BigDuke
Reservist Avenger
Posts: 136
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Post by BigDuke on Oct 26, 2006 8:59:39 GMT -5
As I have said in another post, I am newly returned to comic just this year, so I have a lot of questions. I hope you will all be patient with me.
Exactly who the heck is this Sentry dude and what use is he? He has the power of a million exploding suns, but can't tie his shoes without fearing the void will do something to him? I thought that all got fixed a while back.
NA 24 was really not exciting, I think mostly due to this non-character. Am I missing something? Is there something out there that make this character worthy of being an Avenger?
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Post by uberwolf on Oct 26, 2006 9:18:04 GMT -5
I've just gotten back into comics myself. I was exclusively Marvel and stopped buying in the mid 90's. Saw the intro of the Sentry in New Avengers and in answer to your question, no, there is no reason for him to be an Avenger.
While I have not read all the New Avengers comics I think it's safe to say nothing exciting has happened in any issue.
The thing that got me back into comics was reading some of Marvel's titles that I missed while I was gone; like Exiles and the Thunderbolts. I was hoping the Avengers were done as well. Apparently not now, but I have Avengers vol 3 on the way which I understand was a great run.
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Post by dlw66 on Oct 26, 2006 9:29:02 GMT -5
With a few exceptions, you guys are going to get along just fine here... ;D
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Post by bobc on Oct 26, 2006 10:29:03 GMT -5
The Sentry just hovers around, looking all moody and meaningful, issue after issue. But he never actually does anything--but because Bendis created him, he is meaningful. I hear the Bendisbots have worked themselves into a lather over whether Sentry can beat up Thor, but it's hard to imagine caring less. After all, has he done a single thing so far to warrant this adulation? No. That'd be like Bendis actually having to deliver something.
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Post by Doctor Bong on Oct 26, 2006 11:05:18 GMT -5
The Sentry has Superman-level powers while managing at the same time to have none of Supes weight or significance in the Marvel Universe. Yet another proof, if any was still required, that it's not the powers that matter, but the character of the individual wielding them.
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Post by Doctor Doom on Oct 26, 2006 11:06:42 GMT -5
Sentry is basically Bendis' answer to Thor. Since, in his mind, Thor is not a true Avenger, he decided to create a worthless Superman knock-off.
Expect a showdown between them with Sentry winning in New Avengers shortly after Thor returns.
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Post by bobc on Oct 26, 2006 12:28:58 GMT -5
wait. Did Bendis ever actually say Thor wasn't a "true Avenger?" Because if he did, I will become a complete nightmare on this board.
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Post by von Bek on Oct 26, 2006 13:42:20 GMT -5
Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee created the Sentry. And he wasn´t meant to actually exist in the regular MU. That is, until BENDIS! made him an Avenger...
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Post by Doctor Doom on Oct 26, 2006 15:09:15 GMT -5
wait. Did Bendis ever actually say Thor wasn't a "true Avenger?" Because if he did, I will become a complete nightmare on this board. ...He didn't. Even HE wouldn't gfo that far. ...Okay, so he might, but he hasn't said it aloud to the best of my knowledge. Still, it was most likely a significent part of his decision (If not ALL his decision) to cut out Thor from the New Avengers.
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Post by bobc on Oct 26, 2006 15:38:33 GMT -5
Okay. I had a torch in one hand and a pitchfork in the other.
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Post by thew40 on Oct 26, 2006 16:00:17 GMT -5
Ahem!
The Sentry was supposedly the first "new" Marvel super-hero, having arrived on the scene shortly before the Fantastic Four. However, because he is also his own worst enemy (his powers having created an evil being named Void), he and some other super-heroes erased him out of existence and memory from all of the MU, including himself.
Years later (in the first Sentry volume), he regained his memories and his presence within the MU was revived temporarily. Together with various heroes, he fought the Void once more. Unfortunately, the only way to defeat the Void was to cause the MU to forget about him again. So it happened.
Then something happened and he got his memory back and believed that he killed his wife. He was sentenced to the super-villain prison called the Raft. During an outbreak orchestrated by Electro, Sentry aided Captain America, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Iron Man in trying to stop a massive riot (including ripping Carnage in half - one of my favorite scenes).
When Captain America and Iron Man formed the New Avengers, they wanted to bring in Sentry out of concern for him going out of control, like the Scarlet Witch did months earlier. The Sentry's story then continued into a second Sentry mini-series. He suffers from cripping anxiety attacks due to all the crap he's been through with the Void and the mind-erasing and the whatnot, often times keeping him out of the game.
I should point that out of the five arcs we've seen with "New Avengers," the Sentry has played a whole in four of them (Breakout, Sentry, Collective, and New Avengers Disassembled). I will concede that I wish Bendis had done more with this character, though I have enjoyed most his "New Avengers" run.
He's pretty cool to see in action. When he does something.
And for the record, Bendis liked the character and decided to bring him in. I'm not sure what the exact quote is, but Bendis had said something along the lines of wanting to take characters that were in the MU and had a lot of potential and bringing them to the front.
~W~
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Post by bobc on Oct 26, 2006 19:44:23 GMT -5
Thew40--love ya, mean it, but your historical account of THE SENTRY isn't exactly winning new converts. About the only thing I agree with is that it's best to forget the Sentry for decades at a time. May I request that in the next 5 decades he remain forgotten? PLEASE??!!! I am begging here.
So you're saying Captain America and Iron Man wanted another world destroying Avenger on board? So they could keep an eye on him? After the stellar job they did last time? That's like the X-Men shopping for a new Phoenix!! GOOD CALL!!! Makes sense. Lotsa sense.
So now crybaby Sentry has "crippling anxiety" and just sits around whining like an EMO little girl? GREAT AVENGERS MATERIAL!!! Sign him up.
So what "happened" that got his memory back? Not that I really care, but what was it? Was he shown nude pictures of Clara "Where's the beef?" Pellar? Was he violated in prison by a succession of super criminals?
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Post by uberwolf on Oct 26, 2006 20:21:35 GMT -5
Well that came off a little harsh bobc. I'm no Sentry fan, and as you, could care less about him but your reply to thew40 was like all angry and stuff. I applaud thew40's calm replies to our constant Bendis Bashing. Now if he would only realize how wrong he is... . I have no idea what happened with Thor but wasn't he supposed to be dead or something when the NA were formed? It's not like there weren't a ton of other powerhouses Bendis could have picked. My theory is he thought the Sentry would become a big deal and would help the sales on his crappy team just like the inclusion of Spiderman and Wolverine. ...and I bet the Sentry does cry like a little girl
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Post by bobc on Oct 26, 2006 20:40:22 GMT -5
I love w40. But I hate Bendis and the Sentry. Actually I liked the Sentry before Bendis got ahold of him.
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Post by thew40 on Oct 26, 2006 21:08:34 GMT -5
Thew40--love ya, mean it, but your historical account of THE SENTRY isn't exactly winning new converts. About the only thing I agree with is that it's best to forget the Sentry for decades at a time. May I request that in the next 5 decades he remain forgotten? PLEASE??!!! I am begging here. So you're saying Captain America and Iron Man wanted another world destroying Avenger on board? So they could keep an eye on him? After the stellar job they did last time? That's like the X-Men shopping for a new Phoenix!! GOOD CALL!!! Makes sense. Lotsa sense. So now crybaby Sentry has "crippling anxiety" and just sits around whining like an EMO little girl? GREAT AVENGERS MATERIAL!!! Sign him up. So what "happened" that got his memory back? Not that I really care, but what was it? Was he shown nude pictures of Clara "Where's the beef?" Pellar? Was he violated in prison by a succession of super criminals? Just a couple of points: 1) The X-Men have taken a number of Phoenix characters on board. Jean exhibited signs that she was re-manifesting Phoenix power and they kept her around. Same with Rachel Summers/Grey, who took the power of the Phoenix around Uncanny 200ish. 2) They were trying to make up for the mistakes that they made with Wanda by trying to prevent him from going completely off the deep-end and destroying the world. This was by taking him on board and under their wing, to help him deal with his problems and to prevent another "Disassembled" from happening. 3) Hank Pym cried at the end of "Ultron Unlimited." What a wuss! 4) I'm not exactly sure how he got his memories back as I don't have the issues with me right now. I believe it's during the NA "Sentry" arch. 5) I'll admit that Sentry was better under Jenkins' pen. Bendis, I don't think has used this character to his potential. ~W~
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Post by uberwolf on Oct 26, 2006 21:41:42 GMT -5
Hank Pym has a right to cry. He actually did something in the Avengers. He founded the team, fought along side them, fought them, created artificial life that fought the team, went insane, fought his wife, and was the smallest and largest member of the Avengers at any given time. What has the Sentry done except cry?
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Post by dlw66 on Oct 27, 2006 7:46:44 GMT -5
Hank ought to jump off a bridge...
Man, while I am one of those spouting negativity on the Avengers/Guiding Light crossover, you look at that synopsis of Pym's career and you think that there is no way a soap opera writer could have come up with anything better!
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Post by bobc on Oct 27, 2006 10:28:41 GMT -5
1. Hank Pym is a wuss--but he's our wuss and an original Avenger.
2. Uhhhh wasn't The Sentry in prison FOR MURDER? I guess it would be unfair to ask why he hasn't been put BACK in prison like the other felons. Has Bendis bothered to explain this? Or is this another example of his tedious inability to maintain continuity over even two issues, let alone an entire run? Also, since the bitchball is in my court, if Sentry has the power of a million suns, what prison would hold him? God, talk about a slacker.
3. So the Avengers are "trying not to make the same mistakes" as they did with Wanda? What mistakes did they make, according to Bendis? I mean has Bendis actually delineated these mistakes? Has he had Cap and Iron Man come up with new plans in case Sentry goes nutz? No? Would that be too much like being a professional writer? I mean these are just comics, but still.
OR did Bendis just magically decide to put sentry into NA and couldn't be bothered to have the whole thing make sense?
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Post by Doctor Doom on Oct 27, 2006 11:21:37 GMT -5
I have NEVER understood that rationale. "Wanda, a very long-term Avenger who has served with us right under our noses for countless years went insane and decimated us. Therefore, to prevent the same thing from happening again, we should take another even MORE insane obscenely powerful hero into the Avengers...
Thus preventing it from ever happening and solving the problem completely."
Did I miss something?
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Post by bobc on Oct 27, 2006 12:34:17 GMT -5
You don't understand it because it's assinine. This kind of vapid, pee poor story-telling would have been roundly shot down ten years ago. It seems that as our culture becomes more junk foodesque, people like Bendis get away with things that should have landed him in the unemployment line.
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Post by dlw66 on Oct 27, 2006 12:40:41 GMT -5
bob, you're right -- ten years ago Bendis would not have been tolerated. Instead, Marvel would have committed whatever resources they are paying him into their r&d dept. concerning foil covers, rehiring the Image artists, "epic" crossovers throughout all of the annuals, et al. We're really not better off now, are we
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Post by Bored Yesterday on Oct 27, 2006 13:03:52 GMT -5
If you don't read the story, it never happened. That's why I'm not reading any New Avengers comics until Bendis is off the book or Sentry goes away, whichever comes first. At that piont, I'll subscribe to the book and change the number on the cover with a magic marker to match whatever issue number Disassembled began on.
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Post by von Bek on Oct 27, 2006 13:16:45 GMT -5
In the Sentry arc Emma Frost and the Sentry´s wife (who is supposed to have been killed by him) went inside his subconscious brain... No hero remembers him but in the Raft DD, Cage, SW and let´s not forget Foggy Nelson go after him because Reed Richards asks them to... Man, it´s histerical. It´s almost as if BMB is trying really hard to write something that doesn´t make sense.
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Post by bobc on Oct 27, 2006 13:19:08 GMT -5
Dl--yes we were better off then. At least there were some stories in the mid 90's worth reading. I'm less hung up on the cover gimmicks of the 90's and more concerned about what's in between those covers. Let's be honest here, over the years 90% of all comics were crap. Sorry, but that's the truth. Most of us continue to buy because we know that sooner or later, the next Top Ten will come out, or the Perez Ultron Unlimited series, or Miller's Daredevil. The mediocre writers in years past never destroyed the identity of these groups. But Bendis' big greasy paw-prints all over everything these days
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Post by von Bek on Oct 27, 2006 13:22:26 GMT -5
And the whole point of the Sentry´s first mini was the gimmick that this was a long lost Stan Lee character created before the FF that no one remembers, so the 616 MU also doesn´t remembers him. And in the end he fades away into obscurity again. Bendis didn´t get the in-joke or the point (well, no surprise here). I just wish Marvel hired someone to help BMB read things like Byrne´s AWC or the first Sentry series and carefully explain to him and helps him understand what´s going on and what the point of the comic book was...
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Post by von Bek on Oct 27, 2006 13:34:31 GMT -5
1. Hank Pym is a wuss--but he's our wuss and an original Avenger. Did you call my man Pym a wuss?!! We´re talking about the guy who took down Avengers teams many times (even as the little Ant Man)!!! He survived A:D and survived even the greatest danger that a B-list Avenger can face, BENDIS!
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Post by bobc on Oct 27, 2006 13:40:32 GMT -5
I wish I could find it hysterical--I think it's pathetic. There was a time in Marvel when Stan Lee would hand out "No-prizes" to eagle-eyed fans who spotted errors in continuity. They'd hand out one or two per year, and they were usually really small errors. Could you imagine the workload of someone having to hand out prizes for Bendis errors? d**n--that'd require an entire staff, fulltime!!
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Post by von Bek on Oct 27, 2006 13:46:32 GMT -5
Let's be honest here, over the years 90% of all comics were crap. Sorry, but that's the truth. Most of us continue to buy because we know that sooner or later, the next Top Ten will come out, or the Perez Ultron Unlimited series, or Miller's Daredevil. I disagree with you here, Bob. In the late 70´s/early 80´s most comics were still readable. Of course I´m not saying every one of them was a masterpiece that will be remembered in 25 years, but most were at least entertaining, more than what most comics today are. Here are some examples: Stern/Byrne and later DeMatteis/Zeck on Captain America Moech and Gulacy in Master of Kung Fu Mantlo and Sal Buscema in ROM and Hulk Mantlo and Golden in Micronauts Claremont and Miller in the first Wolverine mini series Simonson´s Thor Grant and Zeck in the first Punisher mini series, and the list could go on... All Masterpieces? Hardly, but all entertaining comics.
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Post by von Bek on Oct 27, 2006 13:54:06 GMT -5
I wish I could find it hysterical--I think it's pathetic. There was a time in Marvel when Stan Lee would hand out "No-prizes" to eagle-eyed fans who spotted errors in continuity. They'd hand out one or two per year, and they were usually really small errors. Could you imagine the workload of someone having to hand out prizes for Bendis errors? d**n--that'd require an entire staff, fulltime!! The first time I read it I also found it pathetic, but when you think that the whole thing is supposed to be taken seriously and the guy is being paid to do it... man, it´s hysterical. And yeah, handing no-prizes today would be impossible.
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Post by bobc on Oct 27, 2006 15:56:15 GMT -5
Von's been on a posting spree!
Yeah I agree that lots of titles in the 60's and 70's totally kicked azz, and a few did in the 80's, and a dwindling few in the 90's. It's been almost like a slow slide with some bright moments. But I can honestly say in 30 years what's going on right now with Marvel is unprecedented. Around the turn of the new millenium, I was ranting and raving to anyone who'd listen that Marvel was in an absolute Renaissance. Then suddenly Bendis was everywhere ruining everything. Now I don't even know who these characters are anymore.
Okay I'll shut up now--I'm getting on my own nerves.
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