Iron Man has a backlog of highly specialized suits, but the Sentinel Buster is his most impressive to date – and Tony isn’t finished with it just yet.
Warning: Contains spoilers for Invincible Iron Man #17!!Iron Man’s armory is vast, with suits designed to take on many of the Marvel Universe’s most powerful foes. Tony is constantly inventing new suits and improving previous designs, but his Sentinel Buster armor outdid all his previous creations. It is monstrously powerful, capable of cutting through Feilong’s Stark Sentinels, and now Tony has confirmed that its fatal energy flaw has a solution.
In Invincible Iron Man #17 – by Gerry Duggan, Patrick Zircher, Bryan Valenza, and Joe Caramagna – Tony finds himself trapped in the husk of the Sentinel Buster armor following a battle with Feilong and an army of Stark Sentinels. It was previously revealed that Iron Man has no way to recharge this incredibly powerful suit, seemingly relegating it to one incredible battle, like several other models and designs.
However, Tony reveals that he still thinks the suit can “rise from the dead” if he finds the right power source. If he gets the Sentinel Buster back online, Iron Man is still one of the biggest threats to Orchis’ domination.
Iron Man’s Most Powerful Armor Is a Secret Metaphor for His Rivalry with [SPOILER]
In Tony Stark’s latest battle, his enemy Feilong attacks him with stolen technology, proving he’s nothing more than a weak imitation of Iron Man.
Iron Man Used His Most Powerful Suit Before It Was Fully Ready
It Hasn’t Fulfilled Its Purpose
Because it had to face a horde of Orchis’ best weapons, the Sentinel Buster armor is Tony’s most high-powered design ever, and he had to outsmart himself to create it. Considering Stark is one of the most brilliant minds in the Marvel Universe, that was no easy feat. Unfortunately, even after coming up with an armor that packed the punch he needed, he did not have time to finish the design. As he tells Emma Frost, he had to “go to war” before he had a working solution to recharge the armor’s power, so it was on the field before its time.
The Sentinel Buster wouldn’t be the first suit Tony has had to retire after a single use. Several models, like the Anti-Celestial Godkiller or the Godbuster armor used to face Motherboard, have been destroyed or abandoned. But Tony has plenty of cause to repair and perfect the Sentinel Buster, instead, as Orchis and their Stark Sentinels have not been neutralized just yet. The armor is still needed, and he has already proved that it’s capable of doing extreme damage to Orchis’ weapons. If there is a way to save it, as he believes, then mutantkind and humanity need him to follow through.
Iron Man’s Allies May Have The Answers
Even the Sentinel Armor Can’t Defeat Orchis Alone
Tony seems confident that he can find the right power source for the armor, and that it could function even after Feilong’s attack, but he gives no indication of what the answer may be. The solution, at least temporarily, may have just arrived with the reinforcements Emma sent his way. Magneto arrives at the end of Invincible Iron Man #17, fresh off a fight where he defeated a Stark Sentinel by turning himself into a living electromagnet. With Max and Tony working together, they may be able to get the Sentinel Buster armor moving again – at least temporarily.
Regardless of whether Stark gets his suit back online immediately or tinkers with it when the more immediate danger is taken care of, the Sentinel Buster is more crucial than ever. Feilong confesses that the machines are no longer answering to him, and the battle lines have shifted to put humans and mutants on the same side against the Nimrod and AI-dominated organization. Any weapon capable of cutting through the AI ranks is absolutely necessary. Iron Man’s Sentinel Buster armor is more than a one-hit wonder, and it can still strike one of the hardest blows against Orchis.
