Everyone loves Wolverine, but would Wolverine be the Wolverine we love without Sabretooth? Sabretooth first appeared in Iron Fist #14 and became one of the X-Men’s greatest villains with his appearance as one of the Marauders in “Mutant Massacre”. Ever since then, Sabretooth has become linked with Wolverine, but has also grown as a character beyond his relationship with Wolverine. If Wolverine represents a person choosing their better nature over their own greed, Sabretooth is the opposite. Sabretooth is a monster, yet he’s also a monster who X-Men fans have grown to love, joining the team at times and starring in Sabretooth solo series and one-shots since the 1990s.
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However, the big question with Sabretooth is why do we love him? Sabretooth has committed the most heinous acts imaginable, and yet fans want to see him all the time. They want Sabretooth as a good guy, or at the very least Sabretooth as a character that has a chance of redemption. When did all of this change? When did Sabretooth become a character that we loved beyond his role as a monstrous villain? Should we love Sabretooth? These are the questions we’re here to answer, and the answers can be found in the character’s publication. It all began in the ’90s…
The Age of Apocalypse Changed the Way Fans Looked at Sabretooth Forever
Sabretooth was the most despicable villain in the X-Men mythos by the time The Age of Apocalypse started. Sabretooth murdered children with glee, was a racist and misogynist, and was implied to have sexually assaulted Wolverine’s girlfriend Silver Fox before he killed her. Readers had been conditioned to love when Sabretooth showed up, but completely hate him. Then, one day in 1994, we opened up X-Men: Alpha #1 and saw Sabretooth with Magneto’s X-Men. Sabretooth was basically the Wolverine of the AoA X-Men and he was honestly pretty amazing in Astonishing X-Men. He worked with the feral Wild Child and was the guardian of the young mutant Blink, who he had saved when she was a small child. We got to see a side of Sabretooth that we never saw before, and people actually liked it. We had just gotten the first Sabretooth miniseries in 1993, and Marvel was realizing that more Sabretooth was better than less Sabretooth. The post-Age of Apocalypse Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine, and X-Force all featured Sabretooth, and we even got a Sabretooth one-shot, the fantastic Sabretooth: In the Red Zone (Gary Frank drew it and it’s Sabretooth fighting the original five X-Men, all behind a ’90s-eriffic chromium cover). Sabretooth got an adamantium skeleton and beat on Wolverine. Wolverine’s final defeat of Sabretooth in the ’90s earned him his adamantium back.
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Since then, we’ve gotten Sabretooth back on the X-Men, at the beginning of Mike Carey’s highly underrated but brilliant run X-Men/X-Men: Legacy and later during Cullen Bunn’s Uncanny X-Men when his morality was inverted post-AXIS. We’ve gotten Krakoa Era Sabretooth miniseries and a Wolverine epic, “Sabretooth War”. Sabretooth was made into one of the first Avengers in Marvel continuity in the ’50s and even became an Avenger as a member of the Avengers Unity Squad. He got a tragic origin story in Origin II. There’s currently a Sabretooth miniseries and fans are looking to forward to him being resurrected again. All of this comes from the success of the character in The Age of Apocalypse, and it’s led to fans liking Sabretooth on a deeper level than ever before. Much like the best superheroes, Sabretooth has grown and changed because of his popularity, gaining more facets that fans actually want to see. This is a huge change from how Sabretooth was before Age of Apocalypse, and we’re living in this new world. But should we love him this much?
Sabretooth Is a Monster That Earned Our Love
Sabretooth is a character that we loved to hate, but all of that has changed. Loving villains is always a tough proposition, because at some point a creator is going to push a villain to the next level of evil. Sabretooth has been pushed into that place and beyond, and genuinely liking him as a character can be pretty tough the more you read Sabretooth comics. However, there’s something else about Sabretooth, the idea that we know that he can choose to be better, like Wolverine does everyday, that makes watching the character’s life so interesting. We know that Sabretooth didn’t start out the way he is, because we saw him at the beginning of his life, before he was tormented for being a mutant. Sometimes, it’s fascinating to watch someone always choose evil and feel completely justified in that choice.
I think that’s why we love Sabretooth. We don’t put Sabretooth on a pedestal — anyone who worships Sabretooth on that level is a serial killer and you need to get away from them right now — we watch him fail to be a better person. Sabretooth’s choices as a character are fascinating, and watching him constantly learn the wrong lesson from his life is a big part of why we keep reading his stories. Plus, you know that when you pick up a Sabretooth comic, you’re going to get an action packed romp with some pretty sick burns — Sabretooth is a hilarious character with a black as night sense of humor. All of this is why we like Sabretooth, and there’s nothing wrong with any of that. Well, again, unless you actually think that Sabretooth is a character worthy of worship, in which case you’re doing it wrong.
