In preparation for his hostile takeover of Stark Unlimited, anti-mutant industrialist Feilong embedded himself in the company and secretly funneled its resources in the construction of Sentinels based on the technology of the Iron Man Armor, taking advantage of Tony Stark's recent divestment from the company. Once Feilong publicly took control of the company, Iron Man investigated his movements and found out the first Stark Sentinel in the final process of assembly. Feilong had the robot come online to chase off Stark and herald his plans for mutantkind.^[1]

A Stark Sentinel was sent out to New York City to help with a building fire, yet attacked a firefighter when it identified them as a mutant. The X-Men intervened, and fought the Sentinel, but they were doing ineffectual damage to the machine. Then, with Magik's rage and anger, the Stark Sentinel was defeated by violently cutting it into pieces with the use of her stepping disks as blades. The remains of the machine was then crumbled with harsh psionic power of Jean Grey.^[2]