Who is Bob? Explaining Marvel's The Sentry

Marvel’s Thunderbolts* is just about ready to hit theaters and the film will pit the titular team against a mysterious villain. If you’ve seen the various trailers and teasers for the film, you may be wondering just who Bob is and how he is powerful enough to challenge this team of troubled, yet capable heroes.

First off, let’s talk about what we’ve already seen. We know Lewis Pullman will be playing a character who has been introduced as Bob. While his initial appearance was shrouded in confusion, we have also seen shots of bullets seemingly bouncing off of him while he remains unharmed.

In later trailers, he calls himself The Void, but we’ll get to that later. We’ve also seen a brief shot of him picking up what appears to be a belt buckle of sorts.

So what do we know about Bob? In the comics, Robert Reynolds is a “hero" known as the Sentry. However, this character has a very complicated and troubling past. Multiple times, his existence has been wiped from the minds of everyone on Earth, including the heroes. The result was an average American man who was constantly confused about his own life.

In reality though, the Sentry was a hero with immense power. In fact, he is said to have the power of “a million exploding suns." And if you need an example of just how powerful he is, you don’t need to look any further than “New Avengers #2," during which he intervened in a prison break at the Raft. The iconic alien symbiote known as Carnage was terrorizing some of the heroes when the Sentry very easily grabbed him, flew him into space and casually ripped him in half.

After having his existence erased a second time, Sentry became an important member of the Avengers. Over the years, he has been a major hero in various stories, including many of his own.

However, the Sentry also has a dark side. Reynolds is constantly warning everyone around him that the Void is coming. The shadowy villain is thought to be the archrival of the Sentry but it turns out he is none other than the Sentry himself. Reynolds’ broke psyche creates this incredibly powerful villain who poses a major threat to Earth as a whole.

The Sentry is constantly battling to contain the void - a battle he does not always win. And it appears that will be the case in Thunderbolts* as we have seen the shadowy figure easily wiping out civilians and being challenged by the heroes.

So while the Thunderbolts will be the ones to step up and challenge the Void in this upcoming film, it will be interesting to see if the Sentry will have a larger role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe going forward. He has often served as sort of a nuclear option in the comics and that could make for a very impactful moment in upcoming films like Avengers: Doomsday and/or Avengers: Secret Wars.

Marvel’s Thunderbolts* is in theaters May 2.