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10
Plot
Lawrence Trask, with the help of his father's company, installs a squad of new Sentinels in Graymalkin Prison that mix people with nanotechnology.
His first team, called SENTINEL FIRETEAM, is made up of Lockstep (leader), Sawtooth, Voidod and Shellback, whose first mission is to catch OMEGA RED and take him to the prison.
Each of these Real Sentinels has their own ability that together makes them a lethal team. Shellback had a breakdown with his software and Trask forced Lockstep to kill him. This comic does not contain violence and twists.
Trask has everyone as enemies, starting with the head of Graymalkin prison, Corin Ellis, going through the board of directors of the Trask company. However, the results make these Sentinels attractive.
After Shellback's death, Trask activates Drumfire, who manages to stop an escape attempt by OMEGA RED, but apparently has powers to see the future...and sees ONSLAUGHT.
Lawrence Trask is a mutant capable of seeing the future and his goal is to have his Sentinels keep mutants at bay, so that a civil war between mutants and humans does not occur.
Art
It is very dynamic and textured, offering the creative tone of how nanotechnology behaves, like a swarm of bees.
Summary
A new generation of human-hybrid Sentinels arrives to establish a forced peace between mutants and humans.
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9.0
I was a tad apprehensive when this title was first announced. It was probably the furthest from what I expected an early X-Men series to be about. I really didn’t know what to expect going into this issue but after reading this a few times now, I can confidently say @alexpaknadel has produced one of the smartest stories of this young era.
The beauty is in how he subverts the typical mutant story structure & introduces new POVs outside our usual X-Men crew that allow for unique narrative opportunities. Similar to X-Force #1, we quickly realize just how expendable our main characters are, but Paknadel dives further into the impact this realization has on the psyche of individuals who realize they’re just a number within a military industrial complex. The series is set up to answer several intriguing questions regarding self-autonomy & if it’s possible to truly be in control of your own existence. Due to the brilliant writing, I had a deep sense of feeling sorry for the main characters by the end of the book, as they’re just as much victims themselves even though we know they’re carrying out heinous acts against mutants.
Beyond the philosophical aspects, Paknadel gave us a well-paced & balanced debut issue that included everything from a suspenseful, action-packed opening scene to world-building that provided backstory on the Sentinel program to character backgrounds that imbued a level of humanity & emotional resonance.
Justin Mason matches the tone perfectly with a 90s-style artistic grittiness that is equal parts harsh and beautiful. The sentinel suits look great & the action panels are detailed without being gratuitous. Federico Blee’s colors& Travis Lanham’s lettering are both clean but understated & let the story thrive naturally.
Overall, the level of nuance executed in this book across all aspects is impeccable. You could easily walk away from this book thinking it’s just a war story and asking “why should I care about random soldiers?” But I’d urge anyone who came away with that to give this a re-read & look beyond the surface. I’d also recommend Paknadel’s From The Ashes Infinity comic to provide additional backstory.
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9.0
I was surprised by how good this was. I expected a typical empty calorie spinoff mini series but this actually had some nutrition. I enjoyed the individual unique team members, their dynamics, and how they were written. The art was quite good too. I hope this is given the chance to run for a while, there seems to be plenty of meat on the bone for this story.
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8.5
I feel like the art fit the tone of the book. It's like a B- grade level artist but he does a hell of a job. There's also room for him to grow. The story though, the story was fantastic. I'm not going to get too deep into it because I'm not trying to review the book like a normal reviewer. I'll just say there are a few kinds of books. Books that I struggle to get through because they're so boring and not that well written, and books that I burn through and reread pages because it's so damn good. This book was the latter. I had little to no trouble reading this book because I was so engaged. I wasn't even going to buy this book and now it's on my pull list.
The End.
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8.0
This was more of the odd ball kind of books we needed in the X line. Keep this and trim the fat of all the solo titles, except maybe Wolverine cause that will sell not matter what, and at least one "team" book and maybe the X books can get back to being fun to read. I'll say I'm not a huge fan of the art but it feels unique and I think it will grow on me, not to mention the coloring on this issue. This cover is A+. This issue is the groundwork for the characters motivations and I must say that it's got me interested in these soldiers and their backstories. Decent job on this book IMO.
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10
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9.0
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8.5
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8.0
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8.0
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8.0
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6.5
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6.5
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5.0