Before we go into this, I must let you know that by explaining what is happening, I’ll be spoiling X-Men ’97 episode 5! So, if you haven’t watched it, please do that first. But if you’ve already seen it or heard the chatter about what happened, here we go. In X-Men ’97 episode 5, the mutant nation of Genosha was massacred by a massive Sentinel, and one known in X-Men comic book history is known as a Wild Sentinel. This beast has decimated hundreds if not thousands, of mutants, including Magneto and Gambit. in this episode. Seeing this animated is quite different from seeing it drawn on comic book pages.
I was both shocked and surprised to see this specific breed of monster in the show, as it is easily one of the most horrific killing machines ever created in the X-Men universe. I suppose that’s why we saw The Watcher show up before the destruction started. Anytime the Watcher shows up, it’s never good, and something bad is going down, as we’ve seen throughout any Marvel comic book or animated series.
What are the Wild Sentinels
We first saw the Wild Sentinels appear in New X-Men #114 (E Is for Extinction); as a fan of the X-Men, I’ll never forget their appearance. Created by Master Mold, who you remember seeing during the original run of X-Men and early on in X-Men ’97, the goal of the Wild Sentinel is just like every other variant. However, unlike the bargain bin versions, these are created by Master Mold to incorporate anything that it could find. For example, a Wild Sentinel could start off small, come across a ship graveyard, and make itself larger with the technology in that area. Or it could enter a city like Genosha and grow as it attacks. They also didn’t have the same intelligence as other sentinels, but the programming for killing mutants remains. In fact, it’s the only thing they can do.
While they aren’t the #1 on the list of most dangerous sentinels, they are close to the top as being number 2 or 3, based on their destructive capabilities. These things were tough and massively powerful, emitting energy weapons and allowing regular-sized sentinels to be housed inside them. As we’ve seen, they are a one-man mutant extermination force in their own right.
However, unlike the Sentinels we’ve seen in X-Men ’97, these were created by finding any machinery and parts they could find, which makes them pretty large. During New X-Men #114, four of these monsters were sent to Genosha and wiped out 16 million mutants, nearly the island’s entire population. And as we’ve seen in X-Men ’97 episode 5, just one of these sentinels has caused quite a bit of damned and body count, along with some big names such as Magneto and Gambit.
While the design isn’t completely the same as that from the X-Men comic book, it’s undeniably a Wild Sentinel, based on the tri-head, the chest, wings, and its legs.
At the end of the X-Men ’97 episode 5, the X-Man, Gambit, used his powers and supercharged the Wild Sentinel, seemingly blowing it up, but at a huge cost; Gambit may also be dead. They could have used Bishop to send the energy blasts fired by the sentinels back at them. Oh well, he had to take Nathan… I mean Cable, to the future, never to return.
I’m looking forward to X-Men ’97 episode 6 to see if the X-Men succeed in taking down the sentinel or if the show’s writers take a page out of another X-Men comic when dealing with them.
While you’re here, be sure to check out our reviews of prior X-Men ’97 episodes.
