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Quote1 So you're not a hero. You're me. You're a force. Lindy was right. You're part of something bigger than both of us. You are God. ... You want to do something? You want to have an impact? Allow me. I've done it before. And something good always came out of it in the long run. Yes, sure. It's a messy thing. It's God's way. Quote2
The Void[src]

The Void is the dark and destructive entity that bonded to Robert Reynolds when he became the Sentry, and acts as a counterforce and embodiment of his negative aspects. It is more of a force than a person but can take any shape it chooses. When talking to and teasing Sentry, it normally uses human form. It is capable of destroying the Earth, if not the entire universe. Robert fights a constant inner battle to keep the Void at bay as it comes into being every time he uses his powers and is his eternal nemesis, born in his own psyche.

History

Void (Dark Sentry) (Earth-616) from Dark Avengers Vol 1 13 001

The Angel of Death

Origin[]

Though the exact origin of the Void is unknown, his first activities were seemingly traced all the way back to circa 1600 BCE, when Moses pleaded for every Hebrew doorpost to be marked with lamb's blood in order to protect the Israelite firstborn from the final plague God was going to bring on Pharaoh Ramses and on Egypt: the Angel of Death, believed to be the Void himself[9][10] (though other beings have been told to be that entity).

The Sentry[]

Avengers (Earth-616), Robert Reynolds (Earth-616), and Void (Dark Sentry) (Earth-616) from Sentry Vol 1 1 001

The Void's early career as a super villain

According to Lindy Reynolds,[9] Norman Osborn,[10] the Silver Surfer,[12] and the Void itself,[9] the Void is a dark entity that bonded to Robert Reynolds when he consumed the serum that turned him into the Sentry. The Void next appeared a few years after the Sentry became famous; nearly killing Scout, driving the Hulk into a rampage, and murdering over one million people in Manhattan. Discovering that the Void was the dark aspect of his own powers, the Sentry teamed up with Reed Richards and Doctor Strange to create a system capable of making the Earth's entire population, themselves included, forget all about him. With the Sentry inactive and forgotten, the Void vanished.[citation needed]

Years later, Robert's memories slowly returned along with the Void, who rampaged across Europe, murdering many members of the Super-Heroes of Europe. The Sentry contacted his former colleagues, but the only one who recalled their shared history was the Hulk. As the Void returned to Manhattan, the pieces began to fall in place and the Sentry's former friends assembled to defend him and the city. Remembering the dual nature of Robert's powers, the Sentry and Reed Richards reactivated the Watchtower, dispelling the Void and making the world forget the Sentry once again.[13]

Sentry The Void Vol 1 1 Textless

Void Returns

The Sentry's memories soon returned, as did the Void. Returned to the world, the Sentry captured the hearts of the public, with newspapers referring to him as the Golden Guardian as he saved hundreds of lives on a daily basis. Reynolds' psychological problems, however, had worsened. Unable to reconcile that Robert Reynolds, Sentry and the Void were the same being, the Sentry contained the Void in a vault in the Watchtower. At C.L.O.C.'s urging, Reynolds' psychiatrist Dr. Cornelius Worth entered the vault only to find a chair and a mirror. When Cornelius confronted Reynolds with this, Reynolds became confused and ran to the fairgrounds where he first gained his powers.[citation needed]

Cornelius followed Reynolds to the fairgrounds, finding the Sentry and the Void fighting. The Void claimed that Reynolds transformed into the Void rather than the Sentry, and that the Sentry was merely a guilt-borne byproduct of that transformation. With only half of Reynolds' memories (the Void possessing the other half), the Sentry was not sure whether the Void was wrong or not. The Sentry chased the Void away and then explained to Cornelius why he had hired him in the first place: Reynolds subconsciously wanted someone to reveal the Void's existence to the world so he would no longer have to hide that aspect of himself. Sentry then told Cornelius how he really gained his powers as a teenager: by stealing the Professor's serum and ingesting it to get high. He also told Cornelius that he knew all along that the Void was never in the Watchtower's vault. He knew that if Reynolds believed the Void was in the Watchtower, the Void would be. This kept the world safe from the Void for as long as Sentry could keep up the charade.[14]

Robert Reynolds (Earth-616) and Void (Dark Sentry) (Earth-616) from Sentry Vol 2 8 001

The Sentry confronts the now separated Void

The Sentry then visited Doctor Strange to determine if he was real or not. Strange tricked the Sentry into traveling to his old Professor's research facility where the two men confined the Sentry in an illusionary realm where he was a mental patient and superheroes did not exist in an attempt to prevent any further destruction. The Sentry broke free of the illusion and after confronting the Professor who had made the original serum, traveled to Antarctica to confront the Void and discover what memories of Reynolds the Void had in his mind.[15]

The Void revealed that Reynolds had actually ingested a super-saturated, exponentially more potent version of the Super-Soldier Serum that created Captain America. This was considered dangerous by the government because Sentry's blood could be used to create more of the serum, enough for the entire world. Several failed attempts were made to kill both personas. Enraged by this revelation, Sentry threw the Void into the Sun, telling his enemy that he no longer needed him to balance his own actions of good, but the Void promised to return.[16]

New Avengers[]

Void (Dark Sentry) (Earth-616) vs

Attacking the New Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and Doctor Strange

The Sentry was later confronted by the New Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D., along with the Inhumans and the X-Men. He cried, saying that he had warned them of the Void's coming and that it was too late now, before the group was suddenly attacked by the Void. Robert, with the help of Emma Frost, discovered that the reason no one remembered him was not because of his own attempts to erase the Void, but because of the intervention and manipulation of his mind by Mastermind, who was hired by the General to use his great mental powers to contain the Sentry's abilities and force everyone (himself included) to forget of his existence. Should the Sentry ever remember his life, he would be struck by a fear of the devil attacking the world, hence the Void. With this newfound knowledge, the Void disappeared, and Emma Frost resurrected the Sentry. The Avengers offered him membership, partly to keep an eye on him and partly because they would needed his power, and he accepted.[17]

In a battle against Yelena Belova, the Sentry had his powers absorbed by her. This would prove to be her downfall, however, as it also exposed her to a manifestation of the Void, who enveloped and incapacitated her. The Sentry told Belova that he would send the Void away if she answered his questions, but she was liquefied by her employers before she could answer any of them.[18] During the Skrulls' Secret Invasion, the Sentry left the Earth to not take part in the battle, believing that he had caused it. As a result of this, the Void created an equal and opposite reaction by showing up, battling Skrulls and saving Lindy Reynolds, promising to do all that the Sentry wouldn't do.[19]

Void (Dark Sentry) (Earth-616) and Cabal (Dark Illuminati) (Earth-616) from Dark Avengers Vol 1 15 001

Norman Osborn using the Void to threaten the Cabal

Dark Reign[]

After becoming head of national security, Norman Osborn visited the Sentry, gaslighting him and gave him a vial of the same serum that originally gave him his powers. Once he drank it, the Void took over and accepted Osborn's offer to become his secret weapon, and keep his newly formed Cabal in line.[20][9]

When Lindy tried to kill her husband with an alien weapon, fearing what he was becoming and his refusal to let her go, she then began forming theories about the Void's origins. Unfortunately, the Void asserted control of her husband, reviving him. A terrified Lindy pleaded for the Void to end her misery, to which the evil entity complied, only for Robert to intervene, reminding his counterpart of their deal of not touching her. Robert flew far from Earth, intending to commit suicide by plunging himself into the Sun, only to regenerate. The Void then taunted his efforts and pointed out that for all intents and purposes, he should give him complete control. He returned to New York City and started to destroy it, but was convinced not to by Osborn. The Void agreed to work for Osborn, cowing Doctor Doom when he threatened Osborn during a Cabal meeting.[21]

The Siege of Asgard[]

In Asgard, the Void killed Ares at the behest of Osborn, ripping him in half to do so. He was then sent to take Thor down. Before their fight was concluded, Osborn, who had been overcome by the forces of the Avengers, the Secret Warriors, and many other heroes, ordered the Void to end it. The Void broke the base of Asgard, completely destroying the city. Osborn, defeated and crazed, told the heroes that they would all be killed as the Void took on a monstrous form. Thor engaged the Void, but began to lose, until Iron Man took control of a damaged H.A.M.M.E.R. Helicarrier in the area and used it as a bullet to strike the Void. The Void was finally defeated when Thor struck it with a powerful attack from Mjolnir after Robert pleaded him to be killed. Thor then took the Sentry's charred body and tossed it into the Sun.[10] There, Robert's body was constantly regrown from an atom just to be burned down again afterwards. Bored of the cycle, the Void left him behind and went to the White Hot Room.[22]

Stephen Strange (Earth-616) and Void (Dark Sentry) (Earth-616) from Doctor Strange Vol 1 384 001

Possessing Doctor Strange

At some point, the Void (still separated from Robert) was captured by Doctor Strange and locked up inside the Sanctum Sanctorum, from where he was later released by Strange himself to be used against Loki, who had become the new Sorcerer Supreme of Earth.[23] After revealing to Loki that the Exile of Singhsoon - a spell that transfers all the world's magic to its caster which Loki had been looking for - was inside Zelma Stanton's soul, the Void was separated from Strange and locked back at the Sanctorum.[24]

Robert Reynolds (Earth-616) and Void (Dark Sentry) (Earth-616) from Sentry Vol 3 4 003

Merged with the Sentry

Sentry World[]

With Robert's return as the Sentry, the Void was trapped within the Sentry World - a pocket dimension created inside Robert's psyche by Doctor Strange.[25] As a result of the machinations of his his former protégé, Billy Turner, Robert fully embraced the Void and became one with it, transforming into a dark version of the Sentry.[26] However, that didn't last long: the Void took over Robert again and steered him into conflict with Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda in the small town of Pawhuska. Fat Cobra stabilized the Sentry by extracting a piece of the Void and consuming it, but the Sentry refused to be taken into custody and escaped.[27]

Scourge of the Negative Zone[]

Consequently, the Sentry sought out Mister Fantastic and begged him to free him from the Void forever. As there was no way to accomplish such a feat under the laws of their universe, Reed sent him to the Negative Zone in the hopes that he would succeed there.[5] Upon soaking up the negative cosmic rays, the Sentry separated from the Void but was left in the powerless form of Bob Reynolds, unable to transform into his superhero alter ego.[28] The explosion caused by their separation tore a hole in space that bridged the Negative Zone to the Cancerverse, a realm where nothing could die. As the Void shared a mutual interest with the Cancerverse forces,[12] he became their apparent new leader, all while impersonating and taking on the appearance of the Sentry.

Annihilation - Scourge Omega Vol 1 1 Textless

Commanding the Cancerverse's army while impersonating the Sentry

Planning to return to his own universe to spread the Cancerverse's infection even further,[3] the Void tore a crack in reality made by Annihilus,[29] who used it to escape to the Positive Zone and seek help,[3] into a rift with his bare hands. The Cancerverse forces tried to infect a planet near the rift, but Beta Ray Bill stopped them at their tracks and sacrificed his hammer to trap the Void in the Negative Zone again before the rift closed itself.[29] While searching for the Human Torch,[30] who went to the Negative Zone with the rest of the Fantastic Four to help its inhabitants,[5] the Void ended up finding Nova instead. He defeated the hero and handed him to the Revengers, but Nova managed to escape them before they were able to infect him again.[30]

After Reed Richards opened a portal to assemble the galaxy's greatest heroes against the Cancerverse, a group of heroes held the Void still so the Silver Surfer could merge Bob Reynolds to him again, returning the Sentry to his blackened form. They hoped that Bob would call off the invasion once in control, but that wasn't possible as the Void - who now shared control of Reynolds' body with the Sentry - wasn't truly the Cancerverse's leader and it was now hellbent on getting Nova back to the fold. With no other option, Nova attracted the Cancerverse's infection back to the tear it was coming from and swallowed it whole. The merged Sentry then killed Nova, thus ending the scourge and closing the rift. While all the other heroes returned to the Positive Zone, the Sentry remained behind to watch over the universe he almost killed.[12]

Knull (Earth-616) and Void (Dark Sentry) (Earth-616) from King in Black Vol 1 2 001

Assimilated by Knull

King in Black[]

The Sentry was recalled to Earth to help fight Knull - the primordial dark god who had created the Symbiotes - and attempted to fly him into space and rip him in half as he once had Carnage. However, Knull easily overpowered the Sentry and ripped him apart. Unleashed from its mortal vessel, the Void submitted to Knull and was assimilated by him.[7] After Eddie Brock became the new host of the God of Light and turn into a cosmic version of Venom, he overpowered Knull. Using the Uni-Power, Venom destroyed Knull's body on the Sun and the living abyss inside of Dylan Brock that tried to take over his body, seemingly defeating the dark god and the Void with him.[31]

Attributes

Powers

The Void - both as a part of the Sentry and a separate entity - possesses the following abilities:

  • Molecularkinesis: The Void possesses similar matter and energy manipulation abilities as the Sentry. Having used it to entrap the Avengers within an inescapable shroud of black matter he had conjured up, material easily able to hold the likes of Thor and Giant-Man with ease.[32] At its most focused i.e. through his tendrils, the Void can cause total atomic cancellation within a target, as he did when he disintegrated the immortal Loki.[10]
  • Regenerative Healing Factor: The Void can heal himself from virtually all injuries.
  • Immortality: For all intents and purposes, the Void cannot and will not ever truly die even long after being hurled into the sun both by Robert[16] and later killed by a bolt of lightning by Thor.[33] That the dark aspect of the Sentry cannot expire in any sense, coming to be an existing entity all its own; it even left the chronically dying and regenerating body of its host while trapped in the sun.[22]
  • Resurrection: The Void appears to be able to resurrect himself and to bring the dead back to life under extreme emotional distress.
Void (Dark Sentry) (Earth-616), Robert Reynolds (Earth-616) and Bruce Banner (Earth-616) from Sentry Vol 2 3 0001

The Void Breaks The Hulk

  • Superhuman Strength: The Void's physical abilities are a direct mirror reflection of his counterpart, though it's reputed that The Sentry is visibly stronger.[16] Despite that Void has enough physical power to easily man handle gods and monsters with little effort on his part, be it shattering the all but unbreakable bones of the Incredible Hulk[6] or even knocking around the Sentry through a host of carnival rides with relative ease.[1] He was even able to pry open an interdimensional portal linking the Posiverse and the Negative Zone with his bare hands.[29]
  • Warping Speed: Void also boasts the ability to think, move, run, and react at beyond superhuman speeds. As a thought effigy born of living shadow, he may actually be faster than his good side.[1] The Dark Sentry can appear anywhere at any given time across the world and beyond with or without the Sentry knowing it, capable of moving and traveling thousands to trillions of miles at the drop of a hat before returning to his creators shattered psyche.[16]
  • Superhuman Stamina: Dark Sentry has an advanced musculature greater than that of any human and most known superhumans. Being a being of thought, his muscles produce no fatigue toxins, affording him all but unlimited physical stamina.[16]
  • Superhuman Agility: Void's natural balance, agility, and body coordination are enhanced to levels that are far beyond the natural physical limits of even the finest human athlete.[16]
  • Superhuman Reflexes: The Void can act and react at above superhuman speeds exceeding the equivalent of several times the speed of sound. As such, he/it is quick enough to match the highly adept Sentry in the art of superpowered fisticuffs with little difficulty.[16] Void is easily quick witted enough to counterattack Ares as he pounced on him from behind[34] and is capable of battling whole scores of Marvel's superhuman community with ease and without so much as a wasted movement.[35]
  • Superhuman Senses: It, like the Sentry, is able to hear almost any sound at any decibel, pitch, and frequency. The only Earth creature who can detect sounds at the frequencies he can is a blue whale (0.01-200,000 Hz). He has shown enough control to block out ambient sounds to focus on a specific source/frequency (He has demonstrated hearing a butterfly's heartbeat in Africa). The range of his eyesight is also far greater than that of a human being. He is able to detect a single person from hundreds of miles in the air and above cloud level. The full extent of Void's other senses superhuman capabilities is unknown.[36]
    • Sensory Scrying: The Void's senses are tied to those of the Sentry's senses. Everything Reynolds sees and does, it will know instantly.[16]
    • Clairvoyance: On its own, the Void also possesses extra sensory perception of unknown potency. Being more attuned with the world around him than just of the tangible spectrum, such as sensing if and when his human self has been disturbed by the presence of another force[35] or ascertaining what Loki had done to empower the heroes standing against him.[10]
  • Nigh-Invulnerability: The Void is, for all intents and purposes, almost completely impervious to harm.
  • Psionics: The Void possesses telepathic, empathetic and possibly cyberpathic capabilities.[37] The level of which being unknown but quite possibly rivaling that of the Sentry himself.[38] Having once used such a faculty of his powers to taunt his heroic self through a television screen. Showcasing some mildly impressive remote technological operation.[39]
  • Flight: The Void also has the natural ability of aviation, used in conjunction with his superhuman speed to fly far above hyper sonic to trans-light speeds.[1] He can match Sentry in a contest of flight speed as well as sit stationary in mid-air if need be.[40][41] He can even fly at speeds high enough to outpace even a god of Asgard, battering him into near unconsciousness in a single stroke.[33]
  • Photokinesis: While a dark element, The Void in tandem with the Sentry often emitted light within darkness.
  • Atmokinesis: The Void has massive control over the weather and can create destructive storms.
  • Adaptive Appearance: The Void is a highly adept shapeshifter, constantly changing and alternating his appearance on the fly. With varying forms ranging from a shadowy, trench coat-wearing villain to a shell skinned mega beast, monstrous flame effigy, an obese pustule atrocity, or massive hurricane of darkness.[35] He can even turn into a copy of the Sentry.[3][28]
  • Adaptive Possession: The Void is capable of hosting most any individual he desires and endowing them with his powers, as he did with Dr. Strange during his battle with Loki over his title of Sorcerer Supreme.[42]
  • Infini-Tendrils: The Void can create deadly infini-tendrils. Those impaled on these tendrils experience traumatic visions of the past, present, and future. The Tendrils are also capable of causing physical damage, for example when they broke every bone in the body of the Hulk.
  • Umbrakinesis: The Void has massive control over darkness.
    • Army Creation: The Void could create soldiers to form a shadow army.[27]
  • Ultimate Intangibility: Sentry's dark personality can physically change and alternate molecular/atomic density and cohesion in order to phase through objects and people while inflicting tremendous pain on a subject.[10]
  • Night Augmentation: The Void is at his strongest during the night.
  • Negative Zone Augmentation: The Void's powers increase to maximum whenever he is inside the Negative Zone.[43]
  • Biokinesis: Like its counterpart the Sentry, the Void has an as of yet untapped capacity to affect organic matter in undisclosed but seemingly unlimited ways. The Void persona uses such attributes to malignant ends, while his lighter half acclimates more beneficial ones. Its power over such aspects is so great that the Void afflicted a women with breast cancer a world away.[39]

Abilities

Deception: The Void is very deceitful, especially with Sentry.

Weaknesses

  • Magic: The Void can be sealed with powerful magic, as was done by Doctor Strange.[24]
  • Chi: The Void was proven to be vulnerable to spiritual energy attacks like Chi.[44]
  • Domination of darkness: The Void being technically a dark entity, any deity with control over other beings of darkness can bend his will.[7]

Notes

  • Void does not seem to have a defined form as such, being only an amorphous entity.
  • In Defenders (Vol. 6) #5, the Defenders travel back to the Third Cosmos and help destroy Anti-All, a primordial manifestation of nothingness, shattering it into countless fragments. Doctor Strange theorizes that the pieces of Anti-All's essence scattered across the Multiverse and that when the heroes fight against "the great Nothing" in their own times they're fighting back against Anti-All as well, implying that dark entities like the Void were born out of Anti-All's fractured essence.
    • When asked if Anti-All was the source of the Sentry's Void, Al Ewing responded that he would rather leave such matters up to interpretation than provide a boring answer that would just be retconned if he changed his mind or a later writer wanted to do something different.[45]

Trivia

  • The exact nature of the Void is unclear, as while it is intrinsically linked to the Sentry, it has existed as a separate entity on multiple occasions and was referred to by Norman Osborn as the Biblical angel of death.[10]
    • Lindy Reynolds, the Sentry's wife, had a theory that Bob accidentally opened himself up to something of Biblical proportions when he drank the drug that gave him his powers, even going as far as to identify this something as possibly being God. She, however, had no proof of it and thought it crazy, though the Void mockingly told Robert her theory was indeed true.[9]
  • Despite the Void having displayed some symbiote-like traits - such as appearing as a monster with fanged jaws, claws, and tentacles made of darkness,[46] and bonding to Dr. Strange to fight Loki - Donny Cates has stated that it is not a creation of Knull.[47] Despite this, in King in Black #1, the Void was shown being controlled by and bonding to Knull much like a symbiote, with Knull boasting that the Void serves him.
  • The Sentry not being in his dark form in King in Black #1 is a continuity error owing to Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman not having been aware of his fusion with the Void at the time the issue was written and illustrated, and Marvel's editorial department not correcting it prior to publication.[48]

See Also

Links and References

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Sentry (Vol. 2) #6
  2. Dark Avengers #3
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Annihilation - Scourge Alpha #1
  4. Bible Tales for Young Folk #3 ; as revealed in Dark Avengers #13 and Siege #4
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 Annihilation - Scourge: Fantastic Four #1
  6. 6.0 6.1 Sentry (Vol. 2) #3
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 King in Black #1
  8. Sentry (Vol. 3) #4
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 Dark Avengers #13
  10. 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 Siege #4
  11. [[As revealed in Dark Avengers 13 and Siege 4|As revealed in [[Dark Avengers #13|Dark Avengers 13]] and Siege 4]]
  12. 12.0 12.1 12.2 Annihilation - Scourge Omega #1
  13. Sentry #45
  14. Sentry (Vol. 2) #5
  15. Sentry (Vol. 2) #67
  16. 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 16.5 16.6 16.7 Sentry (Vol. 2) #8
  17. New Avengers #710
  18. New Avengers Annual #1
  19. Mighty Avengers #14
  20. Dark Avengers #13
  21. Dark Avengers #1315
  22. 22.0 22.1 Uncanny Avengers #11
  23. Doctor Strange #384
  24. 24.0 24.1 Doctor Strange #385
  25. Sentry (Vol. 3) #1
  26. Sentry (Vol. 3) #45
  27. 27.0 27.1 Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda #12
  28. 28.0 28.1 Annihilation - Scourge: Silver Surfer #1
  29. 29.0 29.1 29.2 Annihilation - Scourge: Beta Ray Bill #1
  30. 30.0 30.1 Annihilation - Scourge: Nova #1
  31. King in Black #5
  32. Sentry #1
  33. 33.0 33.1 Siege #1
  34. Siege #2
  35. 35.0 35.1 35.2 New Avengers #910
  36. Sentry (Vol. 2) #1
  37. Sentry/Hulk #1
  38. Sentry/Spider-Man #1
  39. 39.0 39.1 Sentry (Vol. 2) #68
  40. Mighty Avengers #33
  41. Siege #34
  42. Doctor Strange #384385
  43. Sentry (Vol. 2) #23
  44. Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda #2
  45. Ewing, Al (7 November 2022) Al Ewing Has Left on Twitter: "I'd rather have that as a tantalising question than a boring answer - and if I change my mind or another writer disagrees, that's a story for a comic, not for a tweet. Would you rather have the potential for a great story in the future, or a dull, dusty factoid right now?" Twitter. Archived from the original on 4 January 2024.
  46. Dark Avengers #15
  47. StegmanAndFriends (December 4, 2020) TALKIN' KING IN BLACK ISSUE 1! YouTube. Retrieved on December 5, 2020.
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