Uncanny X-Men has been showing readers a very interesting portion of mutant history with the new story “Dark Artery”. The story introduced readers to new mutant Lady Henrietta, living in caves under Haven House named the Dark Artery, where mutants made their graveyard thanks to some dark, elder god shenanigans. A big part of “Dark Artery” was the flashback to Lady Henrietta’s past in the early 1900s. Uncanny X-Men #15 gives readers some answers, giving readers some context on both her journey and the people who have been chasing her the entire time. Lady Henrietta was bringing her mother’s remains to Haven House, which is a mutant graveyard, where they can bring their dead without their final resting places being desecrated by humans. However, the moment she gets off her train in Louisiana, revealed in Uncanny X-Men #14, she’s under observation by two men, Agent Miller and Andrew, who call themselves a name that X-Men fans will recognize — they’re Sentinels.
Sentinels have been a major part of X-Men history, first appearing in 1965’s X-Men (Vol. 1) #14. Since then, Sentinels have gone through all kinds of iterations, from large and powerful robot siege engines to smaller, human sized hunter-killers in a variety of power levels. “Dark Artery” reveals a completely new kind of Sentinel, one that completely fits both the human bigotry of the Marvel Universe, and its technological level in the early 1900s.
So, the first Sentinels that reader ever saw where the Mark I Sentinel, created by Bolivar Trask. Mark I Sentinels were about thirteen or fourteen foot high, armed with powerful sensors that allow them to detect mutants, and weapon systems designed to destroy mutants. Larger models of Sentinels would start to be built, and readers would meet the Master Mold, a giant Sentinel that creates the others. Sentinels got bigger and more powerful, and every time the X-Men thought they’d dealt with them by destroying a Master Mold, more would show up (the funniest thing was when the X-Men thought they had fooled all of the Sentinels to fly to the sun and destroy it, convincing the robots that the sun’s radiation was the source of human mutation). Fans would get to see the Sentinel ruled future of “Days of Future Past” and meet the ultimate Sentinel known as Nimrod. Soon, smaller nanite based Sentinels would be introduced called Prime Sentinels, sleeper agents that would kick on around mutants. There were Cassandra Nova’s Wild Sentinels, Sentinels that would assimilate any technology to create variations, Omega Sentinel, Bio-Sentinels, Evangelion-style Sentinels. Sentinels have shown up in all shapes and sizes.
“Dark Artery” has introduced an entirely new kind of Sentinel. Humans have hated mutants for a long time and had many names for them. Apparently, at some point before the early 1900s setting of “Dark Artery”, there were a group of humans who were Sentinels. They hunted down mutants, their havens, every place they resided, and destroyed them. They didn’t wear armor, and were only equipped with pistols and rifles — at least the ones we’ve seen so far — but they were tracking down mutants, investigating them. killing them. One of them is called an agent, which could mean that the Sentinels of this time period were a member of an official group. Readers always thought of Sentinels as the ultimate technological terrors, but they are looking more and more like an evolution of a concept.
Sentinels have long been the manifestation of humanity’s racism since they first appeared. They became the key weapons of anti-mutant forces, powerful automatons that were able to destroy mutants thanks to their armaments and special mutant countermeasure. We all thought the first Sentinels were created by Bolivar Trask, but the truth may be that Trask learned about the Sentinels who hunted mutants on their own. Trask may have grown up with this idea of Sentinels as the protectors of mankind, and wanted to make new ones with powerful robotic bodies that would even up the odds against mutants.
It’s an interesting evolution — or in this case de-evolution — of the concept of the Sentinel. Mutant history keeps getting pushed back; back in the day, it was said that the Atomic Age increased mutant births and everyone realized they were real. That’s been contradicted for years, and it looks like humans have been using Sentinels of a much simpler kind to hunt mutant for centuries. It gives the robotic hunter killers a cool history, one that fits into the history of mutantkind beautifully.
Uncanny X-Men #15 is on sale now.
Uncanny X-Men has been showing readers a very interesting portion of mutant history with the new story “Dark Artery”. The story introduced readers to new mutant Lady Henrietta, living in caves under Haven House named the Dark Artery, where mutants made their graveyard thanks to some dark, elder god shenanigans. A big part of “Dark Read More