50 Greatest Super Villains In Comic Book History

34. Sabretooth

(Write-up by Nick Tylwalk, Bam Smack Pow Editor)

Many super heroes have super villains who are like flip sides of the same coin. With Wolverine and Sabretooth, it’s more like they’re two bananas in the same bunch, except that one of them turned out rotten.

If we’re being honest, there’s not much that Sabretooth brings to the table that Wolverine doesn’t already have. Enhanced senses, a mutant healing factor and deadly claws? Check, check and double check. Victor Creed was even shaped by the same forces as Logan since he was also tangled up in the Weapon X program.

So if Wolverine is popular, that must mean that Sabretooth is popular too. That’s undoubtedly the case, and it’s been proven by how often he shows up in movies, animation and video games. When fans want to see Wolverine pushed to his limits, the first thing they think of is a scrap with Creed.

To its credit, Marvel has resisted the urge to turn Sabretooth into a good guy, though he has been forced into alliances of convenience or necessity at times. He’s currently a member of the Avengers Unity Squad, but it took a permanent (wink, wink) inversion of his moral axis to turn him good. Under normal circumstances, he simply enjoys what he does too much to be redeemed — and what he does is kill people, usually.

As a result, we’ll never have to wonder what an inverted Wolverine would be like. If you want to see what a guy with virtually the same powers but none of the moral code is like, just check out Sabretooth. There’s your answer.

Next: No. 33: Keeping other villains honest