Re the “Sentry” characterin Marvel comics the only interesting use (IMO) of the character was in the Molecule Man story. Other than that the near omnipotent power-set, the utterly absurd (even for comics) origin-disappearance story and the bi-polar aspect to his nemesis made him a frustrating character to like or admire. He was just kind of unbalanced and creepy dangerous most of the time regardless of his good deeds.
Did you like the Sentry? Did Marvel make good use of him?
I hated everything about the Sentry. The “let’s retroactively change continuity to fit in a second rate Superman analog just because” thing, the fact that it stretched a lot more than it already was the suspension of disbelief required to try and read those comics as a cohesive shared universe by having a deus ex machina ready that was never used even if the world was on the brink of destruction because then there would be no story, the symbol of it all as this current era in comics books where companies seem to have no direction aside from making comics “grittier” and more “meta” but without any cohesion.
That was not a character, it was a meta in-joke. A dumb one.
I don’t know. I think the idea that there was a major superhero that had existed throughout Marvel history but had all memories of his existence destroyed was an intriguing concept. And Marvel played it pretty well.
Found him dull. An experiment gone wrong.
(Same with Cable. Marvel tried like all hell to make him “The Next Wolverine.” Cable was everywhere. But…he isn’t interesting.)
Every now and then, Marvel forgets that it’s the readers who make mega-characters. The editors and publishers cannot say, “This is the next BIG THING.” Only we can do that.
Now, bless Marvel’s pointy little hearts for trying out new characters and new ideas. Gwenpool, right now, is one of those experiments. Will she be big…or will she sink like the Hunley? Only we – “We the Zombies!” – can answer that.
(A couple years ago, they gave a slot on a team comic to Spiral, who is my own personal favorite of the entire Marvel pantheon. Oh, those arms! As it turned out, “Uncanny X-Force” bombed, and my favorite character is nowhere. Again. So it goes!)
It wasn’t even original. Triumph showed up in 1994 in DC Comics (JLA) and his whole thing was that he was one of the original founders of the JLA, but an early adventure caused him to be forgotten by all. Triumph was not a sensation, and quickly faded away, and then killed off. Sentry didn’t show up until 2000.
I liked the original Sentry miniseries. I thought it was clever and well-written, and the dark artwork perfectly matched the story’s sense of creeping paranoia. The big problem is that it was built on the premise of a character who cannot be allowed to be a superhero, which didn’t really translate to a mainstream comic. When Sentry was moved into the mainstream monthly universe, it was disastrous. The writers had no idea what to do with him and so he ended up being extremely passive. Half the time he didn’t even show up, and the other half the time he just stood in the back and contributed nothing to the plot.
The idea of a mentally ill Superman is a worthy one. Mark Waid’s Irredeemable did a great job of portraying a Superman’s mental degeneration when faced with a lifetime of disappointment. Watchmen, of course, also did an excellent job of portraying the different perspectives and philosophies of superheroes, some of whom were not in their right minds. Unfortunately, this kind of character didn’t translate well into a mainstream team comic, which is action-centric and by nature not given to deep character studies.
If I had to diagnose a single point of failure I would say that neither the authors nor the editors had any expertise in understanding mental illness or attempting to write a mentally ill character. The writers were not picked for their expertise in the subject matter. Rather, Marvel picked Bendis to write their new flagship story because he had been successful on Ultimate Spider-Man and Daredevil. Bendis was not an experienced writer of team books to begin with and in the years since he has frequently been criticized for weakness in writing the big team-up crossover stories.
TL;DR: Sentry was a promising character. He was squeezed into a story where he didn’t belong by editors and writers who neither understood him nor knew what they would do with him. I wish he had been written by someone with a better understanding of what mental illness is like, and kept in his own character-driven series rather than forcibly grafted into the larger Marvel team-up books.
I thought he was more Miracleman than Superman.
They even did some art homages in the Bendis Avengers.
That’s really splitting hairs. Miracleman himself was a deconstructed version of Captain Marvel, who was himself an arguable knock-off of Superman. The point is that they are all the occupy the same archetype of the top-tier superhero with a fundamentally similar powerset. Other examples include Apollo, Sun God, Hyperion, Supreme, Superior, Gladiator, Mr. Majestic - and that’s just off the top of my head.
Yeah, but: what if the mainstream Marvel Universe had, as one of the founding members of the Avengers, a godlike first-among-equals flying strongman in a red cape?
Hmm? What’s that? Oh. Well, never mind, then.
Anyone else remember Marvel’s Omega the Unknown?
Thor doesn’t fly. He throws his hammer and hangs on for the ride, or spins it to hover like a helicopter.
I mean, as long as we’re being nitpicky… 
I thought Marvel: The Lost Generation did a much better job of filling in some of the lost history between the Golden Age milieu and the Modern Era, which thanks to their sliding timescale had grown wider and wider.
Sentry was a bad Superman knockoff and completely unnecessary besides.