(Strand)om Stories: Sabretooth: DeathHunt Review
This limited series looks great but underneath the art lies a connect-the-dots style story, simplicity painting over subtance
—by Nathan on August 1, 2025—
I wanted to start this review with a snarky invitational opening line, something like, "Welcome back to more grisly goodness!" to make you wonder, What do you mean by "more"? And why are we calling anything grisly "good"?
By "more," I mean we're following up my last "Spider-view" post, which co-starred not only the shoot-first-ask-questions-later veteran-turned-vigilante Punisher but also the lead feature in the story we're reviewing today: Victor Creed, the Canadian killer known as Sabretooth. So if you weren't overwhelmed by the guns, claws, and flamethrowers in the Designer Genes graphic novel, you're going to get much of the same here. Which I guess is where the "good" might come in, because I bet some of you folks enjoy seeing Sabretooth rend a limb here, not-so-surgically remove a face there.
Though he started off as an Iron Fist enemy, Creed soon enough became associated with the smaller yet equally ferocious Wolverine. I guess the vicious villain was popular enough to receive his own limited series because then-Wolverine writer Larry Hama penned a four-part story starring Sabretooth published a few months after his Designer Genes appearance. This is the 90s, after all, and if one lesson is true about Marvel at this period, they believed that if something was popular, the best thing you could do was copy that thing to get double the adoration. Fans love one psychotic mass murderer dressed in an alien symbiote? Give 'em a second one! You love reading the adventures of one Spider-Man? We've got one who swings around in the future, too! So why not have Hama write another series about a clawed Canuck named after a furry predator?
It's a grisly series, I will give it that. But we'll have to do some scratching and scraping beneath the surface to see what "good" we can dig outta this one.
Sabretooth: DeathHunt
Writer: Larry Hama
Penciler: Mark Texeira
Inker: Mark Texeira
Colorists: Steve Buccellato and Marie Javins
Letterer: Richard Starkings
Issues Collected: Sabretooth #1-4
Volume Publication Date: December 1994
Issue Publication Dates: August 1993-November 1993
I'll give Sabretooth's first solo outing this: Mark Texiera draws the heck out of this book. From the covers to the interiors, he lays out incredible detail, providing the necessary grit Sabretooth deserves for his first headliner. The style of the interior feels a bit different than Texiera's work later in the decade on the first few issues of Christopher Priest's Black Panther or even his contribution to Paul Jenkins' The Sentry series (if anything, the cover is a better representation of his work for those stories), but he still has a great eye for detail regarding characters and scenery. The story does possess a nice artistic flow to it…
…a better flow, anyway, than the story which accompanies the art. Yeah, I know that doesn't sound quite right. This is a comic. Wouldn't the art "accompany" the story? Without the narrative, you've just got some nice Sabretooth posters for your bedroom wall. And I don't think it's fair to say Hama crafted a story to Texeira's strengths; he just found or was paired with an artist who did his darndest on this book.
I don't have much experience with Hama as a writer, outside a few Venom series I read a while ago and a Wolverine arc I hope to review soon. Hama served in Vietnam as a firearms and explosive ordnance expert and helped edit Marvel's Vietnam-based comic series The 'Nam. He possesses the chops to understand the ins-and-outs of gritty action, and it is the fight scenes which do stand out here. Sabretooth takes out a mess of guys who attack his home; he briefly fights not-so-surprising guest star Wolverine on top of the Eiffel Tower; the entire last issue involves Sabretooth battling ninjas and gunmen through a skyscraper. So there's plenty of action, much of it dramatic yet not too over-the-top. Together, Hama and Texeria make a moment where suited investment bankers pull giant guns out from under their desks more awesome than it is goofy. It all fits well.
Where the series feels lackluster is the execution of its plot. The whole piece is fairly paint-by-numbers, with significant developments happening during skirmishes and not feeling weighty enough to properly propel the story forward. Someone betrays Sabretooth, and before he can react to it, he's fighting armored assassins and dealing with a brief running gag involving random ninja attacks. Possible moments of quiet are disrupted by the NEXT BIG ACTION SEQUENCE, which keeps this story going 100 miles an hour for most of its runtime. Yeah, we get some flashbacks to provide context, but none of it lends the man once called Victor Creed any credence…or would that be "creed-ence"?
Development happens in moments, often in those flashbacks, and as important as these brief sequences initially feel, they don't lend themselves the weight I hoped they would. Sabretooth, like his furry X-Men counterpart, has issues with his memories, and Hama hints at the effect Victor's past has on him. A flashback where a young Sabretooth is chained in the basement by his father is heartbreaking, stirring more emotion than any other moment in the series. But these few panels flash by all too quickly, providing suitable interest in the moment yet failing to coalesce into a theme which could carry the larger story.
One narrative development does lend itself some more significance, dovetailing into a mystery which, depending on the reader, may either hold a surprise or be one of the most obvious twists I've run across in recent memory. A mysterious character does lend some interest to the proceedings, if only for the reader to wait for Hama to reveal just who this character is. Running alongside this mystery is a notion born from the main plot, as Sabretooth pursues Mystique and revelations of their shared past come to light. A bit of Marvel history may help bolster the obviousness, I'll admit, but you don't need to be terribly fluent in the 616 Universe to put your basic storytelling skills to use in deducing the mystery.
Wolverine's appearance feels, if nothing else, flagrant. What else are you gonna do? This is another one of those "lessons" you find recurring all the time: if a supporting character related to a popular main protagonist in some way is given their own series, that popular protagonist is destined to make an appearance. Spidey pops up in Venom: Lethal Protector, or Batman saves Catwoman's life in her first limited series. It's fate, declared by the editorial and marketing gods. So Wolverine showing up is no surprise whatsoever, but his sudden materialization feels forced. Part of me wants to believe Hama was made to use the character, and he does try to incorporate Wolverine in a way which doesn't feel egregious or unnatural to the story to offset the sudden appearance. But throwing Wolverine about halfway into the series and using him for a few pages as a glorified cameo smacks of marketability over narrative quality.
I finished this series believing Hama could do better. I don't know if he wanted to give Sabretooth his own limited series and constructed a bare-bones plot around that concept or if he was tasked with doing so by his superiors. Either way, there's very little here which feels original or compelling. Guys try to kill Sabretooth, Sabretooth kills them. People force Sabretooth to complete a job, Sabretooth turns on them later. Hama attempts to sew in an interesting twist to provide some emotional connection between characters, even if the efforts feel less subtle than they should. And he does draw out some interesting moments of Victor's history which, I wish, provided the narrative more meat for us to chew. Alas, this is not one of those series. There's action galore–ninjas! Businessmen with guns! As-I-live-and-breathe-the-Wolverine!–detailed incredibly well by Mark Texiera, and there are hints at deeper characterization. But this is a quick, mile-a-minute story which plays fast with the plot and chucks in a bunch of guns and knives and loads it down with more guns and knives. If that's your kind of meal, cool. Enjoy. For me, this was just an appetizer, and I'm left wondering if something more substantial could have been made of this to bring it to main course levels.