Sentinel is a 2003 miniseries by Marvel Comics written by Sean Mckeever.
The series focuses on Midwestern American teen Juston Seyfert and his adventures after finding and repairing a damaged Sentinel.
Juston and the Sentinel later appear in Avengers Academy.
Sentinel provides examples of:
- Anime Hair: Juston's hair, which spikes up.
- Break the Cutie: For Juston, bullying did it first, then when Emma Frost tried to destroy his Sentinel.
- Cornered Rattle Snake: Juston is bullied a lot, which eventually leads him to pull a stunt he later considered My Greatest Failure.
- Corrupted Character Copy: The comic brings up The Iron Giant often, with Juston's relationship with the Sentinel being a clear parallel to the film. However, while the Iron Giant origin is presumed to be some sort of world destroying robot that became good after losing it's memory, the Sentinel was created to kill mutants and while damaged this programming remains intact. Unlike the Giant which was capable of independent thought and genuinely cared for Hogarth, the Sentinel only "cares" about Juston because he specifically added directives to it's programming. Meanwhile Juston, while still a good person, is a lot more selfish and short sighted that Hogarth Hughes from the film because of his difficult life at home and at school, resulting him in using the Sentinel to stage an attack so he can come out as the hero. As a result, the two cause much more harm in the comic than good.
- Don't Split Us Up: Juston and the Sentinel, mostly because he's so attached to it.
- Flanderization: While Juston clearly cares deeply about the Sentinel, he didn't start referring to it as "my best friend" until Avengers Academy. This was somewhat jarring as he actually had a pretty well developed clique of friends in his own series. That they are nowhere around and his "Secret" Sentinel, which he once sicked on the school, is out in the open might explain the change.
- Humongous Mecha: The Sentinel.
- The Kid with the Remote Control: Mostly, Juston commands it from outside, but there is a cockpit they built together.
- Monster Protection Racket: Juston's first 'use' of his Sentinel buddy consisted of this. He only did it once — partly because he felt guilty about it, especially the emotional trauma it caused, and partly because it got some unwanted attention on him from spooky government types.
- Missing Mom: Juston's mom left his father, himself, and his younger brother when he was young. He admits he's got issues about it.
- Mr Fix It: Juston was already mechanically gifted, but watching and listening to the Sentinel repair itself, and fixing it himself really increased his skill level.
- My Greatest Failure: Juston considers the Monster Protection Racket prank he pulls to get revenge on the people who bullied him this.
- Parental Abandonment: Not explicitly explained until Juston got a profile in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.
- Robot Buddy: The Sentinel functions like this towards Juston.
- Shout-Out: The relationship between Juston and the Sentinel is much like Hogarth Hughes and The Iron Giant.
- Verbal Tic: "Destroy!" and "Destroy All Mutants!" just pop up at the most inappropriate times in the Sentinel's vocabulary.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: A big part of the drama in the Avengers vs. X-Men tie-in arc that focused on the pair.
- The Worf Effect: Despite looking big and impressive, the Sentinel gets taken down by Hybrid, Victor Mancha, and Emma Frost pretty quickly.
