As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

SABRETOOTH & THE EXILES #5
“Station Five”
Writer: Victor LaValle
Artist: Leonard Kirk
Colour artist: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1. Sabretooth fights alt-Sabretooths. There aren’t many established alt-Sabretooths who are particularly noteworthy or recognisable beyond one-off What If stories, but that’s the Age of Apocalypse Sabretooth with his back to us in the foreground. (He’s been dead since 2013, though, which is why he’s not in this arc.) The one on the right is simply another Sabretooth in traditional costume. On the left we have someone who certainly looks like he ought to be recognisable, but nobody’s coming to mind. The guy lying unconscious on the ground is just a Sabretooth in a suit, an outfit which he sometimes shows up in for Wolverine stories, particularly in the Hama years.

PAGES 2-4. Graydon Creed threatens to kill Sabretooth.

Graydon seems to believe that Sabretooth can be permanently killed through conventional means, at least if you take his powers away. Either he doesn’t know about resurrection – which is possible, since this series takes place shortly after the first mini, making it miles out of synch with the rest of the line – or he does, but he assumes that it won’t work if Sabretooth’s powers are removed. Or maybe he just assumes nobody will bother bringing back Sabretooth, of all people.

“You found me in Hell and sacrificed yourself for me.” This is Weapon X vol 3 #26-27 (2018). The date in the footnote is Marvel’s current convention of trying to differentiate volumes by the year in which they started – which would be fine if there weren’t several examples of multiple #1s in the same year. Anyway, this was part of the “Weapon X-Force” run written by Greg Pak and Fred van Lante. It’s during the period when Sabretooth’s moral values were inverted following the Axis crossover. The story involves Weapon X-Force going to Hell in an attempt to destroy Reverend Stryker’s soul before he can be resurrected. While there, Sabretooth encounters Graydon Creed’s soul and is confronted with the fact that his abandonment of Graydon made him the person he is. Inverted Sabretooth insists on rescuing Graydon as well as completing the mission. Sabretooth then sacrifices himself so that Graydon will return to Earth with the rest of the team, instead of him. (Graydon himself is unconscious throughout this.) The issue – and the series – ends with Sabretooth back on Earth, but reduced to a feral state, and departing into the woods to live as an animal. This apparently puts a stop to the whole inversion thing, which is never mentioned again.

“My Exiles…” As in the previous issue, Sabretooth rather presumptuously calls the rescued mutants “my Exiles” – though in fairness, he was making some headway in that regard last time, and he does seem slightly surprised by the thought that they’ve actually showed up.

PAGES 5-6. Three other Sabretooths arrive.

All three of these characters are new, and they all seem to be, if not actually heroic, at least significantly less objectionable versions of Sabretooth. I assume the Earth numbers were plucked out of the air, but for what it’s worth:

• Earth-12 Sabretooth. Earth-12 is supposed to be the home of Mimic from the Exiles. It’s meant to be broadly similar to the Marvel Universe but generally less grim and angsty – basically, the Marvel Universe via Silver Age DC. Whether by accident or design, the idea that the local Sabretooth is a celebrity bad boy rather than a psychotic serial killer fits reasonably well.
• Earth-203 Sabretooth is apparently the local Captain America, so either he’s an unusually nice Sabretooth or Earth-203 is a really awful place. It’s probably a bit of both. This seems to be the first mention of Earth-203.
• Earth-1912 Sabretooth is a woman and, judging from the sabretooth animal head and the belt of teeth, looks to be some kind of Savage Land version. Again, this seems to be the first mention of Earth-1912.

“Sic semper tyrannis.” “Thus always to tyrants” – i.e., tyrants will always be overthrown like this. It’s the motto of the state of Virginia and has a fairly long history of being used as a motto for American military units and the like. It’s also been co-opted by the likes of John Wilkes Booth and Timothy McVeigh. Most likely, Earth-203 Sabretooth is not being consciously ironic, but LaValle is.

PAGE 7. Recap and credits.

PAGE 8. The Exiles and the Station Four babies.

Last issue, the Exiles made their way to the remote ocean location where Orchis’ Station Four had sunk, in search of the powerful mutant babies still trapped there; the infants started lashing out with their powers and dragged the Exiles’ ship (the Maroon) underwater. In the gap between issues, the core cast plus Barrington and the Creation have headed out of the ship to explore. The babies appear to be in containment units, despite the array of toys we can see lying around the room.

PAGES 9-10. Sabretooth’s Barrington Coil is removed.

Basically, all he has to do is survive the damage caused by its removal long enough for his healing factor to kick in again. That’s simple enough.

Savage Land Sabretooth teases refusing to help him, but she doesn’t put up much resistance – she may just be expressing her annoyance at him. Captain Sabretooth is actually relatively reasonable in this scene – he gives Creed fairly direct, useful explanations, and talks about the captive Sabretooths having helped one another in the past. Celebrity Sabretooth explains that the other Sabretooths blame Creed for Graydon’s murderous rampage, which is understandable – though he specifically frames it as a blunder of showing kindness. It’s not entirely clear that Captain Sabretooth would agree with that framing, though he’s certainly no bleeding heart. And he certainly has no interest in sticking around to see if Creed survives.

PAGES 11-12. Graydon activates his headless Sabretooth bodies.

Herbert West. The ward is apparently named after the lead character of the HP Lovecraft Story “Herbert West – Reanimator” (1922).

“That is not dead which can eternal lie / And with strange aeons even death may die.” This is a couplet by Lovecraft, which (in his stories) was attributed to his mad poet character, Abdul Alhazred.

“Dr Barrington helped me see that science is just a tool…” Presumably under reference to all those historic memos we’ve seen on data pages throughout this series.

PAGES 13-14. Nanny regresses everyone else’s minds to infancy in order to calm down the babies.

She does get everyone’s consent, and she does honour her promise to restore them afterwards, but they’re absolutely right not to trust her. Nanny and Orphan-Maker leave the group here, and stay on Station Four with the powerful mutant babies. What could possibly go wrong?

PAGE 15. The alt-Sabretooths try to head home.

“The Summers extremists” are presumably the local X-Men; Captain Sabretooth has killed them all, but insists that they were “enemies of the state”. Obviously, he might be right about that, for one reason or another; it’s ambiguous whether this Sabretooth is a killer using the defence of the state as an excuse, or a true believer.

PAGES 16-18. The Sabretooths defeat the reanimated bodies.

We don’t directly find out what Sabretooth’s “proposal” is, but evidently these alt-Sabretooths agree to stick around.

PAGE 19. Data page on the Maroons – the name for escaped slaves which the Exiles adopted for themselves last issue. The author isn’t directly identified in the text, and is clearly writing from a standpoint in the future relatively to this story. The author seems to say that he’s one of a group of mutants who “fled” somewhere, and that Nekra and co eventually “found” them. The small print in the bottom right suggests that this is Mole, which is interesting, because he was on Krakoa last we saw – but maybe he’s become fed up of being an underclass of background characters, as we saw in the previous miniseries.

The Great Dismal Swamp is absolutely real, as are the Maroon communities that lived there. The quotation in the second paragraph is from JFD Smyth’s A Tour of the United States of America: Containing an Account of the Present Situation of That Country (1784). The description of him as a “British traveller” probably comes from this article. He was actually a Scotsman who emigrated to the USA in 1760s, and fought for the British in the Revolutionary War before returning to England on health grounds in 1780. He wrote his memoir after the UK authorities cut off his allowance on grounds of alleged fraud, and he made assorted other dubious claims of royal descent. As you might imagine in the circumstances, his account of his time in America has been described as “vigorous but not flattering”. Still, the bit about the maroons seems to be broadly true.

PAGE 20. Nekra addresses the Exiles.

Once again, Nekra tries to assert herself as leader, and she makes some more headway without Sabretooth around to play the alpha.

The Death Seed was given to Nekra at the end of the first miniseries, and she hasn’t had a chance to use it yet.

PAGE 21. Barrington and the Creation head off separately.

The Plateau of Leng is another Lovecraft reference. It’s a frozen plateau whose location seems to intentionally vary between stories, and to be some sort of nexus place.

Barrington is dismissive about Graydon’s motivations, which were admittedly on the thin side for such an elaborate exercise.

PAGE 22. Sabretooth makes plans.

His “old friend” with a “birthday” is presumably Wolverine, who he harasses every year on his birthday.

PAGE 23. Trailers. With no next issue scheduled, the closing page is used in place of trailer art.