WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home, now playing in theaters.
Spider-Man: No Way Home opens a lot of doors for Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and potentially just as many for whatever Sony is going to do with the character. In the MCU's case, however, it also definitely shuts some doors for Spidey, forcing him into a much different direction than before. Unfortunately, this might also spell doom for the strongest Avenger in the comics.
The world forgetting Peter Parker's existence in No Way Home in many ways makes the central premise behind The Sentry redundant. Given how controversial The Sentry already was, his potential for being introduced into the MCU is weakened even further by this, making the Golden Guardian of Good a Johnny-Come-Lately next to the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
How the World Forgets Peter Parker in No Way Home
No Way Home ends with Dr. Strange performing a spell that, to protect Peter's identity from multiversal invaders, removes any knowledge of who Peter is. This means that his friends, former allies and everyone in between completely forget about him to a disturbing degree. The boy genius, who once attended a specialty school for particularly intelligent kids, now has to study for a GED because there's no record of his having gone to high school.
When he's mourning his Aunt May at her gravesite, Happy Hogan doesn't even recognize the young man. This means that his entire history in the MCU has been erased from the consciousness of others, including his relationship with Iron Man and the Avengers. Thus, if there's video footage of Tony Stark's funeral, many may now be wondering who "that kid" is mourning with all of the heroes. It also erases Peter as one of the "blipped" who was collectively mourned after Thanos snapped them away. This changes everything about his story, and it also renders another Avenger's story redundant.
Why The Sentry Is Redundant After No Way Home
The Sentry was a character introduced to the Marvel Universe in the early 2000s, and his premise quickly made him controversial. Part of an elaborate hoax about a rejected character that Stan Lee supposedly created before the Fantastic Four, this idea was used to retroactively add The Sentry into the history of the Marvel Universe. This powerful golden hero, who was in many ways Marvel's answer to Superman, DC's Captain Marvel/Shazam as well as his expy, Miracleman/Marvelman, was supposedly once a key Marvel hero with relationships to all of the other major heroes. Given the interdimensional threat of his other the Void, The Sentry has everyone forget about his existence, trapping himself in his mortal body Bob Reynolds.
This is far too close to what's happened to Peter Parker in No Way Home for the MCU to ever introduce The Sentry. After all, his being forgotten is a central part of character and story, but if Spider-Man, a much more well-known and popular character, already did it in his most profitable movie yet, The Sentry will be nothing more than a cheap knockoff. That's not even acknowledging the fact that he in many ways is a knockoff of DC characters, one whom Marvel fans never took to quite as much as editorial did. This makes it very difficult to even envision a way in which Marvel can organically introduce the character in the movies without retreading what might be their and Sony's finest hour.
No Way Home feels like both the start of something new and a cinematic celebration of the Webslinger, but sadly for The Sentry, it stops his chances of flying onto the big screen dead in their tracks. Though he may have the cosmic power of a million exploding suns, The Sentry's story, if brought to the MCU, may just amount to a creative dud.
To see the MCU forget Spider-Man, Spider-Man: No Way Home is now playing in theaters.