The True Identity of The Sentry

In Dark Avengers #13, Brian Michael Bendis finally reveals the true nature of the Sentry!  Or maybe not.  But I know the answer.  (SPOILERS for Dark Avengers #13 below...)

Since New Avengers #1, Bendis has doled out clues about the absurdly powerful, yet oddly ineffectual super-being called the Sentry, a hero whose every good work is counterbalanced by the villainy of his arch-nemesis (and alter-ego), the Void.  In this latest issue of Dark Avengers, Robert's wife Lindy relates her own theory about the Sentry.  She posits that Robert's abuse of "the serum" opened him to energy of "Biblical proportions", and her theory receives partial corroboration with a flashback to Old Testament times, showing the avenging angel of the Tenth Plague to be the Void-energy itself, possibly channeled by a Hebrew prophet.  Lindy says that it's just her Sunday School perspective, but she's sure Robert became "a part of something larger and crazier than anyone has even considered."  Even if Bendis made the ballsy move of introducing Yahweh into the pantheon of Marvel gods, the Void who taunts Lindy is no angel.  He's sardonic, cruel and unabashedly evil -- and he finds Lindy's theories hilarious.  He even quips that he is Galactus.

When writer Paul Jenkins introduced the Sentry, the standalone limited series could be read as a story within a story.  Robert Reynolds could be seen as a character in the real world -- our world -- who escaped his psychological handicaps by imagining himself into a fantasy world: the Marvel Universe.  There, he dreamed himself a hero, and inserted himself into Silver Age continuity as fast friends with the superheroes, he himself being the mightiest among them.  He even married his all-American girl sweetheart with a similarly alliterative name.  His nemesis, the Void, represented the nihilistic truth that Reynolds was really a powerless nobody.  The limited series could be interpreted as a tale of the healing power of fantasy.

When Brian Michael Bendis brought the Sentry into Marvel continuity, he preserved the trope that Jenkins' Robert Reynolds imagined: that the Sentry was one of the original heroes, and the world had forgotten about him.  There was, of course, a comic book device to explain the gap in memory (the Sentry's psionic powers), but in the first Sentry arc, writer Paul Jenkins appeared -- as a character -- in the pages of New Avengers, dumbfounded at how his fictional creation was standing before him in real life.  Flashbacks to the Sentry's past, originally shown in campy Silver Age art and writing style, began to morph into a decidedly modern comic book style.  A flashback about the Sentry's first encounter with the Skrulls mutated from a "Mars Attacks!"-style scene to a grim analogy to the 9/11 suicide plane attacks by religious fundamentalists.  Marvel history was being re-written, almost as if a comic book writer was re-casting old stories to modern sensibilities.  Or a childish fantasy was being upgraded in sophistication and made manifest.  Perhaps the most concise description of the Sentry's nature was in this week's Mighty Avengers #33, when Stature describes the Sentry's clash with the Void as "a damaged psyche playing out the conflict of its dual nature through comic book archetypes."

Robert Reynolds' godlike powers aren't those of Yahweh; they're those of a writer with respect to a comic book universe.  Robert Reynolds is a man who can retcon himself into comic book history and make himself a peer of the Earth's Mightiest Heroes.  But he then becomes beholden to the rules of the comic book universe and its narrative flow, and keeps himself from over-influencing the course of the story by checking himself with special weaknesses and an arch-nemesis who can counter his every move.  In Dark Avengers #13, the Void taunts Robert: "You should just take a step back and look at what you've accomplished as the sentry. Nothing. You want to do something? Allow me."  Because that too is one of the rules of comic book stories: the heroes are reactive defenders of the status quo.  It's the villains who drive the story forward by acting.  By acting badly.

Bendis, in Avengers: The Illuminati #3, established the godlike Beyonder as a being interested in wiping his own memory and inserting himself into the lives of the superheroes.  Doubtless, there will be a revelation that Robert Reynolds, the Sentry, the Void, Cloc, and even Lindy are all constructs of the Beyonder, playing his game.  But I like to think that there is a hidden truth behind that revelation, one that Marvel will never show.  Robert Reynolds' true power is that of authorship of Avengers continuity.  And his true identity?  Brian Michael Bendis.

Caprica, Put On Some Clothes!

After Gattaca, the re-made Battlestar Galactica was the first filmed science fiction that my wife enjoyed.  She liked that the focus wasn't on technology or aliens or the other sci-fi tropes; fundamentally, it was a drama about flawed human characters wrestling with weighty issues.  Seeing SyFy's promotional imagery for the Battlestar prequel series Caprica, she'd never guess that the show followed in its predecessor's footsteps.  In fact, she'd probably just roll her eyes before dismissing it entirely.

I've seen the Caprica pilot.  I know it deals with religious fundamentalism, parental grief at the loss of a child, the politics of racial minorities and the nature of the human soul.  But even I look at the Caprica poster and think "jail bait."  Yes, the image of a pretty, nude teenager casting a come-hither gaze over her shoulder while biting a Forbidden Fruit could have a more symbolic meaning.  In fact, for those familiar with the pilot, the symbolism is apropos; the character of Zoe Graystone does represent a forbidden fruit, though not in the sexual sense.

But come on.  Science fiction isn't a genre known for its subtlety.  It is known, however, for catering to the fantasies (sexual and otherwise) of teenage boys.  This ad campaign makes Caprica look like more of the same.  Mind you, this is certainly more of the same that worked on me -- I was a devoted follower of Catwoman, Princess Ardala and Leia's slave-girl outfit -- but my kind isn't the audience that needs winning over.  The re-done Battlestar Galactica helped break ground in casting science fiction TV as serious, character-driven adult drama, and garnered a much wider audience than the usual SyFy fare.  Along with shows like ABC's Lost, it made a compelling argument for studio investment in the genre.  This success shows that science fiction needn't be an insecure little category that needs to show skin to get attention.  Caprica has the goods; it should put on its clothes and invite audiences to take it seriously.

X-Factor - Nation X: PAD jabs at the X-Office?

The following contains minor SPOILERS for X-Factor: Nation X #1.

Peter David loves metatextual commentary in his funny books.  It's often as heavy-handed as his puns, but the man knows his industry as well as his characters, and has smart things to say about both.  The X-Factor: Nation X one-shot can be read as a fun reunion of the X-Factor mutants with the X-Men.  Or a critique of Matt Fraction's "Nation X" plot.  Or even a musing by the X-Factor title on its place in the X-Men family of books.

Foremost, this one-shot plays as a fun reunion of old friends.  Shatterstar's encounters with the X-folk of known and suspected alternate sexuality is played for laughs, as is Strong Guy's meeting with the other strong guys -- who spend the issue hitting each other for the simple reason that that's what they do.  Darwin closes the loop on his original quest to find Professor Xavier, and Longshot's past relationship with Dazzler is acknowledged and left wryly messy.  Even some past resentment between Moonstar and Monet (of which I wasn't aware) is duly noted.  This montage of meetings spreads across several pages, leaving the reader the impression that all the necessary bases are being touched and stories are being swapped off-panel.  The focus of the reunion is between Madrox and Layla -- who have seen the future since their last encounter with the X-Men -- and Cyclops, who has been busy plotting the course of mutantkind's future.  Cyclops and Madrox are, interestingly, both framed as leaders with a vision for their people.  Where Cyclops is steadfast in his resolve that his "Utopia" is the best hope for mutants, Madrox (in character) sees both sides, though in the end remains unreconciled with Cyclops.

Their debate, paired with a plot thread involving "Crone, Scribe of the Others", lays out an argument that could be between Peter David and Uncanny X-Men writer Matt Fraction.  When Fraction took the X-Men from their Westchester mansion to San Francisco, he commented that the mansion was an easy target for their enemies, and living in a city famous for accepting the different was a tactical move by Cyclops.  Bizarrely, the first thing they did on arriving was to buy up a secluded set of buildings and establish a quasi-military base.  After a race riot, Cyclops took all the remaining mutants to an artificial island off the Californian coast, and dubbed it "Utopia".  Despite their professed ideal to integrate man and mutant, Marvel writers always showed the X-Men as isolationist -- but at least most of the rest of the world's mutants lived among humans.  Since the "House Of M" story whittled down the number of surviving mutants to fewer than 200, all of Marvel's mutantkind is isolated -- and ghettoized.

"The ghetto will burn," Crone writes.  "They always burn.  The blood is erased by the flames.  But it will happen again. And again."  And of course, it has happened, not only in human history but in X-Men history, with all the mutant sanctuaries.  Xavier's mansion was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt.  Avalon crashed and burned.  District X was consumed by flames.  Genosha was annihilated.  The Australian base was torn apart.  Providence sunk.  Too many mutants gathering in one place has been a consistent disaster throughout Marvel history.  Cyclops, self-appointed leader of his race, risks the final fate of his race on "faith that this time, this place, is happening for a reason other than to be perverted by a future that may or may not occur."  Alas, the X-Men franchise lives so long as its status quo of "persecuted minority fighting for survival" is preserved, so these characters may never escape their fate.

Peter David has kept his stories fairly separate from the rest of X-continuity, and it seems significant that this "tie-in" issue is a standalone one-shot.  The freedom X-Factor has to address the larger issues surrounding its characters is constrained by what's happening in the flagship titles.  When this iteration of the title was launched, its original mission statement was to investigate M-Day and how the "No More Mutants" curse could be lifted.  The "mutant messiah" story took that plot away from X-Factor (it's interesting that X-Factor won't be a part of the upcoming "Second Coming" crossover), and it had to find new directions.  I wonder if the discussion between Peter David and X-editor Axel Alonso was similar to the exchange between Madrox and Cyclops.  Madrox: "...you've taken the survival of mutantkind onto your shoulders.  The train's moving, and I'm asking: what's the plan?"  Cyclops: "The train's going with or without you.  Climb aboard or get the hell off the track.  Your choice."  Issues like this one make me wish Peter David were the conductor.