DF Interview: Alex Paknadel unveils a new team of cyborg soldiers in X-miniseries ‘Sentinels’

By Byron Brewer

The original Sentinels Program was human supremacy and fear coded into circuitry. But now their legacy falls into the hands of mutantkind! Powered by cutting-edge nanotech, this new generation of Sentinels protects a fragile peace between mutants and humans. But when being a Sentinel is your job – your life – is it possible to stay human?

Mount up as writer Alex Paknadel (Carnage) and artist Justin Mason (Spider-Punk) bring you a brand-new team of heroes that will take on the most heinous mutants. Their first mission: Capture Omega Red! I had a chance to sit down and talk to Alex Paknadel about this “From the Ashes” miniseries.

Byron Brewer: Alex, how exciting is it to be a part of this new relaunch for the X-Men francise, From the Ashes? Were you a fan of Marvel’s merry mutants as a comics reader?

Alex Paknadel: It’s fair to say I’m a lifelong fan. My dad taught me to read with Marvel Treasury Editions, but looking back I think I missed my (admittedly narrow) window to switch to sports and cars when I got sick as a little kid. My dad brought a stack of Claremont-Cockrum-Byrne Uncannys to the hospital to keep me entertained, and when I got out – almost to the day – is when adjectiveless X-Men #1 dropped. My most excellent pop took me to Forbidden Planet in London to pick it up and I carried it home with the reverence you’d usually reserve for a wedding cake or a saintly relic. Fate and childhood illness conspired to make me an X-Men superfan, and I’ve never looked back.

I’m ridiculously proud and excited to be a part of the relaunch – and unless I’m mistaken, From the Ashes, the digital series I’m working on alongside Sentinels, may even have been the first series out of the gate! But honestly, there’s a lot of cortisol mixed in with that adrenaline. X has been the summit for me ever since I first realized I wanted to start writing comics, so doing these characters and this world justice is something I’ve been hyper-conscious of throughout. Lot of sleepless nights over here!

Finally, it would be remiss of me not to mention the individuals responsible for putting me in this seat. Darren Shan was the first editor I worked with at Marvel, and it’s been so much fun building this series out with someone I trust and respect. Jed MacKay and Gail Simone have championed my work since almost the very beginning, so getting to goof off with them in the X-writers group chat is a real “pinch me” type deal. And last but by no means least, I owe Tom Brevoort so much for trusting me with a key to the X-Mansion. He truly loves this corner of the Marvel Universe, and I think the quality of the books we’ve seen so far attests to that.

Byron: As expected, with the rise of the X-Men comes a government revival of their infamous Sentinel program. But there are new sheriffs in town, it seems. Explain how the coming program has advanced from those purple droid giants of yore.

Alex Paknadel: Well, it’s not government per se. As you know from Gail and David’s Uncanny X-Men, the X-Mansion is now Graymalkin Prison – a kind of supermax for mutants run by the sadistic Dr. Ellis and her mutant kapo sidekick, Scurvy. We don’t know who runs the facility, but we do know that they’ve subcontracted the work of actually capturing the prisoners to a resurrected Lawrence Trask and his new Sentinel program. The Sentinels aren’t tasked with killing mutants anymore; they’re more like U.S. Marshals, apprehending mutants and delivering them to Graymalkin for them to deal with as they see fit. Suffice it to say, Dr. Ellis is not happy about having to share her fancy new digs with a Sentinel program she doesn’t control. The loathing she has for Lawrence is entirely mutual.

Byron: Introduce readers, if you will, to your new crew: Sawtooth, Lockstep, Drumfire and Voivod. Can you without spoilers spotlight these new mutant hunters here?

Alex Paknadel: They’re all ex-military, and they’ve all been offered the Sentinel upgrade as a result of life-changing injuries sustained in the field. Lawrence has basically been haunting VA hospitals to find prospects, which is about the most ghoulish thing you can imagine. When he finds a suitable candidate, he offers them a nanotech infusion of his own design, which grants them a fairly basic suite of Sentinel-derived abilities, as well as an attack configuration that’s pretty much unique to them.

Our team leader is Lockstep, this ultra-serious ex-marine who frequently comes into conflict with Lawrence over who precisely gets to command the team in the field. He can manipulate his own armor a little bit like a symbiote, essentially treating it as an extension of his own body. He’s a conflicted dude.

Drumfire is the newest member of the team. When we meet her, she’s struggling to adapt to the nanotech treatment because of some fairly nightmarish hallucinations to do with her past, which I won’t spoil. Ability-wise, she can absorb ambient energy and redirect it in an insanely powerful energy blast. Think fire breath that requires her to suck all the heat out of a room.

Voivod is the team’s clown, but he’s also scarily impetuous and headstrong. His thing is that he can explode – and that’s pretty much it. Every time he blows, he gets burned a little more, so he’s covered in blisters and scar tissue.

Sawtooth is Voivod’s bestie on the team, and she’s probably the most open about having no ethical qualms about having the treatment. She’s probably the most fun character to draw because her power set includes an ability to absorb any and all mass into her armor, which means when she “bulks up” into this big hulking mech thing, her armor always resembles the materials she’s absorbed.

Each one of them has a traumatic past we won’t be able to delve into in this mini, but I’d love to delve into these characters’ backstories around the bend.

Byron: How does Lawrence Trask, a mutant himself, fall into this scenario?

Alex Paknadel: Well, we establish right from the jump that Lawrence was resurrected back on Krakoa, and when he comes home, he inherits his father’s place on the board of the investment company that bears Bolivar’s name. As X-fans will no doubt be aware, Lawrence has a limited mutant precognitive ability – albeit one that causes him tremendous pain. He has identified a core group of mutants that in his view will sabotage mutant-human relations after the fall of Krakoa, leading inevitably to a war between species. As a mutant, the idea of Sentinels as mutant killers is anathema to him, but using them as cops to police “bad” mutants who could conceivably create anti-mutant flashpoints seems perfectly logical.

The thing is, he might not be as firmly in control of the program as he thinks he is.

Byron: What’s going on at Graymalkin Prison?

Alex Paknadel: I can’t say too much because these are Gail and David’s secrets to spill, but I can say that a ton of mutants – some a little rough around the edges, others not – are being held there against their will. What’s being attempted there beyond that, who can say? Nothing good.

Byron: I know the awesome Omega Red is on the Sentinel menu first. What other mutants, well known or not, are coming up for our new Sentinels team?

Alex Paknadel: I love Omega Red so much. I actually have an upcoming Sentinels #1 prequel story in X-Men From The Ashes featuring Omega Red, and drawn by the inestimable Phillip Sevy. It’s a real labor of love.

As for who else drops by, the cover solicitation just dropped so I’m safe to say Sebastian Shaw will be the team’s target in Sentinels #2. Beyond that, it’s wait and see. We’ve been given some really fun heavy hitters. I think #3 in particular will turn some heads.

Byron: Talk about the pulse-pounding art of Justin Mason.

Alex Paknadel: I actually wasn’t aware of Justin’s work before we started work on the series. I sent over a list of folks I thought would be appropriate, and they were all in that very techno-noodly realistic Metal Gear vein, but Darren Shan suggested Justin and changed my outlook pretty quickly. Justin’s work is very scratchy and kinetic, which I think balances out the more somber notes in my writing. He just brings this boundless energy to the book, and it looks like nothing else in the line.

I speak to Declan Shalvey very often, and we joke that between Sentinels and Mystique we’re the sort of nasty, squalid corner of the X-line.

Byron: Alex, what other projects in which you are involved can you tell readers about?

Alex Paknadel: Well, at the end of August I have a Flash-focused issue of Task Force VII, the Amazo-focused sister series to Absolute Power over at DC. Task Force VII #5 is written by me and brought to radiant life by Pete Woods, of whom I am rightly in awe. I think readers might find this one quite surprising because we didn’t go in a traditional direction with it. It’s a complete, hopefully emotionally nourishing, story in its own right and I’m blisteringly proud of it.

Over at Oni Press, my Cult of the Lamb miniseries with Troy Little is nearing the middle of its run. The Kickstarter for this did well over half a million dollars, so we’re determined to justify every penny. For anyone who has no idea what I’m talking about, Cult of the Lamb is a videogame featuring a sacrificial lamb resurrected by a mysterious benefactor for the express purpose of butchering the evil leaders of an old religion and starting a new one in their benefactor’s name. It’s tons of fun and there are heaps of beheadings. Fun for the whole family, basically.

Plenty of stuff upcoming, of course – none of which I’m ready or permitted to talk about just yet, haha!

Dynamic Forces would like to thank Alex Paknadel for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions. Sentinels #1 from Marvel Comics is slated to be on sale October 9!

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