Sabretooth #1 Review *spoilers*

[danielsan52]

How convenient. A female Darwin. Lol

Hardly. She’s been around since 1973 and has zero to do with Darwin.

[Dermie]

Hardly. She’s been around since 1973 and has zero to do with Darwin.

I don't believe the comment was meant to imply that Nekra was a copy of Darwin or that there was any connection. Its just that Darwin is another black character who has ended up appearing white in most of his appearances due to physical changes caused by his powers.

The difference being Darwin was originally black skinned, but his appearance changed due to his powers (and due to art teams who didn't necessarily appreciate the importance of having visible POC characters in the books). Nekra was born with her white skin and fangs, so she was never black-skinned, despite being born to African-American parents.

[Master of Sound]

It sounds very confusing all.

[BroHomo]

Stupidest thing I've ever heard. Again with the "Marvel has a racist agenda" If you think that, stop reading Marvel Comics.

If it were an all white cast of prisoners, you would have called that racist.

I wouldn't call it an agenda racial obtuseness is closer

And while Im not offended Its eye rollingly cringe that the XOffice is wasting resources on a book about Sabertooth an unrepentant villain instead of the litany of other concepts and characters available in the Krakoan age. And for me the story is not good at a so far. Like what are we supposed to get outta this? lol I hope this doesn't wind up being another shitty villain turns out to be a product of his surroundings story but that's probably too much to ask. Also I noticed and cringed that this book probably had the most minorities in it (a whooping 3) and theyre in jail... Try smdh

reading the reviews i was pretty excited etc read this...But Gah it's a let down major. Seeing sabertooth kill and maim other Mutants just isn't my shot of Jaëgar


Also they seemed to change the 3rd eye dudes race because of...reasons??

[Silver Fang]

I don't believe the comment was meant to imply that Nekra was a copy of Darwin or that there was any connection. Its just that Darwin is another black character who has ended up appearing white in most of his appearances due to physical changes caused by his powers.

The difference being Darwin was originally black skinned, but his appearance changed due to his powers (and due to art teams who didn't necessarily appreciate the importance of having visible POC characters in the books). Nekra was born with her white skin and fangs, so she was never black-skinned, despite being born to African-American parents.

Exactly.

But black character rarely get to be brown. They either turn white, or have their blackness muted by being random colors other than brown.

Like the black mutant Jean was talking to in previews, then he became green by the book's release.


And they didn't even bother to make him bottom lip green while they greenwashed in a hurry. lol

[Whim]

I do wonder if those 5 are actually there or is Creed imagining them? We know of three other prisoners who aren't there, so they may be part of the dream/simulation.

he wouldn't even know any of these. hell we don't.

D listers and never heard ofs.

other than Jeffries and Oya which don't make sense anyway.

[Grunty]

(...) Then a light shines from above and Sabreooth finds out he’s not the only one in the pit. Nekra, Oya, Melter, Third Eye an Madison Jeffreies are now prisoners too. Sabreooth is glad he will have real people to torture, in preparation for when he breaks physically free again.

I wonder if Victor has a speech prepared similar to that of AM from I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream?

"HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. FOR YOU. HATE. HATE."

Side note. I give it a 50/50 chance the characters aren't actualy in the Pit or there with Sabertooth, but part of a test.

[dnelson]

Really loved this book. Loved the writers handle on Victor's personality and psyche. Gonna be interesting going forward.
Still wishing for a proper deep dive in to sabretooths early days, an origin 3 if you like. Could be a great , dark story. A child imprisoned, suffering abuse, whilst struggling with his mutation. Could be fire ��. This writer could definitely do that justice.
Also anything indepth with team x. Sick of seeing it in little flashes over the decades.

[KimberlyP]

I wouldn't call it an agenda racial obtuseness is closer

And while Im not offended Its eye rollingly cringe that the XOffice is wasting resources on a book about Sabertooth an unrepentant villain instead of the litany of other concepts and characters available in the Krakoan age. And for me the story is not good at a so far. Like what are we supposed to get outta this? lol I hope this doesn't wind up being another shitty villain turns out to be a product of his surroundings story but that's probably too much to ask. Also I noticed and cringed that this book probably had the most minorities in it (a whooping 3) and theyre in jail... Try smdh

reading the reviews i was pretty excited etc read this...But Gah it's a let down major. Seeing sabertooth kill and maim other Mutants just isn't my shot of Jaëgar


Also they seemed to change the 3rd eye dudes race because of...reasons??

Can’t pick up my books till the weekend does anyone have a pic of 3rd eye or know if its a new character?

[Saithor]

I wonder if Victor has a speech prepared similar to that of AM from I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream?

"HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. FOR YOU. HATE. HATE."

Side note. I give it a 50/50 chance the characters aren't actualy in the Pit or there with Sabertooth, but part of a test.

If they wanted to test him, wouldn’t they put people he actually knows in the Pit with him? And ones it would be easier to believe we’re actually in the pit? I honestly think that Oya and Jefferies are there mostly to show off some good Ol’ QC corruption

[Celestialbodies]

Where's Nanny and Orphanmaker, I demand to know!

[Saithor]

Where's Nanny and Orphanmaker, I demand to know!

I’m pretty sure this book was supposed to take place before they or Toad were put on the pit. I think it got delayed iirc

[Criticalfan]

Is this gonna be like Hellions and end up making me like a bunch of D-listers?

[WildR]

Is this gonna be like Hellions and end up making me like a bunch of D-listers?

LaValle said his triple plan consists of how Sabretooth gets out, how he changes and how he fulfills his promise. So guess it's not gonna end up forming a formal team-book.

[davetvs]

I mean, to me the issue read as a searing indictment of the prison system with a very clear message of 'prison is hell' and how even good people like Doug trying to make it tolerable/merciful are doomed to failure because the institution itself is rotted through and through due to the simple fact that nobody can ever seem to make a clear and honest argument for why prisons exist SPECIFICALLY....meaning in the end the ones who do the most to shape a prison and its effects on others are going to be the ones who don't pretend to see it as anything other than it is or act like it can ever be more than that. Aka the ones both inside and outside of the prison with the least remorse about utilizing the prison system for the only thing its actually good for - spreading pain and misery around. Ensuring that even among criminals you're just going to end up with victims and victimizers as the least offensive of criminal offenders will end up victimized by the biggest and most remorseless offenders, the ones who are happy with being king in hell as long as they get to keep hurting people the way they were to get thrown in there in the first place. And thus inevitably making all parts of the prison system complicit in continuing, perpetuating or even outright enabling future acts of the very kind of victimization that are supposed to be considered reprehensible across the board by a civilized society....but yet are allowed to exist and thrive INSIDE a prison, so long as its not touching any of the people society deems actually WORTH protecting, a category convicts clearly don't fall under any longer the second they're convicted of anything for any reason, right or wrong, fair or not.

IMO the issue was saying that you can't out of sight out of mind your way out of being responsible for what happens within the prison system as long as you're enabling it at all, because the more hands off you try and be with it the more control you surrender to those happy to get their hands dirty. So the second the Quiet Council threw Sabretooth in the Pit and then tried not to think too much about what it was like for him down there/forget about him, they pretty much guaranteed that Sabretooth himself would play the biggest role in shaping what it became by the time the next prisoners came along.....with it being very pointed that of course there were always going to be more prisoners.

I'm sure there are twists to come with the other prisoners and why they're there and what happens next, but one thing that seemed clear to me was that the entire point of the cast LaValle assembled here was an array of personalities and origins ranging from the 'okay I can kinda see why they're there' to the 'wtf are they even doing there' because its about how there's always going to be an inevitable hierarchy of relative innocence or guilt within a prison, with the least innocent preying on the more innocent and Sabretooth of course here is positioned as the ultimate predator, meaning no matter WHO the Quiet Council ended up sending to join him, they were pretty much all always doomed to end up sacrificial lambs to him in comparison, even if some of them are still 'better' or 'worse' than the others.

And given that LaValle's black himself, and his prior work about police brutality and institutional antiblackness is aimed in part at highlighting the racial disparities in how justice systems treat criminals and what communities end up facing more and harsher convictions than others, the fact that the rest of the cast is three/fifths black is kinda the point, IMO.....because it would be disingenuous to pick a mostly white cast innately positioned to come across as more sympathetic than Creed, when the reality of the prison system the entire premise is an indictment of is that it disproportionately criminalizes black people. Plus, the end of the issue makes it extremely clear that these particular cast members are the ones that readers are SUPPOSED to sympathize with or feel bad for, and thus it wouldn't make a ton of sense for LaValle to aim any empathy the book results in at a largely white cast that doesn't reflect or parallel the reality of most prison populations thanks to the extremely racialized nature of conviction rates and sentencing.

Of course, this is just my read of the issue. But yeah. That's what I took away from it. *Shrugs*

This is exactly what I got from it. Then coming here and reading comments like "he chose Black mutants to put in prison!" Like, duh? Hello? Anyway, I'm in for the rest off this issue alone.