The Sentry, Marvel’s version of Superman, has made a similar sacrifice to Spider-Man, making everyone forget who he was and wiping their memories of him from existence. However, unlike Spider-Man, who made everyone forget about Peter Parker in both the pages of Marvel Comics and the MCU, Sentry made everyone, including himself, forget his superhero side. Moreover, the Sentry did so multiple times to block his dark side from ever returning.
Sentry is Marvel’s take on Superman, as he’s the most powerful hero in the universe. Sentry is powered by a million exploding suns, as he gained his near-immeasurable powers after breaking into a science lab as a junkie and drinking an unstable super-soldier serum. However, while Sentry gained amazing abilities such as super-strength, energy manipulation, X-Ray vision, and many other powers, becoming a superhero came with a dark twist. Sentry’s darker side, the Void, was trapped inside of him and, when broken free, turned the hero into a destructive force of nature hellbent on destroying the universe.
In his original series for Marvel Comics, Marvel’s Superman isn’t introduced as an all-powerful hero. Instead, Bob Reynolds is an ordinary man with a seemingly normal life with no awareness of his powers. However, Reynolds soon remembers a history of fighting alongside the Avengers, including helping Spider-Man win a Pulitzer Prize for taking a photo of the elusive hero, working with the Hulk to control his anger, and his close friendship with Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four. But nobody seems to remember him. So why did he and the world forget his heroic persona? Reynolds soon learns about the Void, his dark side that tried to destroy the Earth, initially teaming up with Doctor Strange to help wipe everyone’s memory of him. However, with the same thing happening again as he remembers his past, Sentry agrees to wipe the entire world’s memory again, his own included, of the Sentry, to stop the Void from emerging.
Sentry’s sacrifice is not dissimilar from the one Spider-Man made during the events in One Moment in Time, where Peter Parker gets Doctor Strange to make everyone forget he’s Spider-Man after his secret identity is revealed to the public. The idea was expanded upon in Spider-Man: No Way Home, where Spider-Man protected the Multiverse by having Doctor Strange cast a spell so that nobody remembered him – including MJ and his best friend, Ned. However, Sentry’s sacrifice is much more heartbreaking as he not only made the world (and himself) forget his powers to hide his dark side but made the decision to wipe everyone’s memory of him twice.
Spider-Man made a great sacrifice to make everyone forget who he was to protect the Earth. But, he could still live his life with his memories intact. However, Marvel’s Superman, Sentry, made the same sacrifice first, but in a much darker way. His sacrifice made him forget about his own storied history while saving the planet from the Void. When he started to remember, he made the same sacrifice again, calling on Strange to wipe the world’s memory of its greatest hero. While Sentry would eventually return, his sacrifice compared to Spider-Man is much greater, as he threw away fame, powers, and his life multiple times to make sure the Void never re-emerged. It doesn’t get more significant than that.
