Sentinels

The Sentinels were first created by Dr. Bolivar Trask, who intended to use them to save humanity from what he saw as a threat to the species' existence in the form of mutants.

In a television debate between Trask and Professor Charles Xavier, Trask revealed and then activated the Sentinels, who promptly decided that the best way to protect humanity was to rule over it themselves. The Sentinels kidnapped Xavier and brought him and Trask to the primary Sentinel, Master Mold, only for Xavier's students, the X-Men, to find them. When Trask realized the error in his ways and that not all mutants were a threat to the world at large, he aided the X-Men by sabotaging the machinery in the Sentinel base, destroying Master Mold and the Sentinels in the explosion, but he died in the process. However, numerous Sentinels and several Master Molds were built after the destruction of the original models.

Trask had a son, Larry, who was also a mutant. Trask gave his son a control medallion which blocked the Sentinels' mutant-sensing equipment. Not aware that he was a mutant, Larry built the next batch of Sentinels, only to be slain by them when he removed the control medallion. Larry's "Mark II" Sentinels were later persuaded by Cyclops to fly into the sun, as he was able to convince them that they needed to destroy the sun in order to completely prevent mutation.

The most long-lived Sentinel project was that of Project Wideawake, a government agency led by Henry Gyrich and Valerie Cooper that purchased Sentinels from Sebastian Shaw, the mutant Black King of the Hellfire Club. Project: Wideawake also had its own research and development division, based at Camp Hayden, which included an attempt to recreate Nimrod and used this technology to adapt the purchased Sentinels. Sentinels created by this project fought the X-Men, the New Mutants, the Falcon, and X-Factor, among others.

During the "Acts of Vengeance", the Asgardian trickster god Loki manipulated various super-villains into attacking random superheroes with whom they had no previous enmity. For the climax of this chaos, he magically amplified the power of three Sentinels, merged them into the massive Tri-Sentinel, and sent the gestalt robot to destroy New York City by leveling a nearby nuclear power plant. Spider-Man was possessed by the disembodied spirit known as Captain Universe to prevent this from occurring, and lost the Captain Universe power once he destroyed the Tri-Sentinel. However, the Tri-Sentinel's remains were gathered by a survivalist group, and it rebuilt itself and again attempted to destroy the power plant. It was destroyed on a sub-molecular level by Spider-Man, with the assistance of Nova, released a deposit of "anti-metal" (Antarctic vibranium) at the center of its body.

During the Onslaught crossover, a number of government-owned Sentinels were reprogrammed by the Dark Beast in service of the psychic entity called Onslaught. These Sentinels fought the X-Men, Avengers, a then-retired Peter Parker and the current Spider-Man (Ben Reilly). They ended the career of the heroic Green Goblin (Phil Urich) when a piece of machinery damaged his mask. The effects of Onslaught's rampage ends the lives of the parents of Hallie Takahama, who would later join the Thunderbolts as Jolt.

One of the Sentinels involved in this operation had data-gathering as it's primary function. Observing from the edge of space, it survives when Onslaught is defeated. It's extrapolations serve to convince it a more deadly threat is facing the population of Earth. It overrides it's own programming and tries to warn the X-Men. Wary of any Sentinel, they shoot it down. It dies, saying it is afraid to do so, before it can deliver it's warning.

During the "Operation: Zero Tolerance" crossover, a number of humans were transformed into cyborg Human-Sentinel hybrids known as Prime Sentinels. These Pseudo-Sentinels were led by the robotic humanoid Bastion. One of these Prime Sentinels, Karima Shapandar, had her mind restored by Magneto and Professor X, though her physical modifications remain.

During the war against Kang the Conqueror, a battalion of Sentinels was sent into space to attack his space station. Kang had, during a prolonged visit to the early 20th century, become an influential pioneer in robotics under the alias "Victor Timely", and was able to use his knowledge of modern robotics to instantly take control of these Sentinels and send them to attack Earth.

Despite his success in the battle, during which thousands of Washington D.C. citizens were slain, Kang was ultimately defeated by the Avengers. The robotic hero X-51, better known as Machine Man, was temporary reprogrammed with Sentinel programming.

In New X-Men #115, Wolverine and Cyclops destroy two Sentinels in Australia. Meanwhile, Professor X's evil twin Cassandra Nova used the nephew of Bolivar Trask to revive a Master Mold in Amazonia and control it's array of "Wild Sentinels". The nephew was genetically similar enough to Bolivar so as to be protected, the Sentinel's prime directive was to preserve Trask DNA. Cassandra eventually transformed herself into the man's genetic duplicate, killed him and took control of the machines.

She used this Master Mold to send a number of skyscraper-sized, highly adaptive "Wild Sentinels" to destroy most of the population of Genosha. 16 million people, mostly mutants, were killed. In Mekanix, a number of Wild Sentinels hijacked a ship from South America and attacked Chicago, where Kitty Pryde was attending university.

On Genosha, one of the deactivated Wild Sentinels was transformed by several of the surviving Genoshan mutants (Unus, Paralyzer, Toad and Toad-In-Waiting) into a statue of Magneto, with Professor X's face later also added to the statue, another was temporarily animated by "Danger", the sentient manifestation of the X-Men's Danger Room.

Nova also programmed a number of microscopic, nanite-based "Nano-Sentinels" to attack the blood cells of the inhabitants of the Xavier Institute, making the X-Men and their students sick. The Nano-Sentinels were destroyed by Xorn, who may have been an alias of Magneto, although some of them were used to restore Professor Xavier's spine and legs for the duration of Xorn's stay with the X-Men. The entity calling itself Xorn had used the Micro-Sentinels to fake healing abilities. When he left, he took away Xavier's mobility.

A Sentinel series was published under the Tsunami imprint in 2002. This series followed a boy named Juston Seyfert who discovered and reprogrammed a Sentinel of his own, using it for both good deeds and boosts to his own popularity. The series was canceled after twelve issues, but was revived in 2005 for a five-issue limited series.

Models

Sentinel Mk I, built by Bolivar Trask	Sentinel Mk II, built by Larry Trask	Sentinel Mk III, built by Stephen Lang	Sentinel Mk IV, built by Sebastian Shaw's Shaw Industries
Sentinel Mk V, built by Shaw Industries	Sentinel Mk VI, built by Shaw Industries	Brawler Sentinel	Stealth Sentinel
Recon Sentinel	Torch Sentinel

Alternate Universes

Days of Future Past (Earth-811)

In Earth-811, the Omega Class Sentinels were the robotic controllers of the United States of America. Sentinel Mk VI was the previous model, and Nimrod was following the model. They were self-replicating robotic "overseers" of Earth and Mutant hunters. They were originally born in the Baxter Building, New York City, New York, Earth-811. Also, other construction centers throughout the United States, Earth-811.

In alternate reality of Earth-811 ("Days of Future Past"), the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants assassinated Senator Robert Kelly. As a result, anti-mutant hysteria grew and an extreme candidate was elected President. This President freed the Sentinels, giving them the open order to permanently eliminate the mutant "threat".

The Sentinels reacted by taking control of the United States and all of North America, and killing or capturing virtually all of the super humans, be it mutants or not. Captured mutants were kept in concentration camps known as "mutant internment centers".

The self-replicating Sentinels developed the new model, the Omega series, designed specially to hunt and kill super-human mutants. They share the most threatening feature of Mark II, a learning program.

Later, the Omega Sentinels, absolute kings of the land, developed a more advanced Sentinel: Nimrod. The prototype of this project managed to go to Earth-616.^[1]

Powers included:

Darts: Omega Sentinels carried ten steel javelin-like darts on the trunk that could be thrown to pierce an opponent.
Electric Isolation: Omega Sentinels were specially protected against electric attacks.
Encephalo-Scanner: At least some of the Omega Sentinels ("Executive type") were equipped with an scanner to read brainwaves of a target and determine if it was saying the truth. This device was not infallible.
Energy Blast: The Mark I had an amount of different blasts, including but not reducing to plasm, electrons, stunners and heat, that could be shot from their chests. They were also armed with a disintegrator only working with inorganic matter.
Flight used jets
Learning Program: A special learning program allowed a particular Mk IV a certain advantage when fighting an enemy, but only after at least some seconds of analysis. This data could be stored for future uses against the same enemy, so that any Sentinel from any model could access the information. Any needed modification would take at least one week. In the 21st century, all known mutants, living or dead, were filed.
Mutant Detection: The Sentinels constantly scanned all the living beings in the immediate surrounding area and were able to determine if they were humans or mutants. The "immediate area" covered up to ten miles.
Robot: Due to its nature, the sentinels were protected by the sheer strength of the hull. They could not be affected by emotional or mental attacks, nor by illusions. However, they were susceptible to attacks affecting machinery.

Omega Sentinels were able to lift up to 70 tons.

The Mk I Sentinels were programmed to protect humanity from mutants, but their programming was completely open as for how they could do that. Thus, they could damage or kill humans to capture mutants.

Ultimate Universe (Earth-1610)

In Ultimate X-Men, the Sentinels, created by Bolivar Trask, were already in action at the beginning of the first story arc, hunting down and killing mutants on the streets. Later on, there were also the New Sentinels that were 60 of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top agents in a Sentinel battle armor that has enough hardware to take on a fleet of the old Sentinel models (though this may have been an exaggeration). A new breed of Sentinels, created by Trask under orders from the Fenris twins, is currently hunting mutants.^[2]

Mutant X (Earth-1298)

In Mutant X, the Sentinels are still depicted as mutant hunters. They are the primary enemies of the Six.^[3]

House of M (Earth-58163)

Originally built by Bolivar Trask, the Sentinels were mutant hunting robots designed to round up the mutant populace and place them in internment camps and battle the growing number of mutant dissidents (most notably Magneto). Riding the wave of anti-mutant hysteria, Bolivar Trask eventually ascended to the office of Vice-President, and the Sentinels took a more active role in policing America's mutants.

After the Human-Mutant war, Magneto reprogrammed the Sentinels that were used against mutants to be his personal enforcers of the laws of the House of Magnus around the globe.

They ended up persecuting humans in the same way they originally persecuted the mutants.^[4]

Age of Apocalypse (Earth-295)

The history of the Age of Apocalypse Sentinels is unknown.^[5]

Exiles #12 (Earth-2600)

Functioning on a world where almost all of the mutants had been eliminated, these sentinels weren't as formidable as some from other universes, and the Exiles enjoyed kicking the tar out of them alongside Weapon X.^[6]

Mutant Extinction (Earth-94831)

On Earth-94831, the Sentinels were deployed by President Kelly in order to rid the world of the 'mutant problem'. They successfully destroyed the X-Men, but were unable to complete his plan due to Hyperion destroying them all so that he could take over the planet for himself.^[7]

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Sentinels have a vast array of abilities:

They can fly, shoot various weapons (primarily energy blasts and restraining devices) from different parts of their bodies, and detect mutants at long range. Some of them could even change form and re-assemble after being destroyed

Abilities

None known.

Average Strength level

Unknown.

Weaknesses

None known.

Habitat

Habitat: Same as Earth
Gravity: Same as Earth
Atmosphere: They do not need to breath
Population: Population of this race is unknown.

Miscellaneous

Type of Government: Government type unknown.
Level of Technology: Same as Earth
Cultural Traits: Cultural traits unknown.

Representatives:

Master Mold, built by Bolivar Trask	Number Two, Larry Trask's Master Mold	Nimrod, super-advanced Sentinel from Earth-811 (Days of Future Past)	Bastion
Tri-Sentinel, powered by Loki	Prime Sentinels, created by Bastion	Wild Sentinels	Sentinel Squad ONE, a team of piloted Sentinels
Gol-19	Wild Sentinel Master Mold	Juston Seyfert, "Sentinel Savage"	Omega Sentinel

Notes

Sentinel Comics

Sentinel
(2003-2004)
12 issues

Sentinel Vol 2
(2006-2006)
5 issues

Trivia

No trivia.

Links and References

None.

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