Marvel Welcomes a New Captain America Who Is “One Hundred Thousand Times” More Powerful

Captain America is easily one of the greatest heroes in Marvel, both in the comics and the MCU. However, fans are under no illusions about his power level, as there are clearly heroes who utterly blow Captain America out of the water in that regard. And that includes the MCU’s newest hero, who is “one hundred thousand times” more powerful than Captain America. But the interesting thing is that their origins are directly connected.

In Sentry Vol. 2 by Paul Jenkins and John Romita Jr., Robert Reynolds aka Sentry is struggling to understand what’s real, and what’s all in his head. He’s even made to believe that the entire Marvel Universe was just a hyper-realistic delusion, and that not only was Sentry a product of his own psychosis, but all of Marvel was as well. To work through these struggles, Bob has to take a sobering look back at his own origins, and what he – and readers – find there is shocking.

It turns out Bob was a common junkie who broke into a science lab at a local university to find anything he could get his hands on that could even potentially get him high. In a bizarre twist of fate, the substance he grabbed was the serum that transformed Bob into Sentry – and the rest is history. But, what was this serum? And why was something like that so easily accessible to a local junkie? Well, this comic answers that as well: it was a new super-soldier serum.

Sentry & Captain America Got Their Powers from a Super-Soldier Serum

Sentry’s Super-Soldier Serum was an Upgraded Version of Captain America’s

This new super-soldier serum was at a minimal security university under the not-so-watchful eye of a professor rather than a high-security Weapon Plus facility because of one thing: lack of funding. After the success of Captain America, the United States and Canadian governments pooled their resources to create a stronger super-soldier, using the original super-soldier serum as the base. But, after World War II, there was less pressure to create superhumans. Plus, with the rise of independent superheroes and mutants (who were ripe for experimentation, like Wolverine), there was no more incentive to create superhumans from scratch.

So, work on the project was outsourced to other labs across the country, and with no direct oversight, it landed in the hands of a university professor who didn’t understand the true magnitude of the substance. That’s how Bob was able to get his hands on it, and how Sentry’s origin is tied directly to that of Captain America, as he basically just drank a far more potent version of Cap’s super-soldier serum. The clarification on Sentry’s origin is fascinating, especially since he’ll soon be introduced in the MCU film Thunderbolts*, making him Marvel’s new live-action Captain America successor.

Sentry’s Origin Raises Interesting Questions About Captain America’s True Potential

Could Captain America Secretly Be Far More Powerful than Fans Know?

One of the most powerful abilities Sentry has is the power to manipulate molecules. In fact, that’s kind of his only power, as everything else he can do (flight, strength, near-invulnerability) stems directly from that one ability. Sentry effectively made himself ‘Marvel’s Superman’ through molecular manipulation, and he only has the power to do that because of the super-soldier serum he took – the same serum that was derived from the one that created Captain America. Does that mean Captain America is only a superhuman because he has molecular manipulation on a subconscious level?

Is it possible that Captain America only has powers because he believed the serum worked, and he subconsciously made himself superhuman with the serum’s assistance? That might be a bit of a stretch, especially given how insanely advanced Sentry’s serum was compared to Cap’s, but it’s certainly an interesting question to pose. But regardless, the real takeaway from Sentry Vol. 2 is that Sentry’s origin became officially linked to Captain America’s, making Sentry’s his true Marvel successor, and the MCU’s newest ‘Captain America’.