Superheroes You Have Never Heard Of: The Sentry

https://lebeauleblog.com/2018/07/14/superheroes-you-have-never-heard-of-the-sentry/

Although Marvel and the creators pulled the plug on Heroes Reborn, there was no doubt that the project had been a success financially. Marvel began looking around at its library for properties they could outsource to other publishers. For example, they enlisted the help of Chaos Comics to take over their horror themed characters for a series that did little more than extend the publication rights for characters like Brother Voodoo. A far more successful arrangement was made between Marvel and the founders of Event Comics.

Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti had worked together on comics for Valiant and DC. Like everyone else, they decided to take advantage of the boom cycle by creating their own books. Their flagship character, Ash, was a super powered firefighter. Event was reasonably successful, but they were definitely small potatoes compared to DC, Marvel and Image. Still, Marvel entrusted Quesada and Palmiotti with their street-level superheroes like Daredevil, Black Panther and the Punisher. Why? Because Marvel had no idea what to do with these characters any more.

The new imprint was called Marvel Knights and mostly it was a hit. A supernatural take on the Punisher was an infamous misfire, but Kevin Smith’s take on Daredevil drawn by Quesada surpassed expectations. As part of the second wave of Marvel Knights books, Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee did a year-long series on The Inhumans. The Inhumans are about as far from street level as you can get. They live on the moon. But Jenkins and Lee delivered a dark, gritty look at characters who can seem pretty dang silly (witness the dreadful TV series if you dare). The book won an Eisner Award which gave Jenkins free reign to choose his next project.

As you can probably guess, that project was the Sentry. The idea for the Sentry came from brainstorming sessions between Jenkins and artist Rick Veitch. The concept was a middle-aged guy who has a dream that he was a superhero. Eventually, the character would come to realized that it wasn’t a dream but a repressed memory and that he had actually been the first and most powerful superhero in the Marvel universe. Veitch had the idea to create an elaborate backstory tying their creation into the fabric of the Marvel Universe. He would draw the flashbacks in the style of the appropriate era.

It was a gimmicky idea that got more gimmicky when Marvel agreed to produce the book. Unfortunately for Veitch, they wanted to retain the award-winning team from Inhumans, so he was cut loose in favor of Jae Lee. To promote the book, Jenkins did interviews claiming that the Sentry was actually a forgotten character created by Stan Lee before the publication of the Fantastic Four. Stan the Man played along saying he didn’t remember creating the Sentry, but his memory wasn’t so good.

In the story, Bob Reynolds discovers that he is actually a powerful superhero with a long history in the Marvel Universe. The central mystery of the book was figuring out why almost no one remembered his adventures. Over the course of the year-long series, Bob traveled the Marvel universe picking up clues to his past and reminded characters of their shared history. For example, it turns out the Sentry and Mr. Fantastic were good friends. All the while, the Sentry is preparing for the return of his arch-enemy, The Void, who is somehow connected to everyone’s memory loss.