Marvel Just Made Sabertooth The Devil King of Mutant Hell

Marvel just made Sabertooth the devil king of mutant Hell. It’s okay if you need a minute to unpack that statement. The latest era(s) of Victor Creed’s “life” is now being revealed in the new Sabertooth comic book miniseries that Marvel has just debuted. Last we saw, Sabertooth had been given a sentence worse than death for violating one of the three laws of the new mutant nation of Krakoa: “Murder no man”. Krakoa’s Quiet Council used the living mutant island of Krakoa to essentially “exile” Sabertooth under the earth, trapping the savage serial killer in a state of living mummification, within Krakoa. Not surprisingly, that turns out to be a huge mistake. 

The X-Men tried to send Sabertooth to hell – instead, he just took over. 

(WARNING: SPOILERS For Marvel’s Sabertooth #1 Follow!)  

The plot of Sabertooth‘s first issue reveals that part of Sabertooth’s “exile” involved Krakoa effectively erasing his memory as his mind stays trapped in some kind of dark fantasy loop of killing. However, Krakoa’s human partner Doug Ramsey eventually manifests in limbo to offer Creed some mercy: Krakoa will let Sabertooth’s mind “free,” even though his body must stay imprisoned. After trying to murder the figment of Doug, Sabertooth finally agrees to the deal – and again, it turns out to be a huge miscalculation of just how evil and corrupted Victor Creed really is. 

With his mind once again in control and fully aware, Sabertooth indulges his one true passion: murder. He slaughters figment versions of the X-Men and anyone in the Marvel Universe that ever crossed him or infringed on his animalistic trademark. However, over enough time even murder gets old to Sabertooth, and his mind begins imagining what bigger things there are for him in the world. And that’s where things get truly horrible, as Victor Creed gets introspective. 

Sabertooth splits himself into three personas (the feral animal child, the black-ops soldier, and Sabertooth supervillain) and has a little meeting of “Me, Myself, and I.” The Sabertooth’s come to a consensus that it’s time to dream bigger. Those dreams include Sabertooth going on the bloody journey of a Medieval-style warlord, who conquers all – then to the cosmos, as leader of his own planet-conquering version of the Starjammers. 

Ultimately, however, the darkness in Creed manifests as the place he feels most at home: a version of hell, where he sits on the throne as king devil. Creed is simply resigned to his new hell-realm until something unexpected happens: other mutants wind up in his kingdom. We don’t know how Sabertooth’s mutant Hell is a real place, only that there are hints that his presence is slowly manifesting as a ghostly entity spotted around Krakoa. It suggests that whatever is happening down in the bowels of Krakoa’s “pit” is far from just being a figment of Sabertooth’s mind.

The House of X Reboot of Marvel’s X-Men has seen the new mutant society dip into questions of its own faith and religious practices – especially in light of mutants conquering death itself through their resurrection protocols. While Nightcrawler works on the mutant faith and church, it now appears that mutant hell is just as real. The issue ends with Sabertooth promising his first crop of visitors that they are simply “practice” for “hell” he’s going to put every single mutant on Krakoa through… 

Sabertooth #1 is now on sale from Marvel Comics.