Sentinel Squad O*N*E

Contrary to their deadly robotic predecessors, the government-sanctioned Sentinel Squad O*N*E consists of mechanical Sentinels operated by human pilots who act as Super Heroes, safeguarding the public, public figures, and even mutants against superhuman threats. However, whom they protect largely depends on who operates them and sometimes their operators harbor anti-mutant sentiments.

Mechanical Squadron

Following their invention by Bolivar Trask, the giant robotic Sentinels are consistently used by the United States government in matters of civil defense, notably as a stockpile against the perceived mutant threat. 

However, Sentinels repeatedly meet with failure in the field, as their artificial intelligence programming causes them to either rebel against their masters or fail in matters requiring imaginative thinking. To repair this problem, Deputy National Security Adviser for Mutant Affairs Dr. Valerie Cooper proposes the creation of the Sentinel Squad, a team of operatives working from the Office of National Emergency (O*N*E).

Using advanced S.H.I.E.L.D. and Stark Industries technology, Cooper arranges the construction of new Sentinel models operated by a human pilot from a command core within the robot’s chest or head. The initial three models of Sentinels include the heavily-armored Brawler with an Adamantium chest plate, cloaking field-equipped Stealth and fasttraveling Recon, which can also operate other Sentinels using remote control frequencies.

The Sentinel Squad’s goals are to stand-in as Super Heroes, save the world from threats, and even protect mutants or to stop them in the event of a revolution.

Make the Squad

The Sentinel Squad program endeavors to train a new generation of controllable, dependable, repairable, replaceable, customizable, and loyal American heroes that are supervised by the O*N*E and trained to follow a military command structure.

Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, supports the project and recommends his friend James Rhodes to the O*N*E as drill sergeant, based on his experience as the armored heroes Iron Man and War Machine. While Rhodes is in charge of the recruits, Cooper is the director of the Sentinel Squad. Rhodes trains O*N*E agents to pilot the Sentinels, arranging the cadets into independent squads, and acts as their combat instructor. One of Rhodes’ early successes is Tracy “Sky” Skylark, who quickly masters Sentinel operation.

Rhodes emphasizes loyalty amongst the cadets and tries to inspire heroism in them, discouraging anti-mutant sentiment. However, the O*N*E’s leader, General Demetrius Lazer, is an anti-mutant bigot and he’s not the last..

One class of cadets in the Sentinel Squad includes: Nathaniel “Bulletproof” Briggs, a decorated corporal with lengthy combat experience; Rajani “Joni” Dhama, a fiery computer technician; Alexander “Lex” Lexington, a mutant with electrical powers who conceals his nature from the O*N*E; Jeremiah Muldoon, AKA Meld, a mutant who can reshape metal and held in government custody since being abandoned at birth on an Army base; Randall “Stilts” Nixon, an ex-Naval officer experienced at working in close quarters; Jake “Slayer” Slayton, an amiable but sometimes obnoxious ex-fighter pilot; and Emil Winston, a multiple-doctoral scientist and specialist in cybernetics and artificial intelligence who agrees to work on the Sentinel Squad project only if he can go through training as a pilot. 

Rhodes runs this squad through training, at times using a virtual reality system to simulate an attack by Galactus and Norrin Radd, AKA Silver Surfer. Rhodes emphasizes hand-to-hand combat for the pilots to improve their dexterity within the command core, since the Sentinels are designed to respond to their pilots’ actions.

Firing Squads

A team of Sentinel Squad recruits experience a trial by fire against the android Growing Man, and telekinetic dinosaurs controlled by Savage Land Mutates. They also eradicate a Wild Sentinel colony in Ecuador. 

The Sentinel Squad also goes up against anti-mutant groups, such as the Leper Queen’s Sapien League and the Purifiers—during which their leader Reverend William Skryker usurped control of the Sentinels by using Nimrod technology. The Squad goes up against the Shi’ar Death Commandos as well as En Sabah Nur, AKA Apocalypse, and his Horsemen.

Sometimes the Squad sees dissent within their ranks, such as with the operative Gen. Lazer, who harbors bigoted beliefs about mutants. Other times, the Squad’s Director, such as General Robert Callahan, uses the the O*N*E Sentinels to hunt mutants and they end up clashing with the X-Men.

Squad Goals

The Sentinel Squad O*N*E is funded by the U.S. government and answers to them in a military-like hierarchy. The pilots of the Sentinels are trained by Rhodes to treat one another as brothers.

The X-Men prove to be repeated allies to Squad, and the Squad provides repeated protection against merry mutants' enemies. However, sometimes the X-Men and the Squad clash depending on who leads the government-backed outfit.

Sentinel Squad’s Story

Rhodes’ trained squad was finally given a field mission with Briggs in command; they were sent to assist S.H.I.E.L.D. by providing security for a U.S. senator whose life was threatened by Hydra. The Hydra agents unleashed a Growing Man android against the squad; the squad lost focus when Briggs proved to be claustrophobic, suffering a panic attack inside his Sentinel and depriving the team of leadership. Although Lexington deactivated the Growing Man using his electrical powers, Slayton’s command core was crushed in the battle, and he lost his legs.

Later, Rhodes’ squad was sent on a mission to the Savage Land to combat the Savage Land Mutates, whose leader Brainchild had been augmenting dinosaurs' brains to grant them telekinetic powers, creating a powerful personal army. Rhodes’ squad was decimated in battle, with all except Rhodes and Skylark killed. Back at the O*N*E base, Briggs lost his command for his inaction during the Growing Man incident, and Slayton returned to duty in a wheelchair. 

Briggs, Lexington and the rest of their squad were sent alongside two other squads to rescue Rhodes and complete their mission. Led by the hard-bitten Sgt. Steele, although the three combined squads totaled 24 Sentinels altogether, they were quickly ravaged by the telekinetic dinosaurs, with Nixon and Steele amongst the casualties; Lexington ordered his squad to retreat, leaving only himself, Briggs, Dhama, Meld, Slayton and Winston alive.

Lexington revealed his mutant powers to the others and engaged in an irregular tactic, using his and Meld’s powers to evade the Mutates and rescue Rhodes and Skylark. Revealing himself an anti-mutant bigot, Briggs abandoned the squad and went to Lazer with news of Lexington’s mutant status. However, the rest of the squad completed the mission, destroying the telekinetic dinosaurs by using Winston’s mechanical genius and Meld’s powers to rebuild their damaged Sentinels into a more powerful assault mode. Returning to the O*N*E, Lexington was demoted for concealing his mutant powers, and Briggs was restored to leadership. With her squad decimated, Skylark was transferred to Briggs’, while Winston left the squad to join the O*N*E’s science staff, considering himself fortunate to have survived the Savage Land mission. 

The squad was soon sent to oppose an army of Wild Sentinels, models left behind by Cassandra Nova that had emerged from an Ecuador volcano. Although Slayton believed they could communicate peacefully with the Wild Sentinels and avoid a battle, Briggs forced them into combat, decimating their enemies. After saving a town of mutant refugees from the Wild Sentinels, the other pilots helped fake Meld’s death while Briggs was absent; thus, Meld was able to escape the government’s hold on his life.

When Wanda Maximoff, AKA Scarlet Witch, altered reality on “M-Day,” removing the superhuman powers of nearly all of Earth’s mutants, Lexington was among those affected. Seeing mutantkind near extinction, Cooper assigned Briggs’ squad to the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, intending to safeguard what few mutants were left alive. The X-Men at first mistook the Sentinels for enemies and attacked them, but were quickly forced to concede as they needed their help when the antimutant Sapien League attacked the Institute grounds, hoping to exterminate the mutants living there. 

Soon after, the Purifiers invaded the grounds using technology gleaned from the future-hailing Nimrod Sentinel to disable the squad’s units. The O*N*E put up a long-term camp on the Institute’s property as more mutants flocked to the X-Men for protection. However, the Sentinel Squad was charged to restrict the mutants’ movement, prohibiting them from leaving the grounds; the mutant refugees became called the 198. Although some of the squad made friendly overtures to the X-Men, these feelings were not reciprocated.

In spite of the X-Men’s distaste for the Sentinel Squad, the two teams worked together repeatedly, opposing Apocalypse and his Horsemen when they invaded the grounds. When Famine’s power caused the squad members to become ravenous, all save Lexington abandoned their Sentinels to find food. Unable to combat Apocalypse alone, Lexington was quickly beaten. Cooper had the rest of the squad court-martialed and subsequently assigned the new Sentinels—Crazy Train and War Machine—to Skylark and Rhodes respectively; with these new models, the squad was able to help the X-Men defeat Apocalypse.

Soon after, Briggs attempted to assist Rachel Summers, AKA Marvel Girl, and Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, against Gabriel Summers, AKA Vulcan, but Vulcan destroyed his Sentinel. Briggs exited the robot, only to be slain by Vulcan.

Soon after the Sentinel Squad aided the X-Men against the Shi’ar Death Commandos, a destructive battle between the New Warriors and Super Villains at Stamford, Connecticut, left hundreds dead; the Sentinel Squad helped simultaneously assist workers at the site and monitor the X-Men. Neena Thurman, AKA Domino, and Gaveedra-Seven, AKA Shatterstar, staged a mass evacuation of the 198 from the Institute, besting the squad. Cooper ordered the squad to recapture them and assigned new Sentinel models, including Shrapnel for Slayton, Megaton for Lexington and Ogre for Dhama. The 198 took shelter inside a Nevada munitions bunker and, while the X-Men tried to defend them, the new Sentinels withstood most of the X-Men’s attacks. Gen. Lazer remote-activated the weapons inside the bunker, but was unseated by Cooper, who took command of the O*N*E and defused the situation, saving the 198 from death. Ultimately, the president granted clemency for all mutants, causing the 198 to disperse. Although the Sentinel Squad remained at the Institute, they no longer regulated the X-Men’s movements. The squad helped provide security at the White House during a visit by T’Challa, AKA Black Panther, and Ororo Munroe, AKA Storm, and Rhodes attempted to arrest the duo under government orders, but his Sentinel was incapacitated by Storm. An angry mob tried to attack the downed Rhodes, but the Panther defended him, and the conflict was ultimately called off. Soon after, Rhodes departed the Sentinel Squad, resuming his War Machine identity.

The Sentinel Squad continued to aid the X-Men against foes such as the Children of the Vault, the demons of Limbo and Predator X, and briefly engaged Namor McKenzie, AKA Namor the Sub-Mariner, when he entered the grounds. When Bruce Banner, AKA Hulk, invaded Manhattan to combat the Illuminati, the squad was deployed to help evacuate civilians from the island. 

When the X-Men’s Lucas Bishop sought to kill the infant Hope Summers, fearful she would create the dystopian future world he hailed from, Bishop found samples of Nano Sentinels that the X-Men had taken from Cassandra Nova. Reprogramming them, Bishop had the nanites invade the Sentinel Squad’s robots, merging Slayton, Lexington and the other pilots to their machines. The now-cybernetic Sentinel Squad attacked the Xavier Institute, tricking the X-Men into thinking that Nathan Summers, AKA Cable, was responsible; Bishop intended to turn the X-Men against Cable to more easily locate Hope. As the X-Men fought the Sentinel Squad, Laura Kinney, AKA X-23, apparently killed Lexington. The remaining transformed pilots escaped their Sentinels and flew away to an unrevealed location. The Sentinel Squad was disbanded in light of the incident. Meld later joined the X-Men’s refugee camps on the island Utopia, only to be slain by Suvik Senyaka when he led an army of techno-organic infused mutants in an invasion of Utopia.

When the minds of most good guys in the world were flipped to be cruel by the Nazi Johann Shmidt, AKA Red Skull, the president of the U.S. planned to launch missiles at Russia. X-Factor, having been spared from such a fate, stole the White House’s nuclear football to stop the president. A new group of Sentinel Squad O*N*E pilots were dispatched to retrieve the football. When they encountered the Super-Team at Serval Industries, the Squad was defeated and destroyed by X-Factor’s resident artificial humanoid, Danger.

After everyone’s moral compass was set back to normal, the Department of Homeland Security opened the Wellington Detention Center near San Fernando, Texas, to manage the potential threat that mutants posed. The Office of National Emergency operated the center and claimed to the press that these types of facilities were not prisons, despite detaining mutant children and separating them from their families. When Max Eisenhardt, AKA Magneto, approached the detention center, the operators inside responded with force by sending out one of their Sentinel Squad pilots known as Warden inside in a mechanical suit. Warden engaged Magneto in hand-to-hand combat until the Master of Magnetism pulled the suit apart, leaving the Warden intact. He infiltrated the facility and liberated the children being held there. He then left the Warden and other operators with a warning to treat all people with respect or else and razed the facility to the ground. Warden realized in their battle that she could hurt Magneto and left her colleagues with the vow that next time would be different.

Under O*N*E’s director, General Callahan, Sentinel Squad O*N*E captured some of the X-Men. A breakout was attempted by Alex Summers, AKA Havok, and James Proudstar, AKA Warpath, alongside the X-Men’s perennial enemies, the cyborg Reavers led by Donald Pierce. They liberated Alison Blaire, AKA Dazzler, and found Hank McCoy, AKA Beast, working for the O*N*E, who was keeping an eye on them. During their breakout, Pierce and his Reavers commandeered the O*N*E’s mutant-hunting machines and merged it with their A.I., then used them to kill the X-Men. The Cyborg Sentinels moved on to the Xavier Institute where they attacked the mansion but were soundly defeated and blown apart by the very X-Men they thought they had previously slain.

After the X-Men were disassembled, the O*N*E and the Sentinel Squad were still under the authority of Gen. Callahan, who offered to help several mutants infected by the Transmode Virus. But he and his cohorts experimented on them instead. They also hooked them up to Sentinel Squad mechanical suits, removing their ability to override their orders, and further, they placed a bomb inside one of Jamie Madrox, AKA Multiple Man’s multiples as an insurance policy. When a couple guards from the O*N*E were at a bar after work, they joked about torturing mutant kids. James Howlett/Logan, AKA Wolverine, was nearby and used one of them to gain access to their O*N*E facility by ramming a truck into their gated surroundings. His ally Cyclops joined him to free the captive mutants, including Illyana Rasputin, AKA Magik, and went up against Sentinel mechs, one of which was operated by mutant Guido Carosella, AKA Strong Guy, who explained what the O*N*E had been up to. Wolverine, Logan, and the liberated mutants then freed the last captive, Havok. One of Multiple Man’s multiples suddenly exploded but Guido absorbed it, causing his seeming death. As the mutants and X-Men escaped, Havok annihilated the facility with a massive plasma blast, which General Callahan discovered in the aftermath and surmised that the X-Men were back. 

General Callahan sent the revived Guido and Danielle Moonstar, AKA Dani Moonstar, who were both still under the control of the O*N*E, to apprehend former X-Man Emma Frost at the Hellfire Club. He offered Frost a deal to help him with the mutant problem and he’d remove her power inhibitors. She cut a deal and used Victor Borkowski, AKA Anole, to get what they wanted: a mutant cure in Beast’s possession. Once he had it, he wore a psychic blocker to keep Emma out of his head and implanted a gene bomb in hers to keep her on a leash of sorts, but set her “free.” When he called her in, she wouldn’t obey so Callahan cornered her and her allies, demonstrating the O*N*E’s gene bomb implanted in Vanisher, who exploded from the inside. General Callahan demanded that she bring him the mutant Ruth Aldine, AKA Blindfold, who possessed precognition and clairvoyance, so he could know what was coming, and Frost used her telepathy to influence X-Men into targeting marks for the O*N*E.

Callahan soon discovered that the mutants he had previously held in his custody were back in range, thanks to the devices he had implanted in them. He activated the device in Illyana, but little did he know, her mutant side had been holding back her other half, the demonic Darkchilde. Soon, Frost appeared and had used Cerebro to erase the concept of mutantkind from every mind on the planet.

But Gen. Callhan had upgraded his psychic blocker and remained unaffected by Frost’s global mind wipe, and brought a group of Sentinels with him to finally defeat his mutant enemies. During the subsequent battle, Gen. Callahan perished at Wolverine’s hands, but the Sentinel Squad remained. Suddenly, other disappeared X-Men thought dead had returned to help and brought the Sentinel Squad mech suits to their knees. Not wanting to live in hiding, Cyclops made himself known to the public, restoring their memories of mutants and the X-Men.