Sabretooth (character)

• 1. Introduction

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  Sabretooth, the Marvel Comics villain whose real name is believed to be Victor Creed, makes a point of finding Wolverine on his birthday. Writer Chris Claremont described the ritual in his own words. On every one of his birthdays, he said, Sabretooth managed to find Logan, "no matter where Logan was or what he was doing, and come within an inch of killing him. For no other reason than to remind him that he could."

  That patient cruelty belongs to a mutant with razor-sharp claws, animal senses and a body that heals itself. Yet the comics have never settled where he came from. Was he a murderous child chained in a basement, a government soldier, a clone, or Wolverine's own father? How does a character survive being stabbed, beheaded and devoured, and keep coming back? And why has one feud outlasted nearly every other rivalry in the X-Men's world?

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• 2. The Slasher Years

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  Iron Fist #14, dated August 1977, carried the first appearance of a killer who would outlast the hero he was built to fight. Chris Claremont and John Byrne created him as a recurring enemy for Iron Fist. In at least one duel he hid behind a mask and gloves. He partnered with a criminal called the Constrictor, and the two clashed repeatedly with Iron Fist and Power Man. Once they took on Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Misty Knight and Colleen Wing together, and lost again. Their habit of stalking and killing for pleasure earned him a newspaper nickname, "The Slasher."

  Spider-Man's corner of the Marvel world gave him some of his most humiliating moments. He appeared in The Spectacular Spider-Man. After reuniting with his employer, the Foreigner, who claims to have trained him, he attacked the Black Cat. He nearly bit through her leg, until his teeth met a crowbar hidden under her boot. Spider-Man defeated him, and the Black Cat outmaneuvered him in combat.

  The Mutant Massacre crossover of 1986 moved him into the X-Men's story. Earlier, he had met a thief named Gambit, and the two fought before realizing they were not quite enemies. Gambit later gathered mutant criminals he knew into a group called the Marauders, recruiting for Mister Sinister. Claremont introduced Sabretooth as a minor X-Men villain among them.

  He did not stay minor. Sabretooth was split off from the Marauders and became the personal enemy of a single X-Man, Wolverine. Limited series and one-shots followed, including Sabretooth and Mystique and Sabretooth: In the Red Zone. In the mid-1990s he even had his own ongoing reprint series, Sabretooth Classics. The Marauders had been ordered to massacre the Morlocks, and that order put him in another fight with Wolverine.

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• 3. Family Wounds

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  The clearest account of Victor Creed's childhood begins with a murder over a piece of pie. The victim was his brother, Luther. His father, Zebediah, chained him in the basement like an animal and pulled out his canine teeth, which kept growing back. Victor begged his mother, Victoria, to let him go, and she refused. Years later he gnawed off his own hand to escape and apparently murdered his parents. A later revelation says he killed only his father. He supported his mother financially and visited her often until she died.

  How much of this can be trusted is unclear. Clandestine groups such as Weapon X tampered with his memories, so much of his past is not credible.

  Another account gives him a brother named Saul and a sister named Clara. Saul was a tracker and hunter, and Clara handled animals. Together they helped find the feral Logan for a circus, then helped him escape after Nathaniel Essex experimented on him. Saul came to believe Logan was stealing Clara, and he tipped Essex off. In the chaos, Logan accidentally killed Clara, though her healing factor later revived her. Logan drowned Saul in one of Essex's potions. Victor learned of his brother's death, then captured Logan and returned him to Essex at the Ravencroft Institute. There, Dr. Claudia Russell freed Logan, and Creed and Essex killed her for it.

  The birthday ritual has its own origin in an early tale. Logan was living in a small Blackfoot community when Sabretooth tracked him down in Canada. He seemingly murdered Silver Fox, Logan's lover, after she rejected him. Logan, the story hints, felt little for her. The murder was simply the last straw in a series of grievances against Sabretooth.

  Then there is the question Claremont says he always had an answer to. His plan, he said, was "Father and son." That is why Sabretooth treated Logan as "sloppy seconds" next to his own "original." Later writers contradicted the idea, and genetic tests by S.H.I.E.L.D. confirmed the two were not father and son. Another theory asked whether Dog Logan was Sabretooth. Writer Paul Jenkins had not intended that, though he would not mind another writer trying it. Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine and a one-shot, X-Men Origins: Sabretooth, showed the two were separate people.

  Claremont got his version in X-Men Forever, his non-canonical continuation of his X-Men run. There, Sabretooth is Wolverine's father. He attacks the X-Mansion and is blinded by Storm. Claremont also claimed that the Sabretooth seen in most earlier stories was a weaker clone. He said Mister Sinister made it from spare cells, and that this copy wore the John Byrne costume. The original reappears in the Jim Lee costume.

  Victor did have one child. His son Graydon Creed was born to the shapeshifter Mystique, who was undercover as a spy named Leni Zauber. Graydon grew up to found the Friends of Humanity, an anti-mutant organization. While he ran for president, a time-traveling Mystique from the future assassinated him. Mystique would eventually recruit Sabretooth into a new Brotherhood of Mutants.

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• 4. Mercenary and Teammate

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  In 1968, a mercenary assassin called Sabretooth was working in Saigon. A man known as the White Devil, linked to the disappearance of soldiers and locals, offered him a place among his enforcers. Sabretooth accepted. Around the same time he was recruited into Team X, a top-secret CIA covert unit. His teammates were John Wraith, also called Kestrel, Logan, David North, known as Maverick, and Silver Fox, whose death turned out to be a hoax. On one mission, against the Russian supersoldier Omega Red, he killed a crucial scientist. That killing broke Team X apart.

  Years later, he and Logan met again as friends. Logan had learned of anti-mutant forces inside the government, and the two formed a team of rebel mutants. Victor fell in love with a mutant named Holo. When he grew tired of fighting and wanted to leave with her, she had already decided against it. In the final conflict she was mortally wounded, and Creed blamed Logan for her death.

  His later years show a man barely holding himself together. Suffering from severe bloodlust, he hired a telepath named Birdy to calm him with a power called "the glow." Graydon killed Birdy, and Sabretooth then went on a murderous spree. When he attacked Charles Xavier, the X-Men's leader read his mind. Xavier found that Sabretooth remembers every victim, and took this to mean Creed values human life. Xavier held him in a holographic environment rather than let him roam the grounds, and Sabretooth stayed with the team grudgingly.

  The breaking point came when Caliban kidnapped Jubilee in exchange for him. Sabretooth mauled Caliban's face. Wolverine, back after losing his adamantium to Magneto, stabbed a claw into Sabretooth's brain. The injury freed him from the glow and made him resistant to telepathic detection and control. He nearly killed Psylocke before the X-Men stopped him. Dr. Valerie Cooper then fitted him with an explosive collar and forced him onto the government-sponsored X-Factor team. Creed later admitted he was a sleeper agent, sent to execute any member the government could not control.

  In X-Men (vol. 2) #188, dated August 2006, he fled a group called the Children of the Vault. Two of them, Sangre and Serafina, activated a singularity generator that annihilated most of a town. Serafina shielded a little girl so someone would witness the event. Sabretooth later reached the Xavier Institute seeking sanctuary. Rogue injected him with Nano-Sentinels so he would fight alongside the team. Cannonball saved his life in battle, and Sabretooth repaid him with a warning: "The first time you turn your back, you're dead." Cable then hurled him into the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

  Writer Mike Carey said he would not redeem him. In his words, "The things he's done are not forgivable and he can't be redeemed." Years later, the AXIS storyline briefly proved otherwise. A moral inversion turned Sabretooth into a hero, and Steve Rogers recruited him into the Astonishing Avengers. As the inversion faded, he said he did not intend to become the monster he was. His anchor was a promise he had made to Monet, whom he had developed feelings for.

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• 5. Deaths and Returns

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  During the Marauders' attempt to kill Madelyne Pryor, Wolverine stabbed Sabretooth through the heart. He then used the Scrambler's power to switch off his healing factor, and Sabretooth died. By the time the X-Men attacked the Marauders' headquarters, a clone had replaced him. The real one went back to the sewers to finish off the remaining Morlocks. Caliban, a surviving Morlock, broke his back and left him for dead. His spine took weeks to heal, and he lived on sewer water and passing vermin.

  The Canadian wilderness gave him another near-death. He set traps and played a twisted mind game with a Wendigo while Sasquatch watched. The two fell into the Arctic Sea with Sabretooth biting the Wendigo's neck, and Sasquatch presumed both dead. Sabretooth surfaced, victorious, with the Wendigo's hide.

  His most final-looking end came at Silver Fox's cabin. Wolverine cut off Sabretooth's left arm with the Muramasa Blade. The sword interrupts healing factors, so when Sabretooth tried to reattach the arm, nothing happened. Regaining control, he managed two words between grunts: "Do it." Wolverine beheaded him and left the body and head in the snow.

  That Sabretooth, it turned out, was one of several clones grown by Romulus. The real Sabretooth came out of hiding and started a war between rival gangs in Japan. He threw a party, and Wolverine crashed it and defeated every guest. Wolverine's parting line was "Happy birthday, from your old pal Wolverine."

  He then trained a young villain named Kade Kilgore in tactics, aiming at the Jean Grey School. His advice was to strike at the heart, physical or metaphorical. Kilgore picked Beast as the school's heart. Sabretooth wounded him, then turned on Beast's partner Abigail Brand. With Beast's help she blasted Sabretooth away. He also worked as headmaster of the Hellfire Academy. Elsewhere he was among the villains contracted by the Assassins Guild to target Elektra's allies.

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• 6. The Sabretooth War

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  In House of X and Powers of X, Sabretooth, Mystique and Toad raided a Damage Control base for information. Sabretooth maimed several guards and the Fantastic Four captured him. Cyclops arrived to bring him back to the mutant nation of Krakoa, citing diplomatic immunity. At Project Achilles, a superhuman prison, a trial began. Emma Frost interrupted it with a pardon from the United States Supreme Court. The government had agreed to a general amnesty for mutants on American soil, in anticipation of Krakoa becoming a sovereign nation.

  Krakoa's own justice was harsher. The Quiet Council found Sabretooth guilty of violating the second law and sentenced him to exile deep inside Krakoa. In the pit he met fellow prisoners Nekra, Madison Jeffries, Oya, Melter and Third-Eye. He told them he meant to expose the secret imprisonments to turn public opinion against the Council. Melter then destroyed his body. Sabretooth escaped by boat, was captured by Orchis agents, and was vivisected by Dr. Barrington. He escaped again, offering the other exiles a ride.

  The "Sabretooth War" storyline began after he traveled the Multiverse, killing variants of the X-Men. He recruited "Camo," a Sabretooth from Earth-33441 who can transform himself into others. Other variants joined him: the patriotic "Cap" of Earth-203, the Savage Land native "Savage" of Earth-1912, and the celebrity "Pretty Boy" of Earth-12. They arrived on Krakoa with an army of headless Sabretooth cyborgs, hoping to take revenge on the Quiet Council on Wolverine's birthday. They found the nation empty, since he had not known about the events of the "Fall of X" storyline.

  The violence that followed was extreme. Camo disguised himself as Wolverine to lure Kid Omega, stabbed him in the neck, and the army cannibalized his body. Kid Omega's still-living head let them track Wolverine and put Black Tom and Sage into a trance. Sabretooth killed Daken, who now called himself Fang, and spelled out "HAPPy bIrThDAy" with pieces of the corpse to taunt Wolverine. The headless cyborgs beat Wolverine, and Sabretooth bound him with adamantium tentacles. Then the army massacred many of the Arctic base's inhabitants. The base's defenses forced Sabretooth to flee. His forces abducted Wolverine's daughter, Laura.

  A treasure map in Wolverine's memories led Sabretooth back to Krakoa. He used Kid Omega's telepathic power to relive the Team X days and hypnotize Wolverine into thinking they were on a mission together. The treasure was Forge's Neutralizer, which Sabretooth used to take away Wolverine's powers. Kid Omega and the Exiles fought back. Nekra used the Killing Seed, which grew into a giant carnivorous plant and devoured Sabretooth.

  Inside it, a projection of Cypher played a therapist and forced Sabretooth to live his victims' deaths from their perspectives. It was meant to make him feel remorse. He rejected it, and the memories made him stronger. He broke free, killed Graydon, who had turned himself into a cyborg, and lured Wolverine to the Pit. Wolverine arrived in Forge's Adamantium Armor, which had restored his powers. After a bloody battle, Wolverine killed Sabretooth.

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• 7. Mind and Body

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  Psychologist Suzana E. Flores says Sabretooth "takes the notion of being antisocial to another level: he IS antisocial personality disorder incarnate." She describes him as manipulative, sadistic and violent, and unable to attach emotionally to others. Her conclusion is that a personality like his probably cannot be effectively treated or rehabilitated.

  His body is a patchwork of natural mutation and artificial upgrade. The primary mutant power is an accelerated healing ability that regenerates damaged or destroyed tissue. It gives him virtual immunity against most poisons, drugs, toxins and diseases, along with limited immunity to fatigue. It also slows his aging. His real age is unknown, but he looks like a burly man in his late 20s to mid 30s.

  That healing factor arrived late. It was introduced as a retcon after he became Wolverine's rival. In earlier stories he was far more ordinary. In one fight with Spider-Man, a severe face wound incapacitated him, and he showed no accelerated healing. When he returned, those prominent wounds reopened when he was hit in the face.

  His senses are comparable to those of some animals. He sees objects with great clarity at long distances, and sees nearly as well in almost complete darkness. It is also said he can see infrared and ultraviolet light. His strength originally let him crush an iron barbell with ease. It has been artificially enhanced at least twice, first by his son Graydon, then by the latest Weapon X program. His stamina lets him push at peak capacity for several days. He can pounce like a hunting big cat, and most humans cannot react to his leap before being hit.

  Training came from several organizations: the CIA, Department H's Weapon X program, the Foreigner and Hydra. He is an excellent fighter with and without weapons and an expert tracker. He is also quite intelligent, as shown by his repeated escapes from the highest levels of incarceration without help. He is skilled at psychological manipulation and speaks fluent German.

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• 8. On Screen

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  In May 2008, Wizard magazine ranked Sabretooth number 193 of the 200 best comic book characters of all time. A year later, IGN placed him 44th on its list of the greatest comic book villains. Entertainment Weekly ranked him 66th in a 2014 list of every X-Man, and Comic Book Resources put him 21st among the strongest characters of the Age of Apocalypse world in 2018.

  On television, Don Francks voiced him in X-Men: The Animated Series. That version, also called Graydon Creed Sr., was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and became a recurring enemy and reluctant ally of Wolverine. In X-Men: Evolution, voiced by Michael Donovan, he joins Magneto's Acolytes. Peter Lurie voiced him in Wolverine and the X-Men, as a Weapon X member who once partnered with Wolverine. Francks also voiced him in X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes. He is the final boss of the game Wolverine, and was added as downloadable content to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance.

  Film changed his family tree. Tyler Mane played him in X-Men in 2000, as a member of Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants. At the Statue of Liberty he fights Wolverine until Cyclops defeats him. In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Liev Schreiber plays Victor Creed, with Michael-James Olsen as the child. This Creed is Wolverine's half-brother through their father, Thomas Logan. The two fight together in the American Civil War, World War I, World War II and Vietnam. Creed grows bloodthirsty, and Wolverine leaves William Stryker's Team X. When Stryker denies Creed adamantium, the brothers still unite to defeat Weapon XI. Mane returned for Deadpool & Wolverine, in which the Time Variance Authority sent Sabretooth to the Void, where he became an enforcer for Cassandra Nova.

  The comics have also imagined him many other ways. In 5 Ronin, he is a masked ronin and Wolverine's brother. In Age of Apocalypse, he is an X-Man and the adoptive father of Blink. In Earth X, he belongs to the Bear Clan, humans the Celestials altered into bestial forms. In the Ultimate Marvel universe, he is a Weapon X soldier with adamantium claws and teeth. In Age of X, he is called Weapon X and is killed by the Hulk.

  One appearance never happened. Sabretooth was originally meant to appear in the film Logan, but he was removed from the final screenplay.

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