Startling Stories: The Sentry Appreciation 2022

[Vault]

Welcome to the Sentry Appreciation thread! Let’s remember the hero we were supposed to forget!



After discovering the Professor’s secret formula, meek freshman Robert Reynolds discovers that he has the power of one million exploding suns! After trouncing the school bully, Buzz, and catching the eye of the gorgeous Lindy Lee, Robert sews together a marvelous golden suit and becomes THE SENTRY! Using his amazing powers, he rights wrongs across the world, protecting humanity from the likes of the Villainous Void, the Crazed General, and Danny Boy! With the aid of his sidekick, Scout, and his super powered pup, Watchdog, the Sentry is the Golden Guardian of Good!

No, that’s not right…

College Freshman Robert Reynolds was ill. He spent half of his first year in the campus counselor’s office reading pamphlets on learning disabilities and the dangers of drug use. He was hearing voices telling him to do bad things. A graduate assistant heavily into drug abuse let him in to the research lab where a professor was working on an attempt to create a more potent version of the Super Soldier Serum. Robert stole the serum, not knowing what it was, and drank it behind the fairground stall where he worked, becoming both the heroic Sentry and the evil Void, two sides of his psyche locked in an eternal battle. The scientists tried to trick him into believing that he needed regular doses of the formula, but the truth was that he had been changed forever, and that they were looking for ways to destroy him.

Or was it…

Meth addict Robert Reynolds and another junkie broke into a secret lab where scientists were attempting to create a more potent version of the Super Soldier Serum. After drinking the serum he exploded, destroying the lab and killing his partner. He begged the professor to make more because he had become addicted to the formula, and out of fear the professor made more.

Anyway…

The Sentry eventually discovered that he and the Void were one in the same. To prevent the void from killing millions of people, his best friend Reed Richards, Doctor Strange, and himself created a device in the Watchtower, his home and headquarters, to psychically erase all memory of the Sentry from everyone. They succeeded and the Sentry, the first and greatest hero of the Silver Age, was forgotten.

Wait… that’s wrong too…?

The Sentry had been captured by the General and Mastermind… somehow. They manipulated his mind to believe that if he used his powers, the Void would kill everyone and that he had to make everyone forget. Mastermind planted a virus in his mind that caused Robert to psychically erase the Sentry from the mind of everyone, even himself. But at the same time, he was fighting it, crying out to the world to be remembered. A writer named Paul Jenkins wrote comics about his adventures as a kind of diary, thinking they were his ideas when really they were Robert’s memories.

However it happened, Emma Frost tried to heal his fractured mind. She thought she’d sent the void away. But he came back. After struggling with his dark side, the Void began to take over. After having a SHIELD Helicarrier dropped on him, he realized the Void was going out of control and begged Thor to kill him. Thor struck him down and threw him into the sun where he tried his best to stay dead in a battle against his evil persona. The Void finally became bored and went to the White Hot Room (where the Phoenix force dwells). The Sentry was eventually resurrected as the horseman of death by the Apocalypse Twins, tore his face off, said a lot of crazy things, saved the world and flew into space with a dead Celestial to take a long journey.

Sentry was later discovered by Doctor Stephen Strange roaming the stars, and the good Doctor helped to cure him of the Apocalypse Twins influence and later asked for Robert's help to regain his title as Sorcerer Supreme from Loki. Little did Bob know that part of the "cure" involved locking the Void away in a deep vault of the Sanctum Sanctorum, which Stephen unlocked in a desperate attempt to defeat the trickster god. With the Void back, Bob fell under the care of the Aberrant Crimes Division, who required that Bob maintain access to the mindscape set up by Dr. Strange to keep the Void at bay. Of course, this ultimately failed, leading to the Sentry and Void combining to achieve his Ultimate Form.

But even that didn't put poor Bob at rest, so he enlisted the help of his old friend Reed Richards to separate the two once and for all by using the unique laws of the Negative Zone. However, this left Bob powerless in his human form, with the Void assuming the guise and powers of the Sentry to wreak havoc on both the Negative Zone and the primary universe. Bob teamed up with the Silver Surfer and brought Void to justice once again.

Sadly, Sentry met his demise yet again when Knull invaded Earth and ripped him in half, as Bob had once done to Carnage, and absorbing the Void. Valkyrie then escorted Bob's soul to Valhalla where it is assumed he resides to this day.

Here’s to a great concept that suffered a few bumps and retcons along the way. I'm looking forward to when they bring him back!

Notable Series Featuring the Sentry:

The Sentry (2000)
New Avengers (2005)
The Sentry (2006)
The Mighty Avengers (2007)
Dark Avengers (2009)
Siege (2010)
Uncanny Avengers Vol 1 (9-22) (2013)
Doctor Strange Vol 1 (382-385) (2018)
The Sentry (2018)
Annihilation - Scourge (2019)
King in Black (2020)
King in Black: Return of the Valkyries (2021)

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"Hi, my name's Bob" - The Sentry

[Vault]

Al Ewing's recent Defenders run appears to have shed additional light on the origin of the Sentry and Void's powers. In issue #5, the Defenders encounter two entities of the 3rd Cosmos: Lifebringer One AKA The First Sentry vs Anti-All AKA the Primal Void, a conflict between "Is" and "Is Not", Existence vs Nothingness. These two abstract entities originate in a cosmos that existed before the concept of time and space, science and magic. These two concepts would serve as foundations to the succeeding iterations of the Cosmos.

This potentially suggests that Professor Cornelius' serum, combined with Bob's unique psychological state, created a gateway whereby the essence of the conflict of the 3rd Cosmos became realized in the 7th and 8th Cosmos: The Sentry vs. the Void. This helps to explain how Bob's powers appear to violate laws of reality: they originate in a previous reality in which time, space, life and death don't exist.

[Wildling]

This potentially suggests that Professor Cornelius' serum, combined with Bob's unique psychological state, created a gateway whereby the essence of the conflict of the 3rd Cosmos became realized in the 7th and 8th Cosmos: The Sentry vs. the Void. This helps to explain how Bob's powers appear to violate laws of reality: they originate in a previous reality in which time, space, life and death don't exist.

I like the idea that Bob's conflicted existence correlates with the complicated effects and varied powers he showed as Sentry and the Void. Scout drinking the Sentry serum, as traumatized and bitter as he was, only manifested very powerful but familiar (to his former experiences as Scout) powers that eventually crumbled before Bob's because he could only envision himself as a replacement to the golden Sentry he knew and used to admire.

[Tendrin]

I like the idea that Bob's conflicted existence correlates with the complicated effects and varied powers he showed as Sentry and the Void. Scout drinking the Sentry serum, as traumatized and bitter as he was, only manifested very powerful but familiar (to his former experiences as Scout) powers that eventually crumbled before Bob's because he could only envision himself as a replacement to the golden Sentry he knew and used to admire.

That's a very cool theory.

[Vault]

I like the idea that Bob's conflicted existence correlates with the complicated effects and varied powers he showed as Sentry and the Void. Scout drinking the Sentry serum, as traumatized and bitter as he was, only manifested very powerful but familiar (to his former experiences as Scout) powers that eventually crumbled before Bob's because he could only envision himself as a replacement to the golden Sentry he knew and used to admire.

Yes! I've been struggling to understand how Scout works. He had powers at some point, which suggested he either drank the serum or somehow Bob had the ability to give him powers another way. I think you've helped unlock a piece of the puzzle: the serum acts on the psychology of the one who drinks it. Not just Bob, but anyone. So when Scout wanted to be Bob's sidekick, that's what he became. When he wanted to replace the Sentry, he couldn't due to self doubt, and literally began to crumble away. Thank you!

[Tendrin]

Yes! I've been struggling to understand how Scout works. He had powers at some point, which suggested he either drank the serum or somehow Bob had the ability to give him powers another way. I think you've helped unlock a piece of the puzzle: the serum acts on the psychology of the one who drinks it. Not just Bob, but anyone. So when Scout wanted to be Bob's sidekick, that's what he became. When he wanted to replace the Sentry, he couldn't due to self doubt, and literally began to crumble away. Thank you!

I mean, given Bob's powers, I expect we'll see Scout back at some point. Ultimately, if anyone desperately needs a real reset, it's the Sentry. I maintain he works best at his simplest, like most of these characters, and writers tend to just layer overcomplications on them. (see Thor and the Phoenix.)

[Vault]

As you may know, Bob's back-story has been riddled with inconsistencies thanks to lots of writers constantly retconning each other, so I'm curious about who folks think the Sentry should be. The main thing that keeps Sentry from becoming just another Superman Clone is that the story is first and foremost a story of the struggle of mental illness. Both his struggle with the Void undoing any good the Sentry attempts to do and everyone forgetting about him really analogize that struggle, as Tendrin pointed out aptly in another thread. That said, I'm curious what folks think about a few inconsistencies in Bob's life:

How Bob got his powers:

• Freshman Bobby Reynolds drinks the Professor's Secret Formula to stop a Russian nuclear missile from striking the United States! With the Power of a million exploding suns, he leaps into action as... THE SENTRY!
• Freshman Bobby Reynolds struggled with schizophrenia, anxiety, and depression, turning to drug use to make the voices stop, which didn't work. One night, a grad-student friend of his, also into drugs, gave him the key to the college science lab so he could get high on some of the experiments. He drank the formula behind the coconut stand at the fair where he worked and became The Sentry and the Void
• Adult Robert Reynolds was a criminal meth addict who broke into a lab with another addict. Bob found the secret formula and exploded, killing his partner and leveling the building. From that point on, he was addicted to the formula and to the power of being a hero. The scientists who made the formula promised him more, but secretly were trying to figure out how to kill him.

The Serum:

• Bob needs to keep taking the formula to retain his powers
• And he's addicted to it
• But he's not addicted to it
• Bob thought he needed to keep taking the formula, but it was just saline after the first dose, he has permanently unlocked his powers and the Void

Everyone forgetting who the Sentry is:

• Once it was discovered the the Sentry and the Void were one and the same, Bob and Reed developed a machine to make everyone forget about Sentry, which removed the threat of the Void
• If you like this one, how would the people continue to not know who he was when he came back?
• The Crazed General hired Mastermind to implant a psychic whammy on Bob; using the psychic force that controls the Sentry's powers, Bob would unknowingly cause everyone to forget he existed, and also that if he did use his powers, the Void would come and kill everyone
• If you like this one, did the Void not exist before Mastermind messed with his head? Did the discovery that Sentry and Void were the same not drive him to try to defeat Void once and for all, making the General and Mastermind heroes for erasing the Sentry?

[ENTRYS]

Even after all the retcons you can explain everything in Sentrys life fairly rationally and clearly:

1. The first super soldier serum is created and Captain America is born.
2. The military and government are happy with the outcome and want to make a new, much stronger serum.
3. Project Sentry is started, which is supposed to create a serum 100.000 times stronger than the original one.
4. The project is on-going, but it keeps changing labs and scientists. In the span of 20 years the project is more or less abandoned and lands in the hands of a scientist named Cornelius.
5. Professor Cornelius works in a lab, where he has a young student helping him out: Bob Reynolds. Bob is a teenager, who suffers from schizophrenia. He is addicted to drugs, since he is using those to deal with his mental problems.

(Fun fact: The lab is the same lab in which Peter Parker later on gets bitten by the radioactive spider.)

6. One night Bob breaks into the lab looking for anything to consume instead of drugs. He grabs the Sentry serum, consumes it and... turns into the Void. That results in an explosion, which kills the other guy he broke into the lab with.
7. Bob is ashamed of being a vile, evil creature and immediately creates the Sentry to counter-act the Void. These two meet later on for the first time, when Sentry (still as Bob with a random mask) stops the Blue Buffoon (actually Void) from robbing a bank.
8. The military realizes that a random teenager got all that power from drinking the serum, a project they had completely forgotten about and abandoned.
9. The military tries to recreate the serum, but they fail, since it had changed hands so many times. No one knows the real formula anymore. The military and Professor Cornelius trick the Sentry into staying with them. The military tells the Sentry that he has to continue taking the serum in order to keep his power. But in reality what they are giving him are various poisons in an attempt to kill him. They can't have someone as powerful as the Sentry running around. Especially not someone mentally ill. But at the point Sentry is already way too powerful to even register their attempts.
10. The Sentry gets a sidekick named Scout and an empowered companion named Watchdog. They have supposedly been granted their powers from using Sentrys blood. That however is a lie and they got their power, simply because Sentry believed it to be the case.

(A bunch of stuff happens, which isn't necessarily important to the foundation of Sentrys origin.)

11. My head canon: Captain Americas super soldier serum enhanced the human body and mind to its peak. Captain America went from being a below average Joe to being the peak of human potential. Strong, fast, healthy, smart, sharp, strong-willed and all that other good stuff. Sentrys super soldier serum was meant to be much more potent and absolutely shatter the human potential. It unlocked Sentrys mind and turned him into an absurdly powerful reality warper, who can manipulate molecules with his mind. That allows him to pretty much change reality. Maybe even more, if we look at some more, outlandish feats like him manipulating time.
12. So now we have this reality warper, who is also schizophrenic. And due to his schizophrenia his many personas manifest into actual beings. You have him as plain old Bob. Even though he has the power of a god and then some, he still comes across as a regular guy. You have him as the evil Void, who is pure destruction. They say that if you want to check the true character of a person, you don't do it by making them face adversity. You do it by giving them ultimate power. Bob got that ultimate power and first turned into the Void. But his own guilt and shame also created the Sentry, who is his heroic persona. It's who Bob wants to be seen as. But Sentrys schizophrenia is a whole another topic. This is about his origin.
13. Sentry goes on and has some good days and some bad days, which have varying results. During these adventures the Void rips Scouts arm off. Sentry erases everyones memories of himself in order to stop the Void. (Which is an analogue for normal people abandoning mentally ill people and letting them do with their problems on their own). Scout is in process forgotten about. He loses his powers and never gets them back, even when the Sentry returns later on. Scout asks Sentry if he has more of the serum, to which the Sentry says No. Serum was never needed in the first place, but Sentry doesn't know that.
14. Maybe it's important pointing out that during the Dark Avengers Norman Osborn tricks the Sentry into believing that he was able to re-create the Sentry serum, which Sentry "needs in order to be more powerful and feel more like himself". Those however are psychological destabilizers, which continue to push Sentry over the edge more and more. Which then results in Sentry completely losing control, turning into the Void and killing gods and destroying Asgard.
15. Many years later Sentry is back and starts working a regular job, together with his old "friend" and sidekick Scout.

(This is where it gets slightly iffy.)

16. Scout has gotten bitter over the years and contacts one of Sentrys formers rogues: Cranio. (Cranio is form the non-canon story "Age of the Sentry", which had its own ideas for the Sentry and could have introduced new retcons. But since it was completely non-canon up to that point, we can't really look at what happened in that book. Especially because Cranio is pretty much one of the only things, which were included from that story. There was also Sentress, who appeared in AOTS. So there could be more things, but I just go with the things, which we saw in AOTS AND in the new book. Everything else could have been wrong - like for example Daredevil not working as a lawyer, but a commissioner.)
17. Scout got ahold of Professor Cornelius diary, which contains the Sentry serum formula. He wants Cranio to re-create the serum, so that Scout can drink it and become the new Sentry. But at the same time we know from before that the formula couldn't be re-created by the military and that Norman Osborn also knew that it couldn't really be re-created. Osborn was bragging about how he was the only one, who could do it, where - as I said - he was creating psychological destabilizers for the Sentry. So what's in that diary must be just uncomplete, untested parts of notes.
18. Cranio re-creates the serum, but he also tells Scout that it hasn't been tested and that it might kill him. This is what's known as foreshadowing.
19. Scout drinks the serum and gains Sentrys power. Sentry and Scout fight with Scout gaining the upper hand, since Sentrys power scales with his mental stability. And in this case he is confused big time, since one half of his mind (Bob) is in another dimension, while he (Sentry) is fighting Scout in the normal dimension. Scout gains the upper hand, Bob knows that the Sentry is losing and decides to embrace the Void. Bob, Sentry and Void merge and create the Merged Sentry, who easily takes care of Scout. Scout then starts melting away and Sentry kills him.
20. Given how Scout was only as powerful as the Sentry (maybe slightly more powerful, maybe slightly less (with Sentry being distracted))... and how much more powerful Merged Sentry was than Scout, I think it's safe to assume that Scout didn't drink the true Sentry serum. Especially with him not being able to contain the power and starting to melt away. Scout got too greedy, consumed a flawed version of the serum and paid the price for it. But given how his missing hand still had energy outlines, when he first transformed, it can be said that he maybe already turned more into an energy being. He doesn't have to be dead. Sentry came back from total annihilation. Maybe Scout can do so to and then be introduced as a new Sentry villain. The possibilities are limitless, when it comes to the Sentry.

Now the Sentry is "dead" again, after he died at Knulls hands. Is he really dead, even though the same writer, who wrote that comic... introduced the Sentry back with the statement that he was never dead in the first place? And that not even Doctor Strange knows how to kill the Sentry? Why would then Knull be able to kill the Sentry? Did Knull simply overwrite Sentrys power level due to Knull being on a higher place of existence? Was Knull able to kill the Sentry, because he absorbed half of Sentry (Void) and now Sentry can't regenerate back to completion? Is Sentry truly dead or does he only think he is, because he saw Void being absorbed and now doesn't know what to do? I don't know. Writers can do whatever they want with the Sentry and it will continue to make sense, because it's the Sentry. Breaking rules is what the Sentry does best.

Not gonna look for and edit typos. This already took way too long D:

[Tendrin]

Short version: Sentry is a mess. A gigantic, colossal mess.

Easiest way to clean it up is to say he's been rewriting his own history by allowing the Void to define who he thinks he is, which has lead him to be an ever worse versions of himself because the Void is a representation of the imp of the perverse, of deppression and anxiety, (and of course the emptiness of addiction) all of which are the impulse/belief that you are/will do the very worst thing every time, and are the worst version of yourself that you can be.

Let the Void represent that like its supposeqd to, instead of allowing it to repeatedly define Bob on its own terms as the 'truth' because it's essentially advancing an argument against mentally ill people and saying they-are-there-illness, and telling people that their illness is right about them, at least if you do it the way it's been done in the comics so far.

Mental illness is a lot of things, but most frequently, it's a liar. It lies to you and tells you that you're worthless. It lies to you and tells you that you're a failure. It preys on your insecurities, and helps you create what you're afraid of.

For me, the truth will always be closer to the original mini. The Void wasn't born all at once, but instead, became something over time, and eventually its own, independent version of Bob's life, but always rooted in Bob's idea of what the worst version of himself would be, and this version of him *replaced* his original version of his history when he wiped himself from history. It stepped in to, ahem, fill that void.

Bob's a character that requires you to do the work on mental illness. You try to fake it, you get Bendis. Like, for example, meth is actually not a common drug used by schizophrenics to self medicate, and it seems like making Bob a meth-addict was just Bendis plucking the moral panic white trash drug out of a hat rather than anything that made sense for Bob's character. Cannabis, cocaine, nicotine, alcohol... all *vastly* more common in schizophrenics. If anything, you could actually say Bob *became* schizophrenic because he was a metha ddict, since there's evidence of meth-induced psychosis and schizohprenia, but I think that's an absolutely awful idea to lean into for him as a character, and frankly, addiction isn't shameful, and linking drug-abuse to 'SEE HE WAS A BAD PERSON ALL ALONG' defeats the entire message within the character... something Bendis plainly never understood *anyway*.

[Vault]

I'm inclined to agree on the meth point being a stupid idea, along with most of the end of the Dark Avengers run. Part of me chalks it up to Lindy being terrified because the Void was getting stronger, and the mind-warping effects he had we're messing with her head. I do like the idea that Bob's attempts at self medicating as a teenager unintentionally lead to him gaining powers, as illustrated in the second Sentry run Jenkins did.

I also like the idea that the Void forms and grows in strength over time, similar to how Bob's powers started small and gained over time. He starts off fighting the Blue Buffoon at the fair (and almost looses) and the school bully, suggesting he just had augmented strength, but could still be hurt. Over time, he gains the ability to fly, and his strength and invulnerability increases, as does the Void.

One question I still have is how did everyone forget about Bob? I really like the original mini, as it makes the most sense to me. Once it became clear that Sentry and Void were the same entity, the hero that Sentry is wouldn't let that continue, and would try to stop it. His friendship with Reed would inevitably have lead to what we saw happen: they create a device to make everyone forget. The Bendis General/Mastermind rationale makes very little sense. The void already existed, why would Mastermind say he'd make Bob think a boogey man would undue his good deeds if he used his powers? The void in that run also looks wrong and appears to behave like he's the fake, implanted phobia Mastermind described. It just doesn't add up.

[ENTRYS]

One question I still have is how did everyone forget about Bob? I really like the original mini, as it makes the most sense to me. Once it became clear that Sentry and Void were the same entity, the hero that Sentry is wouldn't let that continue, and would try to stop it. His friendship with Reed would inevitably have lead to what we saw happen: they create a device to make everyone forget. The Bendis General/Mastermind rationale makes very little sense. The void already existed, why would Mastermind say he'd make Bob think a boogey man would undue his good deeds if he used his powers? The void in that run also looks wrong and appears to behave like he's the fake, implanted phobia Mastermind described. It just doesn't add up.

In the original mini Sentry, Reed and Strange combine their efforts to create the Confluctor device, which makes everyone forget about the Sentry and ignore all the evidence of his existence. Strange on his own can perform that feat as he has shown it in the past and recently in the movies. Sentry too can perform that feat on his own. But in the first mini, they did it together - for whatever reason.

In New Avengers, which came out before the second Sentry mini, Bendis kinda does his own thing. He has the General and Mastermind somehow capture the Sentry and manipulate him into believing that a horrible creature would appear and attack, if he uses his Sentry powers. They also force him to make everyone (including himself) forget about the existence of the Sentry. Sentry however, like always, continues to fight back subconsciously. In New Avengers, when Reed shows Bob a message from the Sentry, he says that Sentry tried contacting him hundreds of times. And that all of those messages continued being ignored. I'm paraphrasing here, but the point was that the Sentry was erasing everyones memories over and over and over and over and over again. Hundreds of times.
Now you could excuse all of that and say that Bendis added a backstory to the relationship between the Sentry and the Void. That he retconned Mastermind being responsible for the creation of the Void. Which would mean that General and Mastermind did that to the Sentry before the first mini. It was only a flashback after all. And the first mini starts with the latest mind wipe, which included Strange and Reed.

However, in the second Sentry mini Paul Jenkins kinda retcons that again by making Bob turn into the Void first, when consuming the serum. And also be the Void first in the form of the Blue Buffoon. That overwrites Bendis establishment, since it came out later. And it also got a lot more story and context, which makes it more important and ... more true. And in Dark Avengers you have Bendis going with the same story and showing how Sentry drinks the serum, creates an explosion, kills someone in the process and also brings back the addiction to the serum (which Jenkins wrote about briefly) and the Void.

Which ultimately means that the scene with the General and Mastermind holds absolutely no importance any longer, because it has been bruteforce-retcon-overwritten in the second Sentry mini and later on in Dark Avengers as well.

[Vault]

Which ultimately means that the scene with the General and Mastermind holds absolutely no importance any longer, because it has been bruteforce-retcon-overwritten in the second Sentry mini and later on in Dark Avengers as well.

The Mastermind concept makes no sense in light of every other component of Bob's backstory. If Mastermind caused the void to exist while at the same time causing Bob to make everyone forget, then there never would have been a Void, because as soon as Mastermind's whammy was in place, Sentry would have been forgotten. No Blue Baffoon, no Void/Kingpin team ups, no Void robbing banks in a fedora, none of it. It's just bad writing and is logically broken from my perspective.

In which case, how does everyone not remember the Sentry and Void's past, but continues to remember him today? Is the Conflucter still on? Were adjustments made in light of alternative strategies to remove the Void other than making everyone forget? I think this is an area ripe for some new story tellers. New methods of less severe 'treatment' and coping mechanisms for dear old Bob resulted in not needing the 'forget me' treatment, which is also symbolic of the way we used to throw the mentally ill in Asylums and then forget about them, or, sadly, the way we still view and act towards the mentally ill today.

[Tendrin]

Mastermind's involvement only makes sense if you consider bendis' goal being to make the Sentry 'usable'. By revealing the Void as a 'trick', rather than a fundamental part of Bob's story, he was clearly hoping to wipe the board of it to allow for character growth in a different direction.

...but it didn't take. Not even with him! He was right back to referencing the Void well before Jenkins mini hit the ground. None of it made any sense and they never had a concrete plan. Comics can very much be about throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks but you can't always do that, especially not with a character as conceptually big out the gate as Sentry.


Dude needs a reset, like I said. Board needs to be wiped clean. Let him be a depressed, agoraphobic, alcoholic, anxiety-riddled mess whose powers drove him into a kind of full blown schizophrenia, and then let him be able to rise above that. Mental health is something that has its ups and downs, and Bob should have them too.

[ENTRYS]

The Mastermind concept makes no sense in light of every other component of Bob's backstory. If Mastermind caused the void to exist while at the same time causing Bob to make everyone forget, then there never would have been a Void, because as soon as Mastermind's whammy was in place, Sentry would have been forgotten. No Blue Baffoon, no Void/Kingpin team ups, no Void robbing banks in a fedora, none of it. It's just bad writing and is logically broken from my perspective.

Not quite. Generals and Masterminds main goal was to make the Sentry erase everyones memories of him being the Sentry. General asks Mastermind how that works. And Mastermind tells him that Sentry will be afraid to use his powers, because otherwise the devil would come and destroy everything. So he would erase his and everyones memories of him being the Sentry and wouldn't even know about his powers.

I understand Bendis' idea and it makes sense, but... it's... it's just so half-assed and disrespectful to the character. Up until that point that was Voids actual origin, because the first mini didn't really establish Voids origin. We know about Jenkins intentions. He had planned to write three Sentry minis and never got to write the third one, because left Marvel. He wrote a comic for another company (can't remember the name right now), where he had a Super-Sentryman type of a character, who also had a Voidman dark side. These two fought it out and kinda ended it all by traveling through time and becoming a paradox and being erased from existence, but ultimately having a nice end? It was complicated, but I can imagine that he had similiar ideas for Sentry and Void in mind.

Anyway. Fact is that Bendis undersold Voids origin with the General + Mastermind thing. But Jenkins later on retconned it and gave the Void a much better origin rooted in mental illness and hidden bad character traits. The worst offender is that after they took care of the making-everyone-forget-issue, they completely ignored the Void issue. "Okay Sentry, stop making everyone forget, okay? Cool. Oh and by the way, you know how Mastermind said that you would believe the devil would attack the world, if you use his powers? Yeah, that's not true at all. The Void isn't a thing. Stop thinking about it." That's what logically should have happened and should have been said. But it wasn't and that's bad writing. Or at least address it later on and say that the Void concept was already engraved in Sentrys schizophrenic mind by that point.

In which case, how does everyone not remember the Sentry and Void's past, but continues to remember him today? Is the Conflucter still on? Were adjustments made in light of alternative strategies to remove the Void other than making everyone forget? I think this is an area ripe for some new story tellers. New methods of less severe 'treatment' and coping mechanisms for dear old Bob resulted in not needing the 'forget me' treatment, which is also symbolic of the way we used to throw the mentally ill in Asylums and then forget about them, or, sadly, the way we still view and act towards the mentally ill today.

That's simple. In New Avengers Emma Frost helps Sentry unlock his memories. He doesn't remember absolutely everything and has to figure some stuff out on his own, which is why his arc in New Avengers ends with him entering the Watchtower. But they both talk about how it's not a problem that he was erasing everyones memories. He was forced to do it and he was doing it without even knowing it. But to do it on purpose would be wrong. Which is why he never made everyone remember him and started off from the beginning. And that's okay, if you want to take the Sentry in that direction. I even like that, because in the first Sentry mini there was the Sentry... and then there was everyone else. He was pretty much the only hero, who could operate on a global scale just like that. That makes you much more popular than any other Marvel hero (in their world). So it's good to have that reset and not make everyone remember that you are the Jesus Christ Superstar of all heroes.

[ENTRYS]

...but it didn't take. Not even with him! He was right back to referencing the Void well before Jenkins mini hit the ground. None of it made any sense and they never had a concrete plan. Comics can very much be about throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks but you can't always do that, especially not with a character as conceptually big out the gate as Sentry.

I just think that we absolutely need a rest from the Void. I really, really like the Void as a concept, because he can be many great things: a great nemesis for the Sentry, a great threat to the Marvel universe, a great analogue for many things, a character on his own if you blur the lines between Sentry being good over bad and Void potentially being bad over good (like him having some nice moments possibly maybe). It just sucks that every time Sentry makes an appearance it's about the Void. First mini? Void. His 616 entrance in New Avengers? Void. His second mini? Void. Dark Avengers? Void. Siege? Void. Third mini? Void. His return in "Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda"? Void. His main bad guy role in "Annihilation Scourge"? Void. Stop already.

Dude needs a reset, like I said. Board needs to be wiped clean. Let him be a depressed, agoraphobic, alcoholic, anxiety-riddled mess whose powers drove him into a kind of full blown schizophrenia, and then let him be able to rise above that. Mental health is something that has its ups and downs, and Bob should have them too.

I partially agree with that. Ups and downs are important, but it's super important to start off with an up. A character like the Sentry - at this point - shouldn't be a miserable wreck from the beginning. Let me tell you what I would like to see, if there was a Sentry movie trilogy in the MCU:

First Movie: THE SENTRY 2

Bob wakes up in the middle of the street. Chaos and destruction everywhere. He doesn't know what happened. He doesn't remember. The paramedics are there and helping everyone around. They see that he is bleeding from his head and tell him that might suffer from amnesia. He is escorted to the hospital, where he learns that the Avengers were fighting a cosmic threat and that he was in the middle of it. He can consider himself lucky that he survived. In the hospital he notices that he is healing weirdly quickly. The doctors notice as well, but something just seems off. They are not surprised by it. They ignore it. A voice tells him that no one cares about him and that no one likes him. He should go back home to his wife and his dog. He does. And over the next few days he starts figuring out that he has super powers. He is still a little bit in shock and wants to use his near-death experience as motivation to help others. So he starts off as a Superman type, who gets into a fight with a crazy General (Nicholas Cage), who has incredibly dangerous toys and an alien bruiser (Gorax), who can siphon Sentrys life force and get stronger. Why does the General have access to those weapons? Who is this weird and powerful alien? What's this weird voice that keeps talking to Bob and ridiculing his efforts to do good?

It's a Marvel movie with crazy characters and visuals, but it also jumps out of the regular Marvel formula. It's rated R. The General isn't holding back. Gorax isn't holding back. Not even Sentry is holding back. He isn't Captain America. He is just some random guy, who suddenly got power during an Avengers fight. Or did he always had the power and the amnesia made him forget? But he still remembers his wife? What's going on? Nevermind. General is defeated and so is Gorax. The day is saved. The good guy has won.

Second movie: THE SENTRY 3

The prior movie ends with a cliffhanger, where we see the person, who gave the General the weapons and also brought Gorax to Earth. It's Cranio (Jim Carrey). General thought Cranio only gave him the weapons to "help save the world" from war and terror and the superhero threat. But Cranios real plan was for General to be a distraction, while he was preparing his "campaign of terror". What does that mean? Who knows. Who cares. We're looking at a bunch of mentally ill crazy people with powers way beyond gods. Cranio is incredibly dangerous and powerful. His gadgets can harm even the Sentry, who at this point has fully established himself. But while he tries to stop Cranios campaign of terror, he keeps hearing the voice. It's getting worse. Now he is also slowly starting to see things in the corner of his eye.

It's a crazy movie with even crazier visuals. Psychological horror, violence, confusion, high stakes.

Third movie: THE SENTRY - ENTER THE VOID

Complete shift. Bob isn't the main character anymore. Lindy (Alexandra Daddario) is. She has to be. This movie isn't a superhero movie anymore. It's a Lovecraftian cosmic horror story. Lindy is in the middle of something she doesn't understand. There is something off with her husband. The reality is breaking around him. She always knew that he had problems, but she loved him anyway. But it's getting harder and harder, because he is becoming more and more irrational. And worst of all: She is starting to see his irrationality. There is a dark creature out there. It's getting closer. Everyone knows. For some reason it wants her husband. She tries to help him, but what can she do? He is starting to morph and lose control. He engages in fights against the creature, but there are moments, where she sees him alone and punching air. There are moments, where she sees a monster in his place. The Avengers are there to help, but they are almost helpless. It's beyond everyones comprehension. Doctor Strange is the only one, who can somewhat compete with it. He has already seen enough to keep it together long enough to help her. Help Bob. Make everyone forget. The fight ends. Everyone is gone. Bob wakes up in the middle of the street. Chaos and destruction everywhere. He doesn't know what happened. He doesn't remember.

It's a horror movie. Body horror, cosmic horror, psychological horror. You're rooting for the Sentry, since he has been the good guy for two movies, but damn... it's getting harder and harder. You know that he wants to do the right thing, but he just can't. He is too dangerous. And you don't know how to help him. It's all in his head. You tell him that it's not really a problem, but you only do that, because you are helpless. There is nothing you can do. And the problem is that in this case, whatever is in his case, is coming out. What do you do?

Puh. That took me a while.

But yeah. I think that the Sentry needs to start off heroic and decline over time. I think that for most people that is way more relatable, because it shows the progress of what took the character there. Everyone has some kind of a mental health issue. No one is completely 100%. But not everyone is a 10% like the Sentry on his worst day. So not everyone can relate to a character, who is at the bottom from the beginning. But everyone can relate to starting off a new job, being neutral at the beginning and slowly over time starting to dread going to work and having to deal with the shitty boss or lazy co-workers or the cheap coffee and food in the cafeteria. That's where unhappiness and maybe even depression starts oozing in and whispering in your ear to maybe go to the doctor and pretend to be sick. Or maybe drag your break out for longer than you should.
And I think that the Void needs to be used as the ultimate bad guy - and not some mustache twirling Saturday morning cartoon villain. You have a huge rogue gallery for the Sentry, which can be explored. There is almost no backstory to many of them. You can make up whatever you want.