This isn't aimed at anyone in particular, but I've seen this discussed here and there throughout Ewing's run, and it's always a little grating when I see misinformation floating around.
Eddie neglecting Dylan wasn't a Ewing retcon. That's been part of their dynamic since the Cates run.
Eddie would run off to fo Venom things, and pawn Dylan off on someone else (The Maker, The Osborns) or lock him in a bunker to be retrieved later (like in War of the Realms).
"Eddie neglecting Dylan to do King in Black stuff" was a conflict that Cates very clearly set up in Venom #200. Ewing was just continuing on from there.
Thinking of Donny Cates and the death of Sentry (long post with loads of rambles)
This morning I woke up wanting to check Sentry's cameo in Doctor Strange #382-385 written by Donny Cates, prompted by a couple of comments about him that Jenkins made on Reddit.
Donny Cates is the one who brought Sentry back after the Death Seed / Apocalypse thing, and even if the explanation is a bit vague it can work with both Sentry (he respawns because yes) and Stephen (magic shenanigans).
I have my big issues about Stephen's characterisation here because while it makes perfect sense that he found and rescued Bob, gave him a mental haven to stay and somehow locked the Void in his basement (I'm still not over this part tho, Donny EXPLAIN), the way he bosses Bob around and brags about "fixing" him is rather ooc and bothers me quite a lot. I get it, he's angry beyond reason and grieving, and it's not the first time he tried to control the Sentry, but still this is not right and unfair. Cates' characterisation of Stephen is not the best in general imo. Why did he try to make Zelma and Stephen a thing, I'll never get it.
Bob has all the rights to be angry at Stephen, and I actually really like how Bob/Sentry is written here and for it to be his first return in years, Bob-wise I like these issues more than Lemire's work in the 2018 solo run.
Another gripe I have though (with the 2018 run), is that here Bob states "Don't ever contact me again, just leave me alone." But in Lemire's run we find out the mind Confluctor has been built by Tony Stark AND Stephen, who created the Sentry's pocket dimension (probably with similar spells he used before to contain the Void in the Sanctum and make Bob a home in his mind). That solo is filled with stuff that don't really take continuity in account and has zero time to explain stuff.
I have more complaints about Lemire's 2018 run than Cates' Sentry in Dr.Strange tbh, that solo was too short, too rushed, disconnected from a lot of other stuff and didn't really deepen the character enough. Merged Sentry has no buildup and should've been a temporary gimmick instead of staying. But at least the Annihilation Scourge comic that comes after is cool.
In the Annihilation Scourge comic Sentry/Void (without Bob) keeps the gold suit appearence until the end, then he merges and is red again. But idk how successful Scourge was and if anyone at Marvel ever thought of picking things from there and give Sentry something during that year between Scourge and KiB. There's a hole no one cared fo fill and Cates definitely wasn't updated on that, he just used gold Sentry because that's the character he likes and took him from when he last wrote him.
Sentry fans often blame Cates only for the demise of Sentry as if he did it with malicious intent, but he is perfectly aware the Sentry cannot die. I really don't know if he set his return only to have Knull kill him in a power trip about his OC, but given that Jenkins said Cates has always been enthusiastic about Sentry, I wondered if there was the idea that even if mr.K who smiles ripped him apart he would've been back anyway, sooner or later, and Cates meant that to be just a shock-value scene... but something else happened at Marvel HQ and someone else decided it wasn't worth to keep Bob around.
After KiB, the one who wrote "I forgot Sentry can't die" was actually Jason Aaron, who was writing the storyline of Valkyrie bringing Bob's soul to Valhalla. There was also an issue with the Thunderbolts collecting the two halves of Sentry's body, despite he got ripped to a lot of pieces in space, not just two. Okay I guess. Still, I think Sentry's soul going to Valhalla was a nice storyline and I honestly liked it. Sure Sentry "cannot die", but having his soul separated from his body could have been an interesting plot for a follow up book, exploring the more ethereal side of his powers. He has shown suicidal desires for a while and has always tried his best to somewhat erase himself from existence due to his excessive power, can Valhalla host a soul like his? How long can it last before he respawns in life?
Marvel didn't care about answering these questions and only took as valid that Knull killed him in one cameo, and put the pin on that event, never considering his soul anymore nor taking in account that Sentry just can't die. MacKay tried to do something with Strange (2022) by remembering that his body was on Earth, but the 2024 run should've just had Bob coming back, none of that run makes ANY sense and now we have the hot potato of another character who got his powers but is still irrelevant to the marvel universe anyway.
All of this just to say, it's easy to blame single authors for a poor narrative choice, but oftentimes editors are the ones who should keep an eye on continuity and they don't, or even worse push writers to take those poor choices. I wouldn't be surprised if Cates one day comes up and says "yeah no I made Knull kill Sentry because I knew he would've been back anyway" and it was editors at Marvel who never wanted Sentry back. With those few pages in Doctor Strange, I must admit I would be interested in more Sentry written by Cates.
*if anyone has any more infos on Cates saying/writing something about Sentry's death please let me know!
I'm still mad about this. The whole Death of the Inhumans event seems like such a needless and crude exercise in stomping on all the fun toys so no one can play with them. The MCU can use the X-Men now so we don't need to focus on the inhumans anymore! Lets get rid of their cool interplanetary society and kill off all the minor characters for no real reason! There's certainly no interesting stories that can be told by having these characters in the rather underutilized Marvel Cosmic part of the setting, so lets just have some fun turning them into paste so no one will ever get to use them in the future! Readers love it when we kill all the minor characters to hype up a shitty villain that never gets used again, right?
