Review: The Sentry

The great heroes of Marvel have been established for decades.  Spider-Man, The Avengers, The X-Men.  Creating a new character and garnering enough popularity with that character to join the big boys (and girls) in main storylines and events can take years.  For instance, the character Deadpool was introduced to Marvel in 1991, and is just now coming into prominence in the Marvel universe.  So what do you do when you want to skip that whole process?  The Sentry holds the answer.

First of all, let me say that the plot of this book is fairly complicated, and to completely explain it I would have to spoil the ending.  Which I can't allow myself to do.  So I'll try the best I can, just bear with me, it's worth it.

So, once upon a time there was a being known only as The Sentry, the world's greatest superhero, bar none.  Mentor and elder statesmen to the rest of the Marvel heroes, he was beloved and looked up to by all.  But then a dark day came, and The Sentry....was simply forgotten.  As if he had never been there, The Sentry vanished from the hearts and minds of all that had known him.  All evidence of him was overlooked.  His existence had been erased.

Our story opens with a man named Bob Reynolds.  Bob, by all accounts, is a normal middle-aged guy.  But this morning, something is off.  Bob awakes with a feeling of unease, of dread, of oncoming doom that he cannot explain.  And then he begins to remember, and with the memory comes the knowledge of what he fears: The Void, an unstoppable force of evil that only The Sentry has ever had the power to defeat.  And if The Void is coming back, then so must Bob allow The Sentry to return.  Thus does Bob Reynolds, formerly known to the world as The Sentry begin his journey, in reclaiming his own memory and in bringing his memory back to the world, especially to his closest friends, Marvel's superhero elite, who are his only chance to save the world.

Mainstream superhero comics do not often tread into the "meta" territory, but in this case, it is skillfully done.  Together, a collection of brilliant artists and writers banded together to plot an intricate and emotional triumph.  While Bob struggles to reclaim his identity, a series of  flashbacks, rendered in the style of their era, recount what was once the life of The Sentry, the nature of his friendships, his exploits, and his eventual downfall.  Each flashback is told from the point of a different hero.

These flashbacks are part of what make this book so wonderfully unique.  Each is done with an art style corresponding with the era it takes place in (i.e. 50's Golden Era, 90's Xtreme), or with the character who is remembering it (Hulk's mind has fairly dark, abstract memories).  Each story is another piece of the puzzle which is the life of The Sentry and why he was forgotten.  The effect is that The Sentry, a character never mentioned before the publication of this series, becomes a convincing part of Marvel's history.  Even Stan "The Man" Lee, the "inventor" of The Sentry gets into the act with a tongue-in-cheek afterword.

In the end, all is laid bare, and Bob must make a decision.  What is it to truly be heroic?  Can a man choose to be heroic, by choosing to be normal?

The book was a delightful surprise for me, and I give it an A+.

P.S. - I also want to give a big thanks to my husband Doug who gifted this book to me as a present for our first wedding anniversary.  Love you Bear!