THE SENTINELS
Created By: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
First Appearance: The X-Men #14 (Nov. 1965)
Role: Robotic Super-Mooks, Mutant Hunters, Implacable Foes, Random-Difficulty Creatures
Group Affiliations: The Sentinels
PL 10 (166)
STRENGTH 11
STAMINA --
AGILITY -2
FIGHTING 4
DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 0
AWARENESS 0
PRESENCE --
Skills:
Close Combat (Unarmed) 3 (+7)
Expertise (Mutants) 4 (+4)
Intimidation +0 (+15 Size)
Perception 7 (+7)
Stealth 10 (+0 Size)
Technology 4 (+4)
Advantages:
Benefit (Uses Strength instead of Presence for Intimidation), Equipment 3 (Assorted Tech Gear), Ranged Attack 8, Startle, Teamwork
Powers:
"Mechanical Creature"
Immunity 30 (Fortitude Effects) [30]
Protection 12 (Extras: Impervious 9) [21]
"Huge Size" Growth 8 (Str & Toughness +8, +8 Mass, +4 Intimidation, -4 Dodge/Parry, +1 Speed, -8 Stealth) -- (24 feet) (Feats: Innate) (Extras: Permanent +0) [17]
"Power Punch" Strength-Damage +2 [2]
"Mechanical Components"
Radio Communication 3 [12]
"Mutant Detection" Senses 6 (Detect Mutants- Ranged 2, Acute & Analytical) [6]
"Foot Rockets" Flight 6 (120 mph) [12]
"Hand Coils" Snare 7 (Diminished Range -1) Linked to Blast 9 (Flaws: Limited to Snared Targets) (Diminished Range -1) (28) -- [30]
- AE: "Palm Cannons" Damage 10 (Extras: Area- 60ft. Cone) (20)
- AE: "Blasters" Blast 12 (Feats: Split) (25)
Offense:
Unarmed +7 (+13 Damage, DC 28)
Hand Coils +8 (+7 Ranged Afliction & +9 Damage, DC 17 & 24)
Palm Cannons +10 Area (+10 Damage, DC 25)
Blasters +8 (+12 Ranged Damage, DC 27)
Initiative -2
Defenses:
Dodge +6 (DC 16), Parry +6 (DC 16), Toughness +13, Fortitude --, Will --
Complications:
Motivation (Capturing & Destroying Mutants)- The Sentinels are implacable machines, built entirely to capture, kill, or scare the mutant population of Earth.
Vulnerable (Magnetic & Electrical Attacks)- As pure machines, Sentinels are prone to electrical disturbances (which also hit them with Afflictions), and magnetic attacks (which do extra damage).
Total: Abilities: -10 / Skills: 28--14 / Advantages: 14 / Powers: 130 / Defenses: 18 (166)
-Sentinels debuted really early in the X-Men's run (their creator, Bolivar Trask, revealed how far things had gotten and sacrificed himself- Stan Lee's favorite trope in the '60s was Heroic Sacrifices of Minor Characters- to stop them), and have been used regularly ever since, as sort of the ultimate henchman for evil scientists and mutant-haters. Though they're not really CHARACTERS in their own right, Sentinels are something that's MUCH more powerful- Symbols. As Mutants are a metaphor for all oppression, bigotry and discrimination, so to do the Sentinels represent the very forces that hurt them. They're standard Kill-O-Bots in sentiment and effect, but the very SIGHT of them now becomes a powerful symbol- the metaphor of Discrimination Given Form.
-Most of them are created either by one of the Trask family (who could not be more generic as characters, despite all seemingly following the path of a guy to sacrificed his life to stop a Sentinel), or Sebastian Shaw- HIMSELF a Mutant. This is one of those things designed to show off how rotten Shaw was- a Race Traitor who was willing to sell out his own people for a buck.
-They debuted in 1965, but their BIGGEST boost may have come in
Days of the Future Past, a very short (can you imagine it? A game-changing story given
three issues? Today, that'd be a 10-parter at LEAST) tale that features a Dystopian Future- back when that was a NEW AND EXCITING TROPE in comics, believe it or not- where the Sentinels rule a North America that's been largely scoured of the "Mutant Menace". Sentinels have apparently been able to kill the Avengers, Fantastic Four and all sorts of other super-heroes, despite never being anything but Jobbers in the comic books (like, what're they gonna do? KILL THOR? I've seen the Young X-Men take out one of these assholes), and in the horrifying ultimate issue, we see one VAPORIZE Wolverine in one shot, Colossus get killed off-panel, and more... all to send the elder Kate Pryde to the past, resulting in the X-Men altering the future where Robert Kelly's assassination leads to Mutant Internment Camps.
-Of course... thanks to comics being COMICS, something stupid happened and people decided that all these "Evil Futures" become still-established Alternate Timelines that are still valid (this is actually what drove John Byrne off the
X-Men book, as he hated that Claremont just casually went "oh no it's an alternate future now, and so still exists").
-Sentinels since then have appeared frequently as menaces, but rarely as world-conquerors. One X-Man can pretty handily defeat one Sentinel, and even the New Mutants as rookies were able to topple one. They're strong and durable, but they're also slow & stupid, meaning a concentrated effort of even amateur heroes can drop one. There have been countless "Marks" of them, but they're pretty much all the same- some are jobberier than others, of course.
-This build reflects the "Generic" Sentinels that harrass mutants. No Presence or Stamina scores, they're basically unthinking machines who know just enough to follow instructions to "capture" mutants, and that's it. Their powerful Cone-shaped Blasts are a nuisance, they have a more powerful (but less accurate) version (plus electrified coils), they're big and strong but slow as hell, and they can Detect Mutants at great Range. Each one is a good challenge for a lone hero, being so big and hard to hurt (though "only" Toughness 13, since nearly every mutant can at least break their shell), but the big thing is that Sentinels nearly always attack in groups of more than two. Since they're PL 9.5-10-ish, that can be very scary.
The Sentinel "Generations":
Mark I- The original.
Mark II- Larry Trask's version. They could adapt and counter-act super-powers almost instantly.
Mark III- Stephen Lang's group created these.
Mark IV- Sebastian Shaw's version.
Mark V- Shaw's version for Project Wideawake.
Mark VI- Another Shaw version, used by Onslaught.
Mark VII- Another Shaw version.
Prime Sentinels- Bastion's human-sized versions, which were actually cyborg "Sleeper Agents" that could be activated. An "Omega" version was also created- X-Woman Karima Shapandar is one of them.
Wild Sentinels- Cassandra Nova's version, which helped commit mass-murder and genocide in a mutant-ruled Genosha. These ones were made out of scraps, and meant to show off Frank Quitely's capability at drawing weird machinery (which he could do quite well, compared to his inability to draw people that didn't look like they were created from the unholy carnal unions of hillbillies and potatoes).
Mark VIII- The Sentinel Squad O*N*E, designed by Tony Stark to be piloted Mecha that DEFENDED Mutants. The X-Men didn't take well to this idea, as the Sentinels by this point had been solidified as a Hate Symbol. Imagine defending Black Lives Matter protesters with white guys in white hoods, and you've got the general idea.
Bio-Sentinels- Humans infected with a techno-virus by Simon Trask.
Stark Sentinels- Created during the silly
AXIS storyline (which really would have made a GREAT fun arc in one book or another, but of course had to expand to cover the ENTIRE Marvel Universe, which made it boring and stupid and way too long). Tony Stark, under the power of the Red Skull, created these with plans to defeat certain super-heroes.
Future-Sentinels- Trevor Fitzroy used a band of rather small-sized Sentinels (about twice the height of a normal human being), bragging that they were the "most advanced ever created". This was revealed to be complete B.S., as the X-Men effortlessly destroyed DOZENS of them, often one-shotting them by having Archangel fly through them, or Bishop and his men just shoot them.