Respect the Tooth...... THE SABRETOOTH! ooooooooohhhh Scarrry! (Revamped)
Vicious, ferocious, primal, terrifying, dispicable and disgusting. All these things are key aspects when one thinks about the character of one Victor Creed. A warrior, government spook, murderer, rapist, a soldier, conspirator, victim, an animal and a mutant; Creed is a man, or a creature who has experienced every walk of life from every corner and then some. In the late 1970’s Chris Claremont and John Byrne were trying to set up the character of Wolverine to it’s final conclusions, along the lines they knew that every hero is defined by his/her villain and so in the 14th issue of Iron Fist, Sabretooth was born. Originally, Sabretooth had been created with the idea in mind of being Wolverine’s father. Constant abuse from father to son would come to be the reason behind Wolverine’s rage issues, and a severe incident that would leave Logan crippled would reveal his healing factor healed everything but his bones, thusly Wolverine would need an Adamantium skeleton in its place; Sabretooth was supposed to have killed Mariko resulting in a final confrontation between the two ending in Sabretooth’s demise, but alas this was never come to pass. Instead, it is well over three decades later and Sabretooth’s early years and the full extent of his origin stories are STILL a mystery to us.
Yet what we do know about Sabretooth is utterly fascinating. Like Wolverine, Sabretooth is a mutant born in a Victorian era with animalistic attributes and a healing factor capable of feats beyond a point of miraculous. Yet for all their similarities Sabretooth and Wolverine have yet to be proven related by blood, and for everything Wolverine is, Sabretooth is just the opposite. Where Wolverine has honed his abilities and fighting prowess, Sabretooth coattails off of his powers and natural talents. While Wolverine strives to suppress the animal inside of him, Sabretooth does nothing but embrace it. While Wolverine has put a claim to being the conscience of the X-Men, and has a moral core to his character, Creed runs almost entirely on instinct alone and finds amusement in the pain and suffering of others. Wolverine’s a person who has grown accustomed to proving himself against the world for being a runt of a man and typically only fights much more threatening opponents when backed into a corner or for some agenda greater than himself, but Sabretooth has lived a life of physical superiority over almost anyone and goes looking for more threatening opponents just to prove something to himself, because he can accept no equal.
Sabretooth is not just a man; He’s a throwback to another time and place, he’s more akin to a force of nature than a person and his journey has been one of the most interesting paths walked by any villain in comics. For one who has served on so many X teams and been the headliner of his own mini series’ on multiple occasions, it’s amazing that no writer has ever felt compelled to attempt to redeem him, he IS irredeemable because he is what he is, nothing more or less and he’s comfortable with that to no end. Alternatively, we get a taste of what he would be like as such through the Sabretooth of the AOA timeline and he was such a successful character, they brought him back for the entire last two runs of Exiles books.
Now, this is an exploration of Sabretooth through time for the most part. Unlike the Wolverine Respect Thread, this will not be divided into sections of ability and levels of feats. Instead, it will be divided by chapters of Sabretooth’s life because unfortunately, Sabretooth’s had so many levels and incarnations of himself it’s hard to make anything more organized that doesn’t end up looking awful by comparison. So we will venture through each chapter of Creed’s eras using short descriptions to help illustrate what types of feats are involved in each set or pic. These era’s will be divided accordingly:
Original Tooth, Classic Tooth, Graydon Tooth, Horseman Tooth, Weapon X Tooth, and Current Tooth…. There WILL be feats posted from AOA Sabretooth as well. It is usual fair on KMC to automatically discard alternate timeline characters from their 616 counterparts because they’re not the same characters and may have had power shifts along the way. However upon reading all I could have OF AOA Sabretooth I simply can not find any discernable difference between AOA Creed and his 616 counterpart. They have the same types of strength feats, same types of healing feats, the same types of fighting feats, the AOA timeline deviated from a 616 one.. and if either of these two characters have done more impressive things it’s been 616 Creed anyway. Furthermore, I’ve felt less inclined to ignore the lack of physical difference after 616 Psylocke was dropped into the Exiles’ adventures. She could not tell the difference between AOA Creed and the one she fought back on Earth, and Exiles has made it explicitly clear that many different timeline characters are on the same power level, some are carbon copies of their counterparts.
I don’t know if what Creed represents is worth this type of tribute, I wouldn’t say he should be idolized either. But, what this character has done in the Marvel world is impressive across the board. He’s an incredible villain with a great design, uber powers and an awesome list of arch enemies. And, if I’ve done my job, at the end of this little journey you may find you at the very least….. RESPECT SABRETOOTH.
