X-Men #14-16

X-MEN #14 (1965)
by Stan Lee (story), Jack Kirby (layouts) & Werner Roth (pencils, under the “Jay Gavin” pseudonym)
cover by Jack Kirby & Wally Wood

This is a watershed moment for the X-Men. Not only this is when the series goes to a monthly schedule, but it when the whole “mutants as allegory for discrimination” truly begins.
In a lot of ways, the arrival of the Sentinels is the beginning of the true X-Men.

While the X-Men are recovering rom their wounds from the fight against the Juggernaut, mutant hysteria reaches its peak.

The X-Men are oblivious to this, since they’re on vacation. Cyclops is so busy simping for Marvel Girl that he doesn’t notice she’s flirting.

Honestly, Cyclops’ constant moping is just about insufferable in this period.
To be fair, being insufferable is Cyclops’ real superpower anyway.

Mutant hysteria is reached its peak, to the point that newspapers run entirely fictional pictures instead of actual articles.

The entire page is beautifully reconstructed in 1994’s Marvels, and to be fair this does look more like an actual newspaper.

I kind of wish Alex Ross also recreated the page showing the mutants forcing humans into gladiatorial fights, though.

Things are so serious that a TV network has cancelled two soap operas and one “adult western” (which hopefully had a different connotation in 1965!) to show a debate about mutants.
Xavier is invited for being an authority on education, which of course has next to nothing to do with the actual point of discussion… which, if anything, makes his participation MORE believable!

As a sign of the times, the entire nation seems to be tuning in. If this was in a later era I can’t imagine this kind of debate to gather so much attention.

This is also beautifully shown in Marvels.

This is where the Sentinels show up. Because of course the best way to keep mutants under control was to create an army of giant sentient robots.

The early Sentinel design is a little goofy, which is probably why in Marvels they resemble their future incarnations a lot more.
(notice the attention to detail: we can STILL notice the 6 on the Sentinel’s body!)

Of course, the Sentinels turn against humanity after FOUR PANELS.

AMAZINGLY, Professor X recognizes that an anthropologist has no business building robots!!!
You would think this would result in a revelation that the Sentinels were actually built by someone else… but nope, Trask will be acknowledged as a master of robotics in the rest of the story and in future issues.

This interrupts the X-Men’s vacation, which unfortunately cuts short the performance of the best character introduced in this series: Bernard The Poet.

Since Angel is currently wasting everybody’s time in the Dazzler retrospective by interfering with her family… what is HIS family like?

Just about as interesting as Angel himself. Big surprise there.

Back to the Sentinels, it’s interesting to see that they act more human than in future stories.

They’re also surprisingly agile for giant robots, as the X-Men soon discover.

They still manage to knock one out, but not before it talks about “Master Mold”.

So can you read their minds or not!? Make up YOUR mind, Professor X!!!

In a classic sci-fi trope, the reason why the Sentinels are planning to conquer humanity is to fulfill the order to protect them from being conquered.

Sounds legit.

If we go by Marvels, there’s a giant riot in New York City right now. Nothing like this happens in the story proper.

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X-MEN #15 (1965)
by Stan Lee (story), Jack Kirby (layouts) & Werner Roth (pencils)
cover by Jack Kirby

Uhm, guys, I get the feeling there’s something more important going on here than “the Beast’s origin”.

The X-Men have reached the Sentinels’ base, which is… something.

Little known fact: before they had the Blackbird or the X-Wing, the X-Men’s preferred method of flying was an ice Frisbee launched by Cyclops’ power.

As the X-Men keep fighting the defenses of the Sentinel’s base, we get a little more insight into their logic.

Master Mold is a giant Sentinel that can spawn other Sentinels. He looks absolutely ridiculous, but I unironically love everything about this!

Oh for crying out loud, YOU SAID YOUR POWERS DON’T WORK ON ROBOTS!!!

Apparently the Sentinels’ weakness is bureaucracy. Who would’ve thought?

As the cover promised, we are told the origin of the Beast thanks to his interrogation. But this is already a long story so I’ll just skip it… plus, while I do like Beast, his origin story is nothing special.

The X-Men free Beast and continue fighting the Sentinels, while Professor X goes directly to Master Mold.

Xavier refers to this as his “astral image”, but unlike Doctor Strange this has nothing to do with magic so I don’t mind Master Mold being able to defend itself against this.
Plus, FINALLY his powers are not what saves the day!!!

Not that the X-Men are any more successful.

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X-MEN #16 (1966)
by Stan Lee (story), Jack Kirby (layouts) & Werner Roth (pencils)
cover by Jack Kirby

I find the fact that Angel is flying above the X-Men logo to be very distracting, because for a moment I assumed he was flying above Master Mold while he’s actually below him.

Considering the Sentinels are expressly unable to create new Sentinels… did THEY create the base and the various gadgets inside? Or is it everything made by Trask himself?
Because I’m starting to wonder how the heck he was more famous as an anthropologist than as a super-scientist!

I mean he built artificial gravity and A DISINTEGRATOR RAY!!!

With the X-Men captured, Professor X returns to the TV studio to analyze the Sentinel that mysteriously collapsed during their fight.

This raises several questions:
1) why exactly do they let him approach the Sentinel?
2) why hasn’t the Sentinel been moved yet, after presumably several hours?
3) why didn’t Xavier investigate this immediately?
4) why are there only regular cops there? S.H.I.E.L.D. had already been introduced at this point, where are they? Where are the Fantastic Four and the Avengers!?
5) why is there a giant crystal on top of a skyscraper!?

Meanwhile, the X-Men manage to escape and put up a good fight…

…until they’re all knocked out.

But before the Sentinels are able to disintegrate them… they’re shut down.

All thanks to the cops flying the giant crystal there! Mind you, we get NO EXPLANATION about what the heck this crystal is.

Little known fact, but in the early years the X-Men were secretly cooperating with the authorities all the time.

Things aren’t over yet, because Master Mold is ready to create a new batch of Sentinels.
One of the reasons I love Master Mold is that he’s LITERALLY a mold!!!

So Trask managed to build artificial intelligence, artificial gravity, disintegrator rays and a freaking Star Trek replicator (!!!!)…. but he’s STILL best known as an anthropologist!

And so Trask has a change of heart, sabotaging Master Mold. Which apparently can be taken down by a giant wrench.

Please notice that the X-Men had nothing to do with the demise of the Sentinels. It’s not like they convinced Trask of the errors of his ways… they lose outright, and he rebels on his own.

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Historical significance: 9/10
Nearly as important as it gets for the X-Men. Not only the Sentinels show up constantly (both against mutants and in other books), but this is really the boiling point of mutant hysteria.

Silver Age-ness: 6/10
Between the inconsistency about Xavier’s powers and the utterly unexplained giant crystal, you almost forget the basic theme is quite revolutionary for the times. 

Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
It’s a bit goofy at times, and the resolution isn’t particularly satisfactory (seriously, WTF is up with that giant crystal!?). The mutant hysteria part is by far the best section, which sadly enough holds up particularly well. The Sentinels themselves, while not very scary for the most part, are an interesting villain. Bolivar Trask is also well done; I especially liked the fact that he technically doesn’t change his mind about mutants, he just recognizes the Sentinels are much worse.
If anything, the X-Men themselves are the least interesting characters of the whole story. I would normally like the novelty of them being defeated and the day being saved by someone else… if this kind of stuff didn’t happen all the time early in the series.
The X-Men have a SERIOUS problem handling Xavier’s powers, and it shows.

How close is this to the modern character? 7/10
This is a hard call because there are many, MANY versions of the Sentinels.
Some of them are completely subservient to humans, in which case they barely resemble the originals aside from part of their look. But the self-aware ones are actually rather close to these.

When it comes to their looks, we’ll have to wait for the Mark II version. Not only the color scheme gets defined, but the proportions are more human and of course THEY’RE HUGE.

Out of the many versions of the Sentinels, the only one I never cared for were the Prime Sentinels introduced by the Zero Tolerance event… basically human converted into cyborgs by nanites.
If you’re not going to have them as giant robots, what’s even the point?

One aspect of the Sentinels that I think is still untapped is that they really shouldn’t be limited to fighting mutants!
I mean Earth is constantly attacked by aliens and all kinds of cosmic threats… I get that superheroes are cheaper, but why not deploy some giant robots against the big threats?

Something similar was attempted with Sentinel Squad O*N*E (yes it’s how it’s spelled, for some reason), where they were deployed to protect the last remaining mutants after the Decimation event… but nothing serious ever came of those.

I mean, it’s an army of giant freaking robots! Just think of the possibilities!!!
(sadly, this is just fanart)