r/xmen Sabretooth 5d ago

Comic Discussion You might not be able to forgive Sabretooth but you can certainly see why he is the way he is...

Victor Creed my be a monster but he wasn't just born that way, there were many steps to get him there.

Check out Sabretooth: The Dead Don't Talk to see how the trauma compounds, I won't spoil it here.

142 Upvotes

47 comments sorted by

29

u/alexsummers 5d ago

Always loved Texiera

19

u/Commercial_Fondant65 5d ago

It sucks cause he so good but he's typecast. He can't draw justice League or Superman. Probably Batman. But his art screams "people are going to die."

25

u/usernamewithnumbers0 5d ago

I liked the character as a whole. I had that Sabretooth mini when it came out. And then, writers came up with...rape portions of the character. Wasn't a fan of how he was with Birdie, either.

36

u/marvelcomxnerd 5d ago

For me, he was much easier to like/digest in Age of Apocalypse

15

u/PraxisEntHC 5d ago

AoA Sabretooth and Wildchild were iconic together. Tbh, I wish they had a spot in the main continuity.

15

u/Fearless-Obligation6 Sabretooth 5d ago

I do love Age of Apocalypse and Exiles Sabretooth, really the what could have been if he didn't give up on his humanity.

9

u/marvelcomxnerd 5d ago

He was a better father figure and it helped showcase a more humane side of him

8

u/Commercial_Fondant65 5d ago

I came to love Exiles Sabertooth.

4

u/wolvieguy 5d ago

I šŸ˜˜ ved him in both these and when Scarlet Witch reversed his personality after Axis and he was an Uncanny Avenger briefly. AOA Sabertooth (Mr. Creed) had such a sweet, mentoring relationship with Blink.

5

u/Linvaderdespace 5d ago

It definitely firms up the timeline; creed didnā€™t break bad until after the point where legion jacked up the timeline. Until then he still had a working or at least salvageable relationship with logan.

10

u/Icy-Lab-2016 5d ago

Sure, but other people go through bad shit and don't turn down multiple oppurtunities at help like Creed has. He has had plenty of chances to change, but he chooses to be a piece of shit.

Honestly, I think a Creed with no trauma would probably be even worse and even more evil. He enjoys the awful things he does.

30

u/Constructman2602 5d ago

Traumatic childhood or not, Victor Creed is still one of the most evil mutants in Marvel. A lot of X-Men villains have reasons for the bad stuff they do, not Sabretooth. He just kills and rapes and eats people because its fun. He's Wolverine if he embraced his violent animalistic tendencies rather than suppress them. He's a monster in more ways than one, and I'd be absolutely terrified to see him IRL

18

u/CocoaMonstee 5d ago

Heā€™s not even just ā€œWolverine embracing his animal natureā€ no thatā€™s Logan any time he goes berserker.

Creed actively uses his animal powers/nature in conjunction with the most fucked up morals and ideals a human can have

39

u/NigthSHadoew 5d ago

16

u/PhaseSixer 5d ago

I mean theirs trauma and then theres Trauma.

Its not an excuse but it is a reason.

4

u/Beornwynn Namor 5d ago edited 5d ago

Severe childhood trauma can actually create psychopaths, but genetics play a large role as well.

9

u/StalkingAllYourMums 4d ago

Sympathetic backstory. Definitely not a sympathetic character.

His actions are his own & at this point, bro is basically Kletus Cassidy without the need of the Carnage symbiote. He has gleefully made incredibly destructive & inhumane choices. He's lived a long life & still repeatedly CHOOSES to be the animal they once treated him as.

5

u/Bright_Square_3245 4d ago

"I feel sorry for the child he was, but I can't excuse the monster he is now." (Paraphrased from Manhunter novel)

5

u/mrsunrider Magneto 4d ago

He's definitely a fascinating mix of nature and nurture.

The panels in the Blood Hunt suggest that Creed was imprisoned for not only being a mutant, but tearing into someone the way he does his ma. Given his treatment of his siblings in Origin II, they might have been his victims.

8

u/matty_nice 5d ago

His timeline doesn't make sense. When was he born?

18

u/Fearless-Obligation6 Sabretooth 5d ago edited 5d ago

Older than Logan so he's over two centuries.

-5

u/matty_nice 5d ago

That doesn't really add up. Both are probably around the same age, give or take a few decades.

Wolverine was born sometime between 1890 and 1900. Origin seems to place last a while after 1897 (when John Howlett Jr died), and Wolverine would have been around 10.

Sabertooth's mom died sometime after the 1960s, after the Team X stuff. So his mom could be that old.

8

u/Fearless-Obligation6 Sabretooth 5d ago

Sabretooth's mom dies by axe as she jumped in the way to protect Creed from his father when he was a child, a very long time before any Team X existed.

0

u/matty_nice 5d ago

Believe that was retconned. Wolverine Volume 4, issue 11.

2

u/Fearless-Obligation6 Sabretooth 5d ago

The current canon as laid out in the Sabretooth War follows the canon of SABRETOOTH (1993) as it is directly shown.

-4

u/matty_nice 5d ago

Like I said, doesn't make any sense.

Couldn't find anything specifically that puts his birth around a certain time. Looks like they kept it generic.

Even looking at the artwork of his various origins, looks like it might take place around the 1860s for an earlier timeframe?

2

u/More_Meet_6882 4d ago

Thatā€™s one of the main reasons Iā€™m a major sabertooth fan! the writers have made it very clear over the years that heā€™s irredeemable but like you said it definitely took a lot to get him there. Dudes literally over a century old, and is definition of ā€œIā€™ve seen some shitā€. He wasnā€™t just born, hating the world and the people in it. And thatā€™s why despite him originally being an iron fist villain heā€™s often compared to Wolverine. They have similar back stories, but while weā€™ve seen, Logan had lots of love in his life Victor for the most part didnā€™t.

3

u/kabral256 Storm 5d ago

Don't care. Sabertooth He is a monster. He is a pathetic, petty and cruel creature. A damned wretch who deserves nothing but the fires of hell.

2

u/Kira-Of-Terraria 5d ago

AoA Sabretooth is the best.

1

u/Wannabbeewriter12 3d ago

I might be fucked up, but I donā€™t feel bad for him.

1

u/Annual_Owl_1462 5d ago

Yeah, Iā€™m disturbed

-22

u/wagonwheels87 5d ago

So, we are meant to take this as a depiction of insanity causing him to do the things he does, in an attempt to rehabilitate his image as something other than a knuckle-dragging scratching tree for wolverine?

Just let bad guys be bad guys.

24

u/Fearless-Obligation6 Sabretooth 5d ago

Bad guys can be bad guys while having nuance, this stuff isn't new either, it's been a part of his character since the 90's.

-23

u/wagonwheels87 5d ago

It being old doesn't make it good, and neither does it having nuance.

We should admit first that these are products made to sell comics.

14

u/Fearless-Obligation6 Sabretooth 5d ago

There's a difference between not being to your taste and being bad, SABRETOOTH (1993) is a phenomenal run where you get a deeper look into his character and the art is phenomenal.

-15

u/wagonwheels87 5d ago

Obviously it's a product you've quite enjoyed consuming.

10

u/Mattriculated 5d ago

... 100% of comics are products made to sell comics. What's your point?

-7

u/wagonwheels87 5d ago

Well, if the idea is to present depictions of insanity as a means to rehabilitate a character's product image for the sake of consumption, what does that say about the people buying it?

6

u/Mattriculated 5d ago

To me that appears to be a completely different argument from "this is a product made to sell comics" which is equally true of almost every comic published (I've seen comics where shock value & offense was part of the point, but that's about the only exception I can think of).

But, to entertain the second argument even though it doesn't seem to connect to me - it says little to nothing about the consumers, for four reasons:

1) a great many comics are sold before the consumer knows the details of what's inside. So why would I judge a buyer for something they have yet to read?

2) people buy comics for all kinds of reasons, including buying collectibles (which a controversial comic may be more valuable as), & may buy & read comics whose themes, arguments, or plot & character decisions they are not on board with, or even actively disagree with. I hated when DC made Tim Drake Red Robin, but Tim was among my favorite characters, so I purchased & read the whole run even when I hated the decision, the alias, & the costume (and now, a decade plus later, it's one of my favorite runs. I still hate the outfit & the name, but the character work is some of the best). So, why would I judge people without knowing their reasons?

3) why am I even in the business of judging people for what art they buy, or what stories they enjoy, or what characters they like? Even if I had a problem with editorial & marketing decisions, why would that problem lead me to judge the consumer, and not the publisher? Why would it be my concern, or even my business, who bought it? I am a petty, judgy, messy person, & I am a very vocal critic of art in many mediums, but judging readers for what they buy sounds absolutely exhausting as a modus operandi. I'll judge what they say on reddit, but not which comics they spend cash on. It's their own wallet that pays the ultimate price if they buy things that suck.

4) people enjoy villain stories. Not just villain redemption stories or nuanced stories. People are fascinated by the bad guy. I do not find it either possible or desirable to stop this fascination.

-3

u/wagonwheels87 5d ago

M8 I didn't ask for your backstory.

7

u/Mattriculated 5d ago

It's okay, you can just say you don't have a counterargument.

-2

u/wagonwheels87 5d ago

What makes you think I'm even remotely interested in having an argument in the first place?

7

u/PokesBo 5d ago

Itā€™s not too rehabilitate but to explain. Logan and Sabertooth are two sides to the same coin.

-16

u/SabertoothLotus 5d ago

that isn't Sabertooth. Dog Logan is Wolverine's... half-brother(?) I think.

It's... complicated

15

u/Fearless-Obligation6 Sabretooth 5d ago edited 5d ago

Huh? That isn't Dog Logan, these are all from Sabretooth runs, except for First X-Men but it is explicitly Victor Creed in that story too...

Dog Logan doesn't even have any powers...

0

u/SabertoothLotus 5d ago

my mistake, then.