marvel Universe wouldn’t really work: He’s too powerful, his enemies are too powerful, and he basically ends up dwarfing all the other Marvel heroes by his stature. Which is exactly what the first mini does.

In a way, he’s the dark side of The Samaritan from Astro City.

By: admin

admin — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 03:19:29 +0000

Didn’t say he was everyone’s cup of tea, I just think Jenkins hit all my buttons with the first series. There, it shows he shouldn’t act, that he had to have his glory days wiped from all of his friends’s memories for the betterment of mankind. That’s BAD ASS.
And I liked v.2, if only for the really dark and twisted way the Sentry came about, how truely messed up this guy is, and I’m not talking ‘oh ho, lookit me, I so crazy’ but ‘HOLY SHIT THIS GUY IS SUPPOSED TO BE ON OUR SIDE?!?’ kind of crazy. Certifiable. Medicatable. CRAZY.

The Void isn’t gone, he’s going to come back and make the Dark Phoenix look like a stomach cramp. Or at least… I can only dream.

By: CalvinPitt

CalvinPitt — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 02:31:35 +0000

YOU LIKE THE SENTRY!!!??? THAT’S THE MOST HORRIFFIC THING I’VE EVER HEARD, AND I THINK. . .

Hold on let me read the rest of the post.

Hmm, OK the character you describe is. . . acceptable. I think my problem with the Sentry has always been that he’s too blasted powerful. I couldn’t stand Silver Age Superman when reading my dad’s DC comics from the ’60s, where he actually fit, so I was less than pleased to see him show up at Marvel, where he just seems too blamed strong. Heck, he takes out Attuma AND Terrax in one issue, why do you need any other heroes?

Then i find out that every good deed he does, he later balances with evil. That alters it, because now I guess he has to weigh when to act more carefully. Though it raises the question of how he could act at all, knowing that the lives he saves here will cost other people somewhere else their lives. It seems he’d have no choice but to be the fellow you suggested, looking wistfully on from the sidelines.

So, i can see why you like him. That said, that recent mini-series left me completely befuddled, and I still think the Sentry is too strong to be on Earth. Maybe he could go help Nova in Annihilation? Against Annihilus, Thanos, Tenebrous, Aegis, he’d be pushed to the limits.

Of course, saving lives on that level would lead to a Dark Phoenix level of destruction by the Void later, right? Maybe that’s not such a good idea. . .