And now, because you demanded it, a Sentinel Squad O*N*E miniseries.

Sometimes I wonder if Marvel are congenitally incapable of taking the hint.  For a couple of years now, retailers and readers have made it abundantly clear that random comics will no longer sell simply on the strength of an X-Men link.  The goodwill that used to take all X-Men titles to the top of the charts by default - even Brotherhood #1 was a top ten book - has long since been cashed in, and readers no longer race to buy random new X-books.  Marvel have to actually sell them.

Sentinel Squad O*N*E, for those of you who might not be aware, are the faceless randoms who pilot the Sentinels stationed around the X-Men's mansion.  I seriously question whether anyone, on reading Sentinel Squad O*N*E's appearances to date, was left thinking "Goodness, I must learn more about these intriguing characters."  To be fair, Peter Milligan did make a sketchy attempt to give them slight personalities in X-Men, but nothing besides the bare bones.  (This is the leader.  This is the asshole.  This is another one.)  The concept of the Sentinels is a relatively big deal, but the pilots themselves have not been set up as interesting or important characters.  For all we've seen so far, they're just a bunch of grunts.

For the most part, this issue doesn't change that.  It's the Squad's origin story, and a bunch of soldiers are hauled in for training.  You'd think, then, that this would be a story about introducing the cast.  But in fact, that's a subsidiary element.  The only real news here is that Lexington, the team leader, is a mutant too (or at least, he was before M-Day).  Other characters get some space in the margins of the story, but ultimately it's not about them.

Instead, the real focus of the first issue is... explaining the concept of the Sentinels.  Now, fair enough, the series has to be comprehensible in its own right.  But chances are anyone reading this comic already knows what Sentinel Squad O*N*E are about.  It is not a surprising revelation to find out - after seven pages of Sentinel demonstrations - that the new Sentinels have pilots.  Nor does it come as news to learn that the Sentinels are going to work as a team, but four more pages are devoted to making that point.  Sure, this stuff needs to be covered, but it doesn't need to be hammered at such length.

Instead, we have a comic so busy explaining its own premise that it's forgotten to include a story.  The only noticeable dramatic tension is Lexington's fear that he might be exposed as a mutant, although since there's already a mutant on the team, it's not clear what he's so worried about.  There's a cliffhanger, but it's just somebody announcing that there's going to be a mission next issue.  Whoo.

Sentinel Squad O*N*E aren't a horrible concept - they could potentially be quite cool, in a "Japanese giant robot" sort of way.  But they need more distinctive robot designs, and much stronger personalities, if that's to work.  A disappointing first issue.

Rating: B-

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