• Why the Sentry is the Worst Comic Book Character of All Time

  

  Written by Zeromage 10 Comments
  Last Updated:: August 2, 2008

  In theory the Sentry is a really cool superhero. But the unfortunate reality is that whenever the Sentry actually makes an appearance in a comic book he usually ruins the story. Why does Marvel continue to use this character? No one can seem to write him correctly. The best and most recent example of this is in the very poorly written World War Hulk storyline when he fought the Hulk. He is supposed to possess the power of “a million exploding suns”, but yet, when we see him “unleash his power like never before” (in Reed Richard’s words) he merely destroys a few city blocks on Manhattan Island and even normal mortals are left alive and uninjured standing right next to ground zero. Given what we previously knew about the Sentry he should have utterly destroyed the Hulk in a one on one confrontation, even in a simple, not to mention predictable slug-fest (which is pretty much what the much anticipated fight between the two powerhouses turned out to be). Why didn’t the Sentry unleash his other powers on the Hulk? Why didn’t the Sentry calm down the Hulk (much like Reed Richards’ synthetic version of the Sentry’s calming effect almost did to the Hulk just a couple of issues before)?

  The worst part about all of this is that the entire series builds up this battle between the Sentry and the Hulk, leading us to believe it will be the deciding factor of the conflict. You knew it would come down to a fight between the Sentry and the Hulk. You had to read through pages of Iron Man and Reed Richards, various government lackeys and even the president of the United States try to convince the Sentry to intervene. Yet in the end, when he finally did take a stand and fight the Hulk in the “climatic” battle, it was a side note, as nothing was decided in the fight, and Tony Stark (Iron Man) simply used a satellite to take down the Hulk (after the Sentry was KO’ed).

  This also happens in the much better Civil War storyline. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVED Civil War. I think that its one of the best comic book storyline lines EVER. That being said, the Sentry didn’t fit into that story. Much like during World War Hulk, throughout the Civil War story line, we hear superheroes on both sides saying that the Sentry is the one figure who can turn the tide of the conflict. Yet, once he finally enters the conflict (after pages and pages of Iron Man talking him into it, in multiple comic books), his actual impact is negligible. In the end, the side that the Sentry was on was losing the physical battle against a team whose heavy hitters were – I kid you not – Captain America, Spiderman and Hercules. Captain America eventually surrendered, not because his team was physically beaten, but because he saw the damage that the conflict had caused. So for all the Sentry’s issues with joining the conflict, afraid of using all of his power and hurting his friends, he wasn’t able to do anything to change the course of the battle.

  Marvel needs to make up its mind. Is the Sentry really the most powerful character in the Marvel Universe (outside of ridiculous beings like Galactus and the Phoenix)? Either he is or he isn’t. Does he really have the power of a million exploding suns, or this that merely hyperbole? Until these questions are cleared up definitively by a writer who actually follows continuity, and understands the power structure of the Marvel Universe, then the Sentry will continue to be contradictory and will add nothing but confusion to future Marvel comics.

10 Comments

1. #1 Ryan Rigney says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 3:41 am

   I like his ghetto bling belt with the dollar sign on it.
2. #2 yeah says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 5:45 am

   what a dumb article.
3. #3 garbage article says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 12:38 am

   This article is retarded. I feel like I lost 10 IQ points just by glancing at it.
4. #4 Phil says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 2:05 am

   I don’t know what people are complaining about. This was a pretty decent article. I’d say you guys are better comic book journalists than you are video game journalists. Stick to comic books.
5. #5 Osama says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 4:39 pm

   I have to agree with Phil. I look forward to your comic posts way more than your video game ones
6. #6 The Irredeemable Shag says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 9:49 pm

   Great article. I completely agree with everything you said. In fact, I tried to purchase the URL http://www.killthesentry.com/, but it was already taken. I’m really hoping the webmaster does something soon with that page. I’d be willing to support it.

   The Irredeemable Shag
   http://onceuponageek.com
7. #7 Jamie Hewitt says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 10:23 pm

   I Disagree, i think he is a great character, the sentry has never used his power to his full extent or anywhere near as mentioned in the 2000 mini series, due to his serious mental issues he won’t allow himself to. Also the hulk is one of his greatest friends, the hulk looks up to the sentry as a father figure so the sentry was never out to kill the hulk and i like to think he knew exactly when to stop before the hulk was destroyed.

   oh yes and when the fight ended in world war hulk, the hulk reverted back to banner, so the hulk was beaten only to have his power restored by the anger of rick being stabbed by “miek the unhived” i believe it was.
8. #8 Alice says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 1:30 am

   loved your article and I agree with what you said 100%
   I’m really getting tired of Marvel shoving the Sentry down our throats in every book
9. #9 Sammy says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 4:33 pm

   Here’s the thing you have to look at the title of the comic you’re talking about here “World War HULK”. Of course they couldn’t let the title character be taken out that easily in a fight no matter who it was against. Not to mention like someone said before the Sentry is a good friend of the Hulk, and didn’t want to kill him. Sentry knew how much the Hulk could take, and as far as only ruining a few city blocks think of it this way most of the impact of the punches were directly taken by the characters themselves. I admit that other characters in the past have fought and destroyed whole cities,even planets, but you have to blame this one on the writers. Also in Civil War the reason why they let things go down the way they did was because of how it was going to end up. With the death of Steve Rodgers,aka Captain America dying. That was the intragul part of the plot. They couldn’t have done that with someone like Sentry stealing the show. Also when Sentry was “KO’ed” he wasn’t the Sentry at that point he was just plain old Bob. And Bruce knocking out Bob isn’t the samething. Also once again just blame that on poor writing. Like you said in the beginning of the article, “no one can seem to write him correctly.”
10. #10 Delta says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 10:14 pm

    Sammy…..

    While it is true that it’s upto the writers whether actual serious damage gets done or not, it seems pretty poorly thought-out, even for the medium, to have such little collateral damage when they were emphasizing the whole Power Of A Million Exploding Suns thing, and that no one but Sentry could stop the Hulk. Then have it end like that, barely any collateral damage, and then Hulk beaten by satalites that’d been there for God knows how long and never even MENTIONED before.

    And a bit more on the collateral damage, it seems even worse if Sentry and Genis-Vell were thinking their fight would destroy the planet they were on. Then Sentry unleashes his “full-power.” With Superman at least he holds-back almost the entire time, but he’s devastated places with collateral damage when he’s stopped holding back for whatever reason. And Superman only has the power of one non-exploding sun!!

    But in all seriousness, I’d have to agree that they need to clear-up whether Sentry really has the power of a million supernovas or it’s just hyperbole.

    And on how the Hulk/Sentry fight ended, I agree that Bruce knocking-out Bob is quite different from Hulk knocking-out Sentry, but still a really poor way to end the fight….only to have Hulk beaten the way he was shortly later.

    And onto writing him, they start him out being this uber-powerful character with a rip-off of Triumph’s origin, he disappears being in mostly limbo for a while, then make him really important but an inconsistent Superman-clone with a few extra powers. They should pick what exactly they want to do with him and stick to it.