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I know I’ve blog a lot about the Sentry lately, but just listen to this. Okay… last night I had an actually nightmare about the Sentry. I woke up frightened that the Golden Guardian of Good had destroyed the world as the frenzied Void. Even with all the efforts of Marvel’s mightiest heroes, including a desperate distress call to the intergalactic Silver Surfer, there was nothing they could do to calm Sentry’s schizophrenic fury. This tells me two things. One: obviously, I read too many comics. I’m having horrifying dreams about a fictional character that the majority of older comic readers have never heard of for Christ’s sake. Two: the initial Marvel Knights’ Sentry mini-series by writer Paul Jenkins and artist Jae Lee was brilliant.

I just read the original Sentry story for the first time last week. The graphic novel had either been out-of-print for a long while, or Star Clipper was just mistakenly not carrying it, but I got it back in stock and bought it right away. I was shocked at how foreboding the treatment of the character was from the get go. I don’t think I’ve read anything from Marvel that is quite like it. As the reader, you don’t want this guy returning to the Marvel universe, and apparently, neither do any of the other superheroes. Even the freakin’ Hulk is scared of this guy. Writer Jenkins adds to the suspense by elaborating on the mystery of the Sentry with a haunting sense of déjà vu. The Marvel heroes don’t quite remember the strange golden man, but are somehow alarmed by his limitless power and curious arrival outside the under-construction Baxter Building.

The air of fear is only magnified with artist Jae Lee’s muted palette and eerie designs. One by one, Marvel heroes like Spider-Man, the X-Men’s Angel, and Mr. Fantastic remember the Sentry’s forgotten past and gather on Liberty Island with him to face the return of his arch-nemesis the void. Here Lee’s art is its most indescribably alarming, with Mr. Fantastic in particular never looking more fascinating. This, juxtaposed with the colorful memory sequence illustrated by artist like Rick Leonardi and Phil Winslade, makes Sentry’s jarring return menacing but still intriguing and whimsical. By the end, the revelation that the Sentry is the Void is still haunting, even though I was already well aware of this having read the character’s history in subsequent stories.

Had Marvel chosen not to add Sentry into the normal Marvel universe, the Sentry mini-series would easily hold up on its own. I personally feel it is on the same caliber as the original Wolverine: Weapon X story, another story in a league above the majority of Marvel usual output. The book is also supplemented with the magazine articles of the press hoax Marvel created that the Sentry was an actually forgotten silver age character, which is a bonus feature well worth having.

My nightmare looked much like the Jae Lee illustration, and having the Silver Surfer come into the mix was admittedly cool. However, Jenkins suspenseful story was truly enough to get into my psyche, and coupled with Sentry’s current inclination to rip people in half, it really wigged me out. This character is really worth reading about. Come on, when’s the last time a comic book gave you a nightmare?

-Jon

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