When the first teaser for Marvel’s upcoming film, Thunderbolts, was released last year, Lewis Pullman’s character had been introduced simply as Bob. Speculations had been rife if he was playing Sentry (the only Marvel superhero named Bob or Robert). And new footage has finally confirmed it: Robert ‘Bob’ Reynolds, one of Marvel’s most overpowered characters is coming to the MCU. Here is why he is important.
Lewis Pullman plays Sentry aka Bob Reynolds in Thunderbolts.
Who (or rather what) is Sentry?
Created by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee for Marvel Comics, Sentry is one Marvel’s newer superheroes. He made his first appearance in the comics as recently as 2000. In the comics, Bob Reynolds is a middle-aged, overweight man who has no memory of his alter ego – Sentry. The superhero has the power of one million exploding suns, but the world had forgotten him, as Reynolds had wiped the memory of every person on Earth, including his own. He did that because Sentry’s arch-nemesis – Void – is also his split personality. How the MCU will play this angle out remains to be seen, but it is almost certain that both Sentry and Void will make their MCU debut in Thunderbolts.
Just how powerful is Sentry?
The phrase ‘power of one million exploding suns’ should be self-explanatory. Sentry derives his powers from a super soldier serum, similar to one that made Steve Rogers Captain America. But this serum is exponentially more powerful – a hundred thousand times stronger, according to the comics. The comics show that Sentry is almost a God, omnipotent. He has beaten the symbiote Carnage in battle, overwhelmed Thor, and even beaten Terrax, a being powerful enough to slice planets in half. On one occasion, Sentry even defeated a version of Ultron. In the movies, all Avengers had to unite to beat the supervillain. One comic book run called Sentry ‘stronger than all Avengers put together’. Just how strong he is depends on which writer is writing which story. But the bottom line is that Sentry and Void are forces of nature, too powerful for mortals to fight.
A young Sentry in his original run in the comics.(Marvel Comics)
This begs the question—how exactly are the Thunderbolts planning to defeat Void if it emerges from within Bob Reynolds? That alone makes the final film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 5 an intriguing concept.
About Thunderbolts
Thunderbolts is a team of antiheroes in the Marvel world. The MCU iteration features Yelena, aka Black Widow (Florence Pugh), Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen). The film also stars Geraldine Viswanathan and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. It will release in India on May 1 and internationally on May 2.