Issue(s): Sabretooth #1, Sabretooth #2, Sabretooth #3, Sabretooth #4
Cover Date: Aug-Nov 93
Title: Death Hunt: "Home is the hunter" / "A kiss before dying" / "City of light, city of night!" / "Sins of the fathers!"
Credits:
Larry Hama - Writer
Mark Texeira - Penciler
Mark Texeira / Mark Texeira & Michael Bair / Mark Texeira & Steve Biasi - Inker
Bob Harras - Editor

Review/plot:
Michael Bair gets an "art assist" credit on issue #2 and Steve Biasi does "backgrounds" on issue #4. Mark Texeira is otherwise listed as "artist".

If Venom can get a mini-series, why not Sabretooth?

Sabretooth is dropped off at his mansion in Vancouver by Ferro, aka Psi-Borg.

He's immediately attacked by an infestation of ninjas.

He's helped out by his assistant, Birdy.

When the ninjas are dealt with and Sabretooth goes inside his mansion, he says that he's been inside a plant pod (i.e., Ferro when he turned into a tree), and he notes that Silverfox's portrait should be changed to reflect that fact that she was a Hydra overlord.

Birdy then uses her mutant power (telepathy, not abnormally long legs) to sooth Sabretooth's mind. This is apparently a regular occurrence, something that helps Sabretooth keep (relatively) sane. Ferro has unscrambled some memories for Sabretooth, giving Birdy new material to work with. We see images of Sabretooth as a young boy. He's kept in manacles and a muzzle. We later see more images where his mother tries to prevent the father from using pliers to pull out his teeth, and the mother gets bitten by young Sabretooth.

Birdy isn't happy with her arrangement, so after Sabretooth goes to sleep we see her disable the mansion's security system and a group of mercenaries come in and disable Sabretooth.

Sabretooth is brought to a compound where a hilariously named Dr. Mabuse implants a bomb in him. Then someone in an exoskeleton calling himself Tribune...

...tells Sabretooth that he wants him to perform a mission: the assassination of Mystique.

When Sabretooth is released, instead of going for Mystique he hunts down Birdy. But he doesn't kill her, he just threatens her and forces her to work for him again. He then tracks Mystique to Paris.

Note that this is what he thinks is his first meeting with her, but he finds her scent familiar.

Her scent and the shapes she chooses to transform into continue to trigger her memories, and she's able to escape to her dinner date, who turns out to be Wolverine.

After a brief fight they agree to a ceasefire, and Mystique reveals that she used to pose as an agent during the Cold War named Leni Zauber that Sabretooth worked with. During that conversation Mystique reveals that her powers give her the ability to revitalize her body cells.

I don't really like this. Mystique's powers should be distinct from, say, Apocalypse's. She has the ability to change her appearance, but as far as i've ever seen, she can't, like, turn her arm into a giant hammer, and she shouldn't be able to make herself immortal.

Also during these conversations, Wolverine keeps kind of bursting out, like he wants to continue the fight. I have a feeling that Larry Hama intended for this to be a bit of comedy, but it's really not the sort of thing that is up Mark Texeira's alley.

Mystique's story doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not he should assassinate her now, and he does have the bomb in him, but she drops a bomb of her own, revealing that they've had a son together.

The son is said to not be a mutant...

...and Wolverine recognizes him.

Mystique also says that it's their son that "hired" Sabretooth to kill her. Sabretooth leaves with Birdy to return to Tribune, tracking him to a "Gee Cee Group of Investment Bankers" in New York. They have to fight more random ninjas along the way...

...and then he catches up with Dr. Mabuse and forces him to take out the bomb. And then he catches Tribune, who is indeed Graydon Creed.

Sabretooth has Birdy read his mind and we see that Graydon hates mutants because his parents were basically awful.

Graydon manages to kill Birdy.

Sabretooth then leaves, bizarrely not killing Graydon.

Whatever you think of Texeira's art - i think it's a bit scratchier than usual - it's kind of a letdown after the painted covers. Hama and Texeira worked together fairly well before, but here i feel like Texeira's interior art makes the story feel darker and more surreal than it's meant to be. Hama seems to be inserting some humor - the ridiculous amount of ninjas that pop up, Wolverine's inability to restrain himself - but Texeira plays it all too straight (i could see Marc Silvestri doing those scenes 'right'). As for the revelations here, i've never thought Graydon Creed was all that interesting, and the idea that he's Sabretooth and Mystique's son is like nothing special either. I'm still hung up on wanting Wolverine to be Sabretooth's son, so any other revelation isn't going to feel right to me, i guess. Beyond that, the story works fairly well. Sabretooth makes a decent protagonist for a mini-series. Hama doesn't try to redeem him beyond showing that he was abused as a child, so we've got pretty much a straight villain as the protagonist; his abuse of Birdy, for example, isn't sugarcoated. I think it's cliched and out of character for Sabretooth to not kill Graydon at the end, though.

Beyond that (again, ignoring the specifics of the revelations) it's basically a Wolverine-style story, better than your average Marvel Comics Presents Wolverine story but nothing great.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - revelation that Graydon Creed is the son of Sabretooth and Mystique

Chronological Placement Considerations: This seems to be written to take place soon after Wolverine #60-65, with Ferro appearing in the beginning to give Sabretooth a ride home from that encounter, and with Sabretooth not having been to his home to scratch out the Silverfox portrait since then, and the fact that he's supposed to have been in a "plant pod". This would therefore have to take place before Uncanny X-Men #289-290 when Mystique seemingly went crazy and Forge took her away to take care of her (until Uncanny X-Men #301-303). Sabretooth is meant to be looking for a telepath to replace Birdy after this, culminating in X-Men Unlimited #3, but his appearances in Battletide #1-4 and Darkhold #3-4 are due to forces beyond his control, so it's ok for him to be there. This placement does put it before Graydon Creed's first published appearance, but that shouldn't be a problem (and which i'll note that Wolverine isn't around for that to say, "Hey, that's Sabretooth's kid!").

I should note that the MCP place this series much later, after Uncanny X-Men #301-303. One argument in favor of that is that Birdy asks if Mystique isn't "now one of the X-Men", which might suggest placement some time after Uncanny X-Men #289-290. But Birdy could just be wrong (Sabretooth responds, "I can't keep track o' that pack o' goody-two-shoes"). There's also something odd where in issue #1 Ferro has driven Sabretooth from Seattle to his mansion in Vancouver. But in issue #2 Graydon Creed talks like Sabretooth's mansion is in Seattle. And further, the confrontation with Ferro in Wolverine #64 took place in Sicily. But i guess Sabretooth has multiple mansions and Ferro drove him from one to the other after first expunging him and taking him to Seattle for whatever reason.

Wolverine has his adamantium claws in this story.

References:

• As noted in the Considerations, at the beginning of this arc there are multiple references to Wolverine #60-65.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I don't really like this. Mystique's powers should be distinct from, say, Apocalypse's. She has the ability to change her appearance, but as far as i've ever seen, she can't, like, turn her arm into a giant hammer, and she shouldn't be able to make herself immortal.

From the wiki entry - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystique_(comics)#Powers_and_abilities
"As a shape-shifter, Mystique is able to constantly alter and rejuvenate her body's cells and thereby retain her youthful appearance despite being alive for over one hundred years."
So, she seems to have the same capabilities as Wolverine in regards to aging slowly.

Graydon Creed was a bigger character in the Fox X-men cartoon than he was in the comics, where he was kind of just another anti-mutant politician and also an Upstart for some reason. Being Sabretooth and Mystique's son was about all he had going for him in the books.

It's fitting you mention Venom because Sabretooth was built up to be the X-men's Venom in this era. As popular as he was I'm surprised it took them several more years before putting him on the cast of one of the X-books (he'd eventually "join" X-Factor).

*Sees the scan of Birdy*

Someone accidentally drew a woman next to that giant gun.

Tribune is a rather obvious Gundam knockoff.

Thanks for explaining this one to me. It was always a mess before.

I have a feeling I may have said this before, but I can't decide if I dislike Mark Texeura more for his terrible art or because he played for the Yankees.

* Texeira, obviously.

Tribune hardly looks close enough to a Gundam. I mean the blocky helmet is kinda like the classic Gundam but you gotta add some crests and red, blue and white to make me go 'Gundam rip off.'

"He's immediately attacked by an infestation of ninjas." The proper taxonomy is a "Miller" of ninjas. ;-)

Fnord: re: regarding placement, there's a couple of considerations. For starters, Nightcrawler and Rogue don't find out that Graydon is Sabretooth's son until X-Men Unlimited 4, and in fact in X-Men 28, Sabretooth is unsurprised when he mentions a son of Mystique's and Rogue has no clue what he's talking about. That makes sense if Logan found out about Graydon shortly before Magneto ripped out his adamantium but is rather odd if Wolverine knew for ages. But also, Wolverine seems to have access to his memories of being a spy, since he talks about Sabretooth's disappearance on the mission, which would suggest this takes place after Elena Ivanova restored his memories in Wolverine 68. I think the idea was that Ferro had been holding Sabretooth for months but that became questionable because of his Battletide and Darkhold appearances.
The later issues came out very late- the final issue came out two months late, after X-Men Unlimited 3, so we found out Birdy would die in X-Men Unlimited 3 before the end of this series was published.

@Erik Beck
To elaborate other than the helmet the chest vents and the ankle guards are design trademarks of a Gundam.

@Superb Owl -

Pretty sure you meant that to be @ davidbanes.

@Michael, i'll address those points when i get there, but i'm working on the basis that Wolverine has always been secretive and that his memories are spotty but seem to surface when convenient, especially recently (e.g. Wolverine #60). I can see him deciding that the Sabretooth/Mystique/Graydon situation isn't anyone else's business, especially since he's having an affair with Mystique that the X-Men might not approve of (i know Jubilee caught him, but still). And as you say, it has to be weighed against not wanting Sabretooth to be with Ferro and leave for his Darkhold and Battletide appearances and then return to Ferro without ever going home or seeing Birdy.

That splash page of Birdy with the big gun is one of the most Nineties images ever!

It always annoyed me that Larry Hama just basically hand-waved away the bizarre ending to Wolverine #64 where Sabretooth got eaten by a tree that then shrunk down to nothing and get crushed by Maverick, or whatever the hell it was that actually happened. Hama basically has Sabretooth pop up and say "I got better." Am I wrong in thinking we were entitled to a slightly better explanation that that?

I'm still surprised it took Marvel until the 90's to introduce a character like Graydon Creed: a genuinly xenophobic politician as a recurring bad guy. Robert Kelly was always more a background figure, Gyrich cared more about national security than he really hated mutants, Rev. Stryker was just a one time baddie...

Too bad they saddled him with being an Upstart, never made him a credible threat and generally didn't write many good stories featuring him.

Like some others, I think Graydon Creed worked best in the X-Men animated series. He was built up as the leader of this anti-Mutant front that was trying to take them down and thus the reveal he was Sabretooth's son was a bit of a shocker, complete with his yellings of "I'M NORMAL!!!" as they drag him away. This really should have been something more in the comics but I'm happy the animated series from the 90s made it work better.

"Dr. Mabuse" is actually taken from a series of German films from 1922 to about the mid-1960s.

Sabretooth leaving Graydon alive is arguably in character... assuming he annually beats the kid up as birthday present.

Birdy design reminds me a lot of Street Fighter. The trooper girls Cammy, Juni and Juli iirc.