Review by Frank Plowright
War Machines concludes with a reprint from the X-Men’s earliest days produced by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Werner Roth, which shows the X-Men have been dealing with Sentinel robots programmed to target mutants for a long, long time. The Sentinels have been modified and improved over the years, and as well as the giant purple models there are smaller units offering greater mobility. Three of the standard larger models are currently in possession of a small Eastern European country with ambitions to become a regional power.
During his writing of X-Men Victor Gischler has been fond of guest stars from the wider Marvel universe, and as the title gives away, here it’s the armoured War Machine. He’s the government-friendly version of Iron Man, a former military man who believes in US authority, and that puts him in conflict with the X-Men to whom political priorities are of no consequence.
After an impressive single chapter in FF, Will Conrad draws all four chapters of the title story extremely attractively. His War Machine is a taut bundle of technological supremacy, yet still convincingly armour housing a person, his Sentinels have the appropriate sense of scale, and he draws a predominantly female team of X-Men in action without objectifying them.
Gischler is very much a tease. We see Sentinels from the earliest pages, and one of them later takes out Domino, but it’s around halfway before the desired mutant vs robot action occurs. However, it’s worth waiting for. Leading up to it are explanations of ever-changing political realities, a rescue mission, and an insight into the plans of the Puternicstan ruler. They’ve developed a potentially lethal transformation enabling the Sentinels to endanger all of humanity. As visually striking as they are, Sentinels are essentially giant programmed robots, so the appeal when they appear depends on the motivations of those in control. Contrasting what the X-Men are doing with what’s happening in Puternicstan is what makes War Machines more interesting than a standard Sentinels appearance, with Gischler creating a chilling extrapolation of real world political comfort zones.
Not all early 1960s X-Men issues stand up well in the 21st century, and discovering the rewarding aspects of the first Sentinels appearance means enduring expository dialogue, too much dialogue and the clunky original designs of the Sentinels. However, there’s a vitality and threat that still transmits.
A subplot introduced toward the end leads into The Curse is Broken.
