Sabretooth will never get past a combined battle team of hungry bankers!
We wrap up the Death Hunt story arc by Larry Hama and Mark Texeira with Sabretooth confronting his son Graydon Creed (aka Tribune aka Horror Show from Age of Apocalypse).
Another fairly straight forward affair. Sabretooth and his random sidekick Birdy attack Graydon's headquarters. Ninjas are there. Bankers with guns too. Everything up until the last few pages is a fairly ordinary affair. Then Sabretooth and Graydon properly come face-to-face and we dwelve into Graydon's past a bit. We climax with Graydon killing Birdy in cold blood so that she can never use her powers to calm Sabretooth's rage again.
Yeah, the issue is kinda entirely driven around the confrontation. It's the only really stand-out part of it (sadly no Mystique this issue). There's some nice parallels and stuff going on and it's a good little scene. But when it comes down to it, there's no real resolution and instead just one of those kinda downbeat and depressing Batman/Joker style "you can't win" type of showdown. Except this time without an actual hero. It's kinda... commendable, I suppose, in that it doesn't have a right or wrong but it's also not a very gratifying pay-off.
Hama and Texeira's Sabretooth has been a decidedly average-to-inconsistent affair. It's touched on some greatness (Mystique) and some not so greatness (Wolverine). It hasn't made me feel passionate about Victor Creed any more and nor any less. Sabretooth is a serviceable and consistent baddie but this story certainly didn't make a leading star out of the villain. Trapped between making him reprehensive and making him stomachable, the portrayal of Victor just couldn't place itself into one specific camp for longer than an issue.