Giant Robot Month: Destroy All Mutants!

Recently unveiled at San Diego Comic-Con, the first look at the villains of X-Men: Days of Future Past. At right, the head of one of the Sentinels. In case you didn't know, the Sentinels are giant robots designed to hunt down and kill mutants. They first appeared in X-Men #14 way back in 1965, created by Anti-Mutant anthropologist Bolivar Trask who'll be played by Peter Dinklage in the film.

I like the design. Retains enough of the classic Jack Kirby design like the orange eyes, but made plausibly realistic looking. I'm a little sad they lack the iconic Sentinel face but it may be too early to dismay. Several propaganda posters showed at the same presentation revealed a more comics-faithful look for the robots. I'm also a little worried it's too small, this head is only about the size of a man's torso, but with the above about the face and the time-travel shenanigans involved with the story (Look up Days of Future Past for more) I think this may be a prototype Sentinel in the 70s-set past scenes and we'll see bigger, more faithful-looking Sentinels in the future parts of the story.

This flyer from the presentation seems to back up my theory, referring to this as a "Mark 1" Sentinel and celebrating Trask Industries' 50th Aniversary. From that, we can infer Trask has been making these robots for a while. Until we get more details on the movie, that's all I can guess for now. But you can be sure I'll bring up any news here.