Spinning out of Doctor Strange of all titles is this limited series of Marvel’s garbage Superman knockoff, The Sentry! But it’s not really fair in describing him as Superman – if Clark Kent hated being Superman and frequently turned into Zod then Sentry would be like Superman! Yeah, he’s a bit of an odd duck is old Sentry boy.
Bob Reynolds has both The Sentry, a golden god-like superhero, and The Void, a dark force of unstoppable evil, contained within him. With the help of Tony Stark’s not-at-all-silly-named Confluctor device, he is able to keep them both inside, neutral and safe, in some pocket dimension, so long as he uses it (his “therapy”) every 24 hours. Because if he lets out The Sentry, he risks letting out The Void as well – and imminent destruction follows. Except someone’s stolen the Confluctor and the clock is ticking before both beings are unleashed!
… erm, yeah - not bad? Which is surprising given that Jeff Lemire’s put out quite a lot of rubbish work-for-hire these past few years and I’ve never liked Marvel’s emo/depressed Superman. Man of Two Worlds reminded me of Lemire’s darker, more subversive superhero comics like Plutona and Black Hammer so maybe that’s why I liked it – it doesn’t really read like generic, predictable Marvel at all.
Lemire’s able to cram together a fairly entertaining story within five issues and keep it coherent too despite the complexity of the character and the information he has to include to ensure most readers, who likely won’t know anything about the character, know a bit about Sentry’s background and rogues.
It does mean cutting a few corners though so one character just happens to have the formula for the Golden Sentry serum in a perfect example of bad storytelling – telling not showing the reader how it happened – and the ending is really rushed too with Lemire trying to accomplish too much in that final issue. I can understand why though given the space he’s got. The villains’ motivations are a bit clichéd but it works well enough here.
I don’t get why the bad guy Cranio would be working as a parking attendant if he’s a genius – why does he have to be part of some supervillain group to do supervillain-y things? Why did he keep his supervillain equipment stashed away when they clearly still work and he could use them, and his supposed genius, to improve his situation? Tres contrived!
I didn’t think much of Kim Jacinto’s art though I really liked Joshua Cassara’s. I also liked the twist at the end. I can’t say he made me like Sentry any more than I already did but Lemire actually left me wanting to read more of this character – a rarity from Marvel books these days!
Warped versions of Superman have been done many times before so this isn’t the most original story, and it’s certainly flawed, but if you enjoy Jeff Lemire’s off-piste superhero work, The Sentry: Man of Two Worlds is definitely worth a look.
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