Sentinels #3

History

Sentinels is a five-issue limited series written by Alex Paknadel and drawn by Justin Mason, published under Marvel's 'X-Men: From the Ashes' relaunch initiative that followed the end of the Krakoa era. The series launched in October 2024 with editor Darren Shan and executive editor Tom Brevoort overseeing it, colored by Federico Blee and lettered by Travis Lanham. Paknadel, known for Red Goblin, and Mason, known for Spider-Punk, conceived the book as a character-driven examination of collateral-damage survivors repurposed as instruments of state power, deliberately inverting the Sentinel concept by making the machines human and the humans increasingly mechanical.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Issue title: 'Mud and Metal Mixing Good'; release date December 18, 2024; cover date February 2025; part 3 of a 5-issue limited series.
• Written by Alex Paknadel, art and cover by Justin Mason, colors by Federico Blee, letters by Travis Lanham; edited by Darren Shan under executive editor Tom Brevoort.
• The apparent 'Magneto' who devastates the Fireteam in Madripoor is confirmed in the companion series Mystique (2024) to be Mystique in disguise, who had temporarily gained Magneto's powers after Fabian Cortez accidentally amplified her while she was shapeshifted as him.
• Voivod (Dragos Teodorescu) is explicitly described mid-issue as now 'a synthesis of Dragos Teodorescu and another hidden sentience,' marking his in-story transformation into something beyond human—the most advanced stage of 'grafting' shown in the series to this point.
• Lockstep (Bradley Hansen) shows early-stage grafting signs and, after the mission, uses his nanotech armor to violently confront Maggia loan sharks threatening his estranged family in Passaic, New Jersey—the first time a team member commits unprovoked lethal violence off-mission.
• Drumfire (Patricia Pham) continues to hallucinate Onslaught mid-mission; the issue establishes that her mood-regulator implants may be distorting her own memory and testimony during her debrief with Graymalkin warden Dr. Corina Ellis.
• Lawrence Trask's nanotechnology origin receives a sinister partial reveal: the issue strongly implies the Sentinel program's biotech has a hidden, ethically compromised source, a thread Paknadel builds toward the series' climax.
• Shellback (Michael Babineaux) does not appear as an active character in this issue, consistent with his death in issue #1; his absence continues to function as a source of team tension, particularly around how quickly Trask replaced him with Drumfire.

Cast · 12 characters

Full credits

Key issues in Sentinels

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#1 1st appearance — Lockstep

Variants (1)