iFanboy Mini Video Podcast
iFanboy Mini #134 – Age of the Sentry #1
Show Notes
Age of the Sentry #1 features two stories, one written by Jeff Parker (X-Men: First Class) and the other by Paul Tobin.
Ron Richards takes one for the team and gives the book a shot to see if the joke of The Sentry will come to end with this attempt to give this contrived hero a backstory in the Marvel Universe.
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There are several panels in the first half of the book where Bob Reynolds looks sort of like Jimski. He just needs a Hawaiian shirt.
What the hell are they going to do with 5 more issues of this mini? Are they going to progress through the ages until modern times/styles? In issue 5 Are they going to ape Liefeld and Silvestri?
"Wha– the CAMERA? Replenishing my ENERGY?"
My employer will be sending an invoice for what I did to their monitor when the scans of the artwork started appearing.
Ugh. UGH.
I give Marvel all the credit in the world, they are trying so damn hard to make Sentry work. Sadly with terrible writing choices and moments where people just want to kill Sentry for what he does….there’s no way he can be liked now. It’s too late to save him in my eyes. This new Sentry book isnt terrible, like Jimski rated it, but it’s medicore at best and it’s nothing special or something to pick up for the next 4 issues.
Someone else mentioned on another site that: ‘If you take the Void out of the picture, it makes Sentry an even weaker character’. I agree with that because to be honest, I like Sentry with the Void cause it makes him a little more interesting. With him just as a regular hero and no drama to worry about, this Age of Sentry really just made him look like a perfect Superman clone and nothing else.
I’d still go with my original plan to kill Sentry: Sell a 25cent issue of him getting stabbed in the face. 🙂
Thanks Ron. I was thinking about picking it up, but decided to pass on it and I’m glad I did. You made a good point of what Bendis was trying to do with the Sentry. I was excited when they brought him in to the New Avengers, but they haven’t done anything to make the character relevant to the Marvel Universe today. I almost wish they left him alone after the original Sentry series.
I think the Sentry is just the typical Marvel theme, like you guys said in the Villians Podcast: "DC has the great hands on their side all american good guys, but the gritty grainy not so elegant villians, as for Marvel has it vice versa." And the Sentry is basically what you do if you put Superman in the Marvel Universe and give him a super-dose of the Marvel "Relatable Character" syrum, which made him into this character with such a great concept but once you see it, it’s just too much, too many "normal" human aspects you’d never see in many DC characters that makes him unrealatable, and you can’t blame anyone for that cause lots of great tales revovle around a guy in a nut house, but they never were Superheroes.
The second mini was 9 issues. It was not even close to being as good as the original mini and really after the first one his story ended. He’s too much of a DC character in the marvel universe so they stick him with Marvel problems which seem to have not went over so well. It doesn’t help that Bendis isn’t so good on stuff like the Sentry. At least they got good writers for this mini and the art looks kind of fun but I’m still not entirely sold on it.
The Only Character that Marvel could pull off in a DC Way was Captain America, and well look at what they’ve done to him. I hate to sound like one of "Those" Comic Fans, but If you’re fine with Captain America Having a Gun then well you obviously don’t get what Captain America stood for. He had a Sheild cause he was a Defender. You won’t really find one of those hands on their sides Freedom Justice and the American Way superheroes with a gun in their hands, even the Freedom Justice and the Communist way Superman from Red Son dispised Guns.
" If you’re fine with Captain America Having a Gun then well you obviously don’t get what Captain America stood for. He had a Sheild cause he was a Defender. "
http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/captain-america/41-13.jpg
@Ron: Good points, all. I say this respectfully, as a near Conor level DC fan: do you think the problems they’re having making the Sentry work are some of the problems DC writers might be having faced with an editorial staff that may be trying to force an older model on a modern audience? I love the idea that DC’s heroes are more mythological in their scope, but I’m either seeing or imagining a connection between making Sentry work and a lot of DCs latest SNAFUs.
As for this book: I like x-men first class, so I thought I might like this, but the campy affectations were poorly executed and a little forced, I found them pretty distracting.
I also must add, firm in my heterosexuality: Lookin’ fit, sir! Ignore the insecurity fueling hate you hinted at getting in one podcast or another.
@Jimski’s link: Fair point.
People like to blame Joe Q. for the design/equipment change, calling it a publicity stunt, but Brubaker has seemed pretty emphatic about it being his call in any interview I can find.
Brubaker’s suggested reasoning:
Bucky was Steve’s wetworks man during the war.
Bucky does not have a modern day outlook towards guns.
In Bucky’s total experience with Steve, a very small fraction of it had him without a gun in his hands. It’s less than likely they ever had time to chat about it.
Bucky isn’t a super soldier. A robot arm only goes so far. Probably a "right tools for the right job" mentality. It may not happen often, but given flashbacks in Brubaker’s run, Bucky using that knew knife in a manner frowned upon by the Boy Scouts of America is pretty likely, too.
Big Marvel supporters regularly note how realistic the characters are compared to DC’s lineup, well Barnes’ decision to carry a sidearm is a pretty pragmatic, realistic call given the circumstances.
I’m about as far to the left as one can get on guns, but let’s not demonize a piece of machinery. Unless it’s actually a demon machine (like a Lucifroster 9000 Refrigerator.)
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2116/144/1600/tec032-12.jpg
That’s old Golden age stuff, back before he had those rules, Batman’s origonal arsenal had a Gun too, but people remember his strict code now. But it’s best for me just to shut up, I get worked up sometimes about Cap. But I will say this, Guns aren’t bad, but Heroes don’t need them, I love the Black Hawks, the Losers and GI Robot, and they caried guns, cause it was WWII and that’s how things rolled back then. Today though Cap is the only Hero that I can think of that holds a Gun in the now.
HORSE the band is a fan of the Sentry, or at least they were when they wrote a song about him called "A Million Exploding Suns". They also have a song about the Red Tornado, which is titled as such.