The Sentinel robot Master Mold is tasked by its creator to build an army that would help control mutants.
From One To Many
When noted anthropologist Dr. Bolivar Trask discovers that his children are mutants, he studies the rapidly increasing emergence of mutants in the world. Convinced that mutants would eventually dominate mankind, Trask uses his considerable fortune to create a 30' tall prototype robot he dubs the Master Mold, designed to automate production of the first wave of Mark I Sentinels—10' tall humanoid robots equipped with a variety of weapons that were designed to protect mankind from mutants. He programs them to preserve the DNA of the Trask line, permitting his descendants control over them.
Supreme Sentinel
Master Mold is equipped with a sturdy hull. It can self-repair itself, change its size, and create other sentinels from its own body. Master Mold possesses missiles as well as the ability to fire concussive blasts. Master Mold also contains mutant-detection technology.
Formidable Foes
Master Mold faces many formidable foes including Bruce Banner, AKA the Hulk, mutants Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, and James Howlett/Logan, AKA Wolverine. He goes up against the Secret Avengers and suffers damage after encountering the X-Men. Though self-repairing, Master Mold often bounces back.
Allies Against Mutants
Aside from his maker and his maker’s descendants, Master Mold has few allies. Government scientist Dr. Steven Lang shares Master Mold’s programmed anti-mutant sentiment and uploads his consciousness to the robot, and could be considered an ally, until Master Mold realizes that Lang’s interference weakened it.
A History of Hunting Mutants
When the Sentinels came under control of the United States Project Armageddon, a federal study of mutants led by Steven Lang—a fanatical mutant hater. He gains funding from the Hellfire Club, though they didn’t know he wanted to kill all mutants. Lang constructed a new series of Mark III Sentinels purposefully designed to be less intelligent than their predecessors to prevent rebellion, and thus a new Master Mold that could project its consciousness into the smallest mechanical parts and create duplicates of itself. He sent the Sentinels to capture members of the X-Men. When their teammates rescued them, they were faced with Lang’s X-Sentinels, robotic duplicates of the original X-Men. X-Man Wolverine sensed their true nature with his enhanced senses, and the X-Sentinels were soon destroyed. Lang was injured in a resulting explosion and copied his brain engrams into his Master Mold, which then left to construct a new base on an orbiting asteroid. This Master Mold came to believe it was Lang and sought revenge on the X-Men. Capturing Iceman and Angel, the robot encountered the Hulk, who crippled it, forcing it to self-destruct its base. The Master Mold tumbled in a decaying orbit until finally falling to Earth where it crash-landed, inactive, into the Bering Strait near Alaska.
When the Lang Master Mold reactivated, and detected Cyclops, it renewed its mission to destroy the X-Men. Rebuilding itself, the Master Mold was seemingly destroyed after Cyclops tricked it into causing an explosion. Its core unit survived, and after it was inadvertently reactivated it rebuilt itself once more. It sought to eliminate the powerful young mutant Franklin Richards, but was opposed by Power Pack and seemingly destroyed in an explosion.
After the Lang Master Mold rebuilt itself once more, it realized that Lang’s consciousness was a weakness and so constructed a robotic assistant named Conscience into which it downloaded the creative and emotional sides of Lang’s mind. The Master Mold then mentally enslaved geneticist Moira MacTaggert and compelled her to weaponize a virus to kill all mutants, but this “Retribution virus” would also kill 92.4% of all humans. Conscience was disturbed by the thought of killing normal humans and joined with Cyclops, former X-Man Sean Cassidy, AKA Banshee, and MacTaggert’s bodyguard Callisto to oppose the Master Mold. MacTaggert implemented a cure of the virus, while the Master Mold was demolished by Banshee’s sonic powers. Conscience then sacrificed itself to destroy the Master Mold’s ship.
The advanced Sentinel Nimrod discovered the Master Mold’s core unit, its programming usurped control of Nimrod’s body and rebuilt itself. Seeking once more to destroy mutants by destroying all mankind, the Master Mold fought the X-Men, who sought to lure the Master Mold into the pan-dimensional Siege Perilous portal. As the Master Mold resisted, Nimrod’s resurfaced intelligence contended that the Master Mold was now itself a mutant and urged it to fulfill its prime directive, which it did by allowing itself to be pulled into the portal. Though the passage through the Siege Perilous saw the merged Master/Mold/Nimrod reborn as Bastion, who founded the government-sponsored Operation: Zero Tolerance anti-mutant organization.
After Onslaught’s assault, Bation’s OZT launched an attack on mutants utilizing Prime Sentinels (Sentinel programming-directed human cyborg sleeper agents), and accessed some of his previous Sentinel powers. Ultimately defeated by the X-Men, Bastion tapped into Nimrod and Master Mold’s powers, broke free from government custody and sought out Rose Gilberti. When Rose was killed in crossfire in a failed recapture of Bastion, any fragment of humanity perished within him, and he bonded with the newer Master Mold used to create the Prime Sentinels, transforming into a Nimrod-esque form. The reformed Bastion was defeated when X-51/Aaron Stack, AKA Machine Man, blew up Bastion’s base.
After Sentinels were used against the time-traveling villain Kang, Cassandra Nova uncovered a years-old shadow U.S. Government program that had Trask create a Master Mold in the Ecuadorian jungle that was precision-engineered to adapt to its environment and programmed to build “Wild” Sentinels using any and all technology within its test radius. Nova took Trask’s last living relative, Albuquerque dentist Donald Trask III, to the Master Mold facility where she absorbed his DNA and, now recognized as a Trask, ordered two Wild Mega-Sentinels to decimate the 16 million mutants on the island nation of Genosha. Injecting herself with Nano-Sentinels, Cassandra subsequently confronted the X-Men and, after switching minds with her brother, had him shoot her physical body, exposing the X-Men to the Nano-Sentinels in her blood. The Nano-Sentinels began dismantling the X-Men’s immune structures until they were destroyed by disguised Max Eisenhardt, AKA Magneto, impersonator Kuan-Yin Xorn, AKA Xorn.
