Movie fans got to meet the Sentinels in X-Men: Days of Future Past when the giant robots hunted down and killed mutants in a post-apocalyptic future. However, Marvel Comics fans met them almost 50 years ago when they first showed up in X-Men comics as one of the deadliest villains the mutant team ever had to face.
Through the years, the Sentinels became more dangerous. They started as a machine created by an evil prejudiced man and then turned into a government project by mutant-hating extremists. They also have driven the mutants to the brink of destruction in various timelines and seem to exist as the endpoint for the mutant population.
The Sentinels Had The Same Directive As Ultron
As fans saw in both the comics and Avengers: Age of Ultron, that evil robot had one simple directive. In both, Ultron's creator programmed it to protect the planet. However, that backfired when Ultron realized humans were the biggest threat to the planet, so it set out to exterminate the problem. The Sentinels had a similar directive.
When Bolivar Trask created the robots, he programmed them to save the world from mutants. However, that backfired because Sentinels had a forward learning AI and realized the best way to stop mutants was to control all humans in the world. In the Days of Future Past storyline, Sentinels killed and enslaved humans and mutants alike to stop the mutant threat.
Bolivar Trask Wasn't The Worst Sentinel Creator
While Bolivar Trask created the Sentinels and set them off after mutants as one of the first villains they ever fought in 1965's X-Men #14 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, he was not the ultimate evil mastermind. In the movies, he was the endgame, but in the comics, Trask died when he realized the Sentinels were earlier than mutants and tried to help stop them.
However, a worse man stepped up named Steven Lang. He was the head of the federal research team investigating mutants for the U.S. government. Additionally, he was an anti-mutant bigot who wanted to kill all mutants, considering them less than human. To do so, he created Project: Armageddon, which sent the Sentinels Mk III to kill all mutants in the world.
A Mutant Helped Fund The Sentinels
The Hellfire Club has long been a thorn in the X-Men's side. This group was led by some of the world's most powerful mutants. However, it was also a club that invited in the wealthiest and most influential people in the world, and none of the members knew that mutants ran the group.
When government agents Henry Peter Gyrich and Valerie Cooper wanted to bring in Sentinels to help them combat the "mutant threat," they purchased Sentinels from Sebastian Shaw, the mutant Black King of the Hellfire Club. Shaw believed it was better to control the Sentinels than to have them hunt him.
There Was An Indestructible Sentinel From The Future
In the Days of Future Past storyline from the comics, the Sentinels had taken over the world, killed most of the superheroes, and hunted down the alternate X-Men from that world to place into internment camps or outright kill them. From this future, Rachel Summers was transported to the main timeline, where she has remained. However, another Sentinel followed named Nimrod.
While he was first seen as a hero, Nimrod eventually proved to be a deadly killer with no remorse. He battled the X-Men more than once but then tried to turn good and help the X-Men beat Master Mold. Sadly, Nimrod ended up self-destructing and then returned as an evil anti-mutant Sentinel once again.
There Was A Human-Looking Sentinel
Most people see Sentinels as giant robots that tower even over buildings. However, when they first showed up in X-Men comics, they were the same size as humans, if only a bit taller. There was even one Sentinel that looked like a human. This was Bastion, one of the most dangerous Sentinels in history.
Bastion first appeared as an amnesiac Sentinel/human hybrid. He eventually joined up with the anti-mutant hate groups and worked with Graydon Creed, the son of Sabretooth and Mystique. When his prime directive kicked in, he used his technoforming powers to create a new Sentinel.
Humans Could Turn Into Prime Sentinels
One power that Bastion had was to use nanites to create what is known as Prime Sentinels. These were humans that Bastion introduced the nanites into that turned the human into a cyborg that he had complete control over.
This was a huge moment in Sentinel history, as it began to target humans and forcefully took away their will, and turned them into killing machines. With Sentinels suddenly a danger to humans and mutants alike, it helped the U.S. Government sour on the idea of the mutant-hunting machines.
The Wild Sentinels Killed 16 Million Mutants
The most devastating moment in mutant history came when Sentinels attacked the peaceful mutant nation of Genosha. This was an island nation set up as a safe haven for mutants to live in peace away from the humans who hated and feared them. However, it was not meant to be.
Cassandra Nova, the twin sister of Professor Xavier and one of the X-Men's most evil villains, used Donald Trask III to send what was known as Wild Sentinels to Genosha. These self-sustaining Sentinels then attacked and ruthlessly murdered almost everyone on the island, which at the time included 16 million men, women, and children mutants.
Sentinel Squad O*N*E Were X-Men Allies
There was one point in time when the Sentinels were actually allies and protectors of mutants. Sentinel Squad O*N*E was a group of Sentinels that Valerie Cooper commissioned which could use pilots. Introduced in 2006, Tony Stark developed these machines and James Rhodes was the Direct Command Officer.
After M-Day wiped out most of the mutants on the planet, the President of the United States sent Sentinel Squad O*N*E to the Xavier Institute to watch over the remaining mutants. While they were sent there to help and protect the mutants, they didn't last and soon they were all destroyed.
Master Mold Was The Ultimate Sentinel
The ultimate Sentinel was known as Master Mold, and this was what Bolivar Trask initially built to create his army of Sentinels. Master Mold ended up becoming a sentient being when an accident caused the anti-mutant bigot Stephen Lang's memories to imprint in the machine, making it believe it was Lang, and the machine began its mission of rebuilding the Sentinel army.
Master Mold is a robot Sentinel, but it has the capability of producing other Sentinels as well as controlling and interfacing with mechanical and computer components. Master Mold became the greatest threat in the history of mutants, keeping one of the X-Men's best villains, The Sentinels, alive and hunting them.
The Sentinels Always Win In The End
The mutants now live on an island known as Krakoa. This happened in a storyline where Professor X visited with his old friend Moira MacTaggert and learned that she was also a mutant who had lived through several lives, retaining the memories of each life. She then revealed to Xavier that in all her past lives, there was one constant. The mutants always lose in the end.
No matter what the mutants did differently, the human population would never accept them and the Sentinels would almost always be used to hunt them down and end their world. The change now is that the mutants are safe in Krakoa, destroyed Mother Mold, and prevented Nimrod's creation. However, as the other timelines proved, this might not be enough.