In the Marvel universe, there are many dangers and villains, and the mutants of the X-Men also have to face nasty adversaries. This is also because many mutant enemies fight out of conviction. This is exemplified by one of the most terrible weapons ever created by humans.
What weapon is it? Dr. Bolivar Trask is a scientist in whom a fear of humans and beings with superpowers has grown over the years. He is firmly convinced that mutants will be the end of normal humans if they do not fight back. Trask believes that there will eventually be more mutants than humans.
To counter this, he develops the Sentinels. These are large robots that have only one task: to hunt and kill mutants. It doesn’t matter whether the mutants are peaceful or if they even know that they are mutants. Although Trask created only the simple versions of the Sentinels, his start paved the way for a huge threat.
The Sentinels are constantly evolving
What variations are there? The first Sentinels were large robots introduced in 1963 in Uncanny X-Men No. 14
. Depending on the story, they have different weapons to capture or eliminate mutants. While mutants like Wolverine or Cyclops can defeat a Sentinel quite easily, they usually appear in swarms.
To ensure a continuous army, the Master Mold was also developed. This is a gigantic robot introduced just one issue later. Its task is to permanently replicate the army.
In 2019, another base was developed in the House of X
-storyline. The Mother Mold is a space station meant to ensure that Master Molds are created and multiple armies can be built continuously. According to X-Force (Vol. 3) No. 3
, Trask’s inventions resulted in over 16 million mutants being killed (via Marvel Database).
Throughout the stories of the X-Men, more versions of the Sentinels emerged, and especially the self-aware ones became a danger, as they often developed the hatred of their creators. One of the most dangerous variants is probably Nimrod. A self-aware robot from the future not only has an infinite arsenal of weapons, but it can also adapt to any situation and travel through time.
The villain Bastion developed the Nano-Sentinels, which function as a kind of disease that infects mutants and ultimately kills them. But that is not the only way to use nano-technology against mutants.
You don’t even need robots
Humans can also be Sentinels. In 1997, the Prime Sentinels first saw the light of day. The villain Bastion developed the Zero Tolerance
-operation. He infected humans with nanotechnology, which then transformed them, like sleeper agents, into cyborgs to exterminate all mutants.
A similar story can be seen in the animated series X-Men ’97. Although the X-Men repeatedly manage to defeat major adversaries like Bastion or Nimrod, they can never truly stop them.
This is also evident in the House of X
-storyline. The mutant Moira MacTaggert has the ability to be resurrected repeatedly. She experiences several lives in which she tries to prevent the development of the Sentinels. But no matter what she does, she and the later AI versions are built, whether by Dr. Trask or other humans. Another person in the Marvel universe cannot escape his fate: For almost 50 years, Marvel villain Thanos has been visiting a poor guy on his birthday just to annoy him
