Sentinels #3: Bless Your Soul. Do You Really Think You’re In Control?

It’s an issue about control and loss of control. A mission gone south, more sentinel casualties as Lockstep once again loses operational control an extraction mission that goes beyond pear-shaped with multiple casualties. Paknadel and the creative team stage the opening in an interview format as Drumfire recounts what happened to Warden Ellis. What’s so marvelous about this book is how the team balance what you see happening with what you know is going on in the background. You know it’s a messed up issue when Fabian Cortez (I still hate that guy) is the most sympathetic character!!. Between Ellis’s enmity toward the Sentinel program she isn’t in control of, to Drumfire hallucinating Onslaught, to Magneto (we’ll see) tearing the Sentinels a new one, to Lockstep completely going off the reservation as he grafts because of the loss of emotional control due to the heavy losses from the mission and then using his enhancements to deal with his families money issues in the most violent way possible, this book is just a giant bowl of bad characters making even worse decisions and it’s positively riveting stuff!

On top of this the architect of the Sentinel program Lawrence Trask has a massive secret of his own involving exactly where and who the Sentinel technology has come from in a horrific body horror semi reveal amazingly brought to life by Mason and Blee. This is a book where if you think the characters have reached the bottom of the barrel they prove you wrong every time in a very compelling manner. When you think of superhero fights, they are often beautiful , graceful demi god like beings engaged in a ballet of combat (Wolverine’s probably an exception) not so here, Mason and Blee’s fights are ugly, brutal and have lasting horrific consequences and that sets this book apart from the other stuff happening in the X corner of the universe. All these characters have problems, secrets and dark motivations that drive them. It’s a book with dirty dark secrets, and unsympathetic characters  with compromised morals but thanks to excellent writing and art are deeply compelling page after page.