Marvel's Most Powerful Hero Should Have Stayed Forgotten Forever
In the Marvel Universe, there is no superhero more powerful than the Sentry. However, despite his godlike abilities — or maybe, because of them — the character has had a largely undefined role in modern comics for quite some time.
While Sentry has made a handful of appearances across several different titles in the last half-decade, he's mostly been sidelined, making it clear writers don't know what to do with him. To be clear, Sentry's uneasy fit in the contemporary Marvel Universe is a problem of the publisher's own creation: following his original "Sentry" miniseries in 2000, his story was seemingly finished, with a perfect conclusion and no need of a follow-up. Instead, Bob Reynolds was brought back years later to join the New Avengers, and the Sentry — as well as his dark side, The Void — went on to become a crucial player in stories like "World War Hulk" and "Siege," where he went up against his fellow heroes.
Now, as Sentry is rumored to make his live-action debut in the MCU, courtesy of the upcoming "Thunderbolts" movie (where he may or may not be played by "Nope" actor Steven Yeun), the MCU would be wise to look back on what went wrong with the character's comic book narrative, see how the character lost his way, and take him in a different direction.
Sentry's incredible powers and origin are phenomenal
Sentry was created by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee, first debuting in a self-titled Marvel Knights miniseries. When readers first meet him, Bob Reynolds isn't a golden icon — instead, he is a man whose life seems to be spinning in the mud. However, he eventually starts to remember his time as a hero named the Sentry. Details slowly come back to Reynolds, as we find that before becoming Sentry, Reynolds was a drug addict who broke into a lab where he ingested something that amplified the effects of the Super Soldier Serum. As a result of Bob's new powers, he turned toward a path of heroism and became the Sentry, with some of the most extraordinary abilities ever seen in the Marvel Universe — including the power of a million exploding suns, reality manipulation, flight, and almost every ability Superman has but even stronger.
The Sentry would use his newfound powers for good, becoming best friends with the Hulk and Reed Richards while regularly fighting alongside Earth's Mightiest Heroes as one of the world's greatest champions. Unfortunately, Reynolds' amazing abilities came with a deadly caveat: as the Sentry grew ever more powerful, so did his dark side, the Void, a sinister entity that grew alongside him. The Void was strong enough to not only kill his fellow heroes but destroy the Marvel Universe. So, in the past, the Sentry agreed to make the world forget about him — think the magic spell in "Spider-Man No Way Home" — ensuring that his dark reflection would never engulf the planet.
The plan works, but it also leads Bob to forget he ever was the Sentry, turning him from a hero into an ordinary man with no idea of his power.
How Sentry Was Forgotten... Again
In the original "Sentry" miniseries, Reynolds begins to remember who he was, leading him to the difficult decision to meet with the Avengers and ask them to make the world forget about him a second time. Sadly, the Avengers don't believe him about their shared history — except the Hulk.
Thanks to Bruce Banner being in his monstrous form when the great memory wipe occurred, Hulk remembers his old friend. And when The Void threatens reality once again, Sentry meet with Reed Richards and the Avengers, who help set up a transmitter that effectively erases him from the world (again). After successfully making Earth forget about the Sentry and the Void, Reynolds returns to his everyday life, reuniting with his wife.
At the end, it's hinted that he could still remember a small part of his past life. However, the story is complete, and while the comic would have made a fitting end point to Sentry's story in the Marvel Universe — as a hero forgotten in time — instead, he was brought back. And that's where the problems begin.
How Sentry Returned from being forgotten by his fellow heroes
Despite Sentry's story seemingly reaching a natural and poetic conclusion, Brian Michael Bendis would bring him back to the fold in the "New Avengers." In the story, his memories of being the Sentry return, leading the Avengers to ally with the mighty hero. He joins a team featuring Captain America, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Wolverine, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, and Ronin. The comic run dove deeper into Sentry's backstory, taking a meta-approach to his history, even making his creator Paul Jenkins part of his story, with the writer penning the hero's comic book history (albeit fed directly from Reynolds himself).
While he proves to an effective part of the Avengers, Reynolds' mental state is a ticking time bomb. He struggles mightily with knowing about his past, present, and future dark side as the Void, eventually throwing the evil entity into the sun. Sentry would continue to appear alongside the Avengers in "Civil War" and "World War Hulk," with the latter miniseries featuring one of Marvel's greatest slugfests between Hulk and the golden hero. Eventually, he is recruited to the Dark Avengers, where he becomes a living weapon for Norman Osborn. However, he loses control once the Void returns, resulting in one of the most brutal kills in Marvel Comics history — that is, when the Sentry rips Ares in half.
From there, we have the Sentry's role in "Siege," which ends with him being depowered and begging to be killed, a request to which the Avengers obliged.
After Siege, Sentry never found a defined place in the Marvel Universe
Of course, this being comics, Sentry's death wasn't final. Instead, it led him to take on a handful of new roles in the Marvel Universe.
First, he becomes the Horseman of Death after being resurrected by the Apocalypse Twins, and he assists the Avengers in stopping Exitar the Executioner, showing off his powers by dragging the Celestial to space. Following this, Doctor Strange cures Reynolds of his madness from Apocalypse. After watching a pocket dimension Doctor Strange created for him be destroyed, Sentry loses control again, reteams with the Void, and heads into space. Reed Richards ends up trapping Sentry and the Void in the Negative Zone, leading Reynolds to split back into two entities.
Since then, Sentry's place in the Marvel Universe since his return has been quite dark. There's one moment in the "King in Black" event where Sentry attempts to take out Knull, the God of Symbiotes, but this time, he's the one ripped in half. While his soul is sent to the gates of Valhalla, his body is then used as a weapon. Sentry wouldn't be seen again until the "Strange" miniseries from Jed MacKay and Marcelo Ferreira starring Clea Strange, where Sentry is transformed into the Revenant-Prime: as the ultimate weapon of the Blasphemy Cartel, the undead version of Sentry gains the powers of a hundred million insane ghosts, and it takes Clea and Stephen Strange forming into a singular powerful magical entity to stop him.
Obviously, that's a lot of chaotic stories all mashed together, pointing toward one resolute truth: Sentry is too powerful to be a continually recurring character. And his story would've been better (and a lot more concise) if he'd stayed forgotten, as he once fought to do.
Sentry doesn't fit into the Marvel Universe right now
While Sentry has gained fans among Marvel Comics readership who want to see his stories continue, he doesn't quite fit into the publisher's plans. As a hero, he's so powerful that his abilities can overcome nearly every threat thrown their way. The only way they're challenged is through him losing control and the Void emerging, a storyline that's been done over and over. Sentry's return would create a similar problem to introducing him in the MCU — nothing can ever top him, unless you nerf his powers, which defeats the whole purpose of having a hero with the capabilities of a hundred million exploding suns.
The MCU can circumvent these storytelling issues by using him as an all-powerful one-off character, but the comics have repeated his arc so many times that, on the page, it now feels monotonous.
Ultimately, Marvel Comics created this problem by continuing his story past his original miniseries. The hero being forgotten a second time, becoming Marvel's most important hero nobody remembers, would have served as a fitting end for Sentry. He was written to be a one-off character, not a continuing one.
Instead, he was reintroduced, joined and fought the Avengers, lost control, and was killed multiple times with no apparent direction for the character. Sadly, unless something radically is done to his story, like him becoming the Revenant-Prime in "Strange," there really isn't a place for Sentry right now — or maybe ever. He's an incredibly cool hero with a terrific premise, but he can't fit as a continual presence in the Marvel Universe without really messing up the power dynamics. And when he enters the MCU, they have to learn these lessons and apply them carefully.