After plans to race-swap their ironic Superman clone for his upcoming appearance in Thunderbolts fell through, it seems Marvel Studios could be going with their backup plan of gender-swapping the Sentry instead.
When Marvel announced that they were going to race to swap the character of Sentry with The Walking Dead actor Steven Yeun, fans were puzzled by the decision, with many questioning not only why the MCU introduction of Sentry would come in a movie about the Thunderbolts, but also why the studio picked Yeun as their top choice to play the Golden Guardian of Good.
However, now that the actor has backed out of the project due to scheduling conflicts, a new rumor suggests that the studio’s potential backup plan for the character is even more puzzling than their initial one.
While previous and all-but-officially-confirmed reports indicating that the role of the Sentry had since gone to Top Gun: Maverick star Lewis Pullman seemed to suggest that the MCU was finally course-correcting back to classic comic book accuracy, a new theory regarding the hero’s role in Thunderbolts suggests that this could not be further than the case.
In light of the previous leak which suggested that the film had originally ended with the collective deaths of the Thunderbolts and the Sentry, as well as Marvel Comics’ ongoing Sentry miniseries currently centering on such a concept, Reddit user /u/roguefrogger has posited that the hero’s debut appearance will end not only with death, but his power being split between six ordinary individuals following his passing.
RELATED: Rumored Race-Swapped Sentry Actor Steven Yeun Reportedly Exits Marvel’s “Thunderbolts”
To this end, it is believed that prior to exiting the film due to scheduling conflicts, the unnamed role in which The Bear star Ayo Edebiri had been cast was that of the MCU’s version of Mallory Gibbs, one of the recipients of the Sentry’s power in the current comic book miniseries.
A black female journalist with cerebral palsy – a perfect collection of diversity and inclusion ‘checkboxes’ if there ever was one – when Gibbs is given the power of Sentry, her physical limitations are lifted and she is given impervious superhuman abilities.
Unsurprisingly, though the Sentry’s power is split among six total individuals, it is Gibbs who ends up being the sole survivor left to stand against Ryan Topper, a white teenager with a thirst for power who seeks to kill the other ‘Sentry conduits’ and take their strength for himself.
With Edebiri out of the picture, actress Geraldine Viswanathan, known for her roles in the films Blockers and Drive Away Dolls, has been tapped to take her spot in the still-unnamed role.
Whether she will end up playing Gibbs – or perhaps another, MCU original Sentry variant all together – remains to be seen.
Per the comic books, the true origins of Sentry date back to 1950 (in-universe; the character did not actually make his comic book debut until 2000), beginning with Robert Reynolds, a depressed meth addict.
After ingesting a failed attempt to replicate the Captain America’s super-soldier serum, Renyolds is granted the power of a million exploding suns, which he proceeds to use to go on to serve as one of the 616’s most courageous champions.
However, though Reynolds tried to live life as a normal superhero, a repressed persona known as The Void eventually caused him to become both mentally unstable and a threat to both villains and heroes alike.
As a result, after a short stint as a member of various Avengers team, serving as a horseman of Apocalypse, and even helping seal away the infamous Cancerverse, the Sentry eventually met his death at the hands of the King in Black himself, Knull, during his invasion of Earth.
From there, his body was abducted by the magical Blasphemy Cartel and infused with “the power of one-hundred million screaming ghosts”, which the terrorist group attempted to use to destroy Doctor Strange and Clea.
Unsurprisingly, they would be unsuccessful in this goal, with the pair instead besting the zombie and dispersing his energies across the cosmos – a short time after which they found their way into the hands of the aforementioned Sentry conduits.
To this end, it looks like Marvel Studios will be taking a drastically different approach to the character’s existence when he eventually makes his MCU debut, ignoring his classical depiction in favor of monetizing his younger – and wholly-Disney-owned – replacements.
As far as the movie itself goes, Thunderbolts is scheduled to be the final film in the MCU Phase Six, which has been riddled with disappointments and delays.
The film is expected to bring back several MCU characters from other movies and television series including Sebastian Stan as Winter Soldier, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, Wyatt Russell as U.S. Agent, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Red Guardian, and Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster.
Notably, thanks to the production delay caused by Marvel’s bringing in Netflix’s Beef writers Lee Sung-Jin and Joana to fix its script, filming has yet to commence on Thunderbolts.
Rather, it is currently expected to begin shooting this Spring ahead of its tentative May 2nd, 2025 release date.
