SABRETOOTH versus NEW MUTANTS
King of the Hill! (Marvel)
Where: New Mutants #75 When: May 1989
Why: Louise Simonson How: John Byrne
The Story So Far...
When The Marauders attacked the X-Men on their home turf, the short-lived siege was seemingly thwarted -- but a hidden explosive device within the X-Mansion itself allowed Mister Sinister to make a final strike.
The combined ranks of X-Factor and the X-Men recovered from the blast to defeat Mister Sinister, but there was nothing they could do about the mansion's destruction.
When the New Mutants return home from battling the alien Gosamyr, they're shocked to discover the school in ruins. Unaware of the battle that transpired, they scour the wreckage for survivors. When Mirage senses someone clinging to life, they jump into action to rescue them from the rubble.
Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Sunspot 5 (Super-Human)
Intelligence: Sabretooth 4 (Tactician)
Speed: Cannonball 5 (Super-Human)
Stamina: Sabretooth 5 (Marathoner)
Agility: Warlock 6 (Malleable)
Fighting: Sabretooth 7 (Living Weapon)
Energy: Magik 5 (Lasers)
Total: Sabretooth 28 (Metahuman)
Sabretooth is no stranger to stalking young mutants, and today he's got the scent of a fresh batch of students from Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters!
The New Mutants are: Cannonball, Sunspot, Wolfsbane, Mirage, Warlock, and Illyana Rasputin. The team is green, but not so untested that they can't rely on their powers to handle themselves.
There's an obvious parallel between Wolfsbane's werewolf-like, lycanthropic transformation, and the animal savagery of Sabretooth. He was quite lean in these days, but probably still holds a size and weight advantage over her -- something Wolverine had to contend with over the years, as in Wolverine #50.
Sabretooth also has a wealth of experience as a mercenary, but that hasn't always informed his fighting style. He typically relied on brute strength and malice against the speed and finesse of Iron Fist, narrowly coming up short in both Iron Fist #14, and Power Man & Iron Fist #66.
None of the New Mutants has the martial arts skills, or speed & agility of Iron Fist, but that might not be such a problem. in Adventures of the X-Men #7, he returned to the X-Mansion to stalk Jubilee, but was ultimately thwarted when she gave Professor Xavier enough time to recover from being attacked.
Mirage could use her empathic image casting to mentally soothe the savage beast with visions of something calming. Failing that, there's always the kinetic impact of Cannonball, or solar enhanced strength of Sunspot!
DC's Superboy combined both flight and strength to put Sabretooth down hard during a crossover battle with the Teen Titans in Unlimited Access #3! He won't have the tricks Deadpool used to ground Cannonball in New Mutants #98, or solar absorption that helped Iron Man win in Contest of Champions II #1.
Can the New Mutants stare down the intimidating sadism of Sabretooth? He's got the element of surprise, but also the bruises of recent battle. How will it all play out? Let's take a look...
The Tape: New Mutants Ranking: Sunspot (#155)
What Went Down...
Standing in horror amidst the wreckage of Xavier's decimated School for Gifted Youngsters, the New Mutants are alone and shell shocked.
As they consider the possibilities of who could've been responsible for such destruction, and who may've been present: Mirage detects the rising death glow of someone clinging precariously to life. Sunspot powers-up to investigate...
Where: New Mutants #75 When: May 1989
Why: Louise Simonson How: John Byrne
The Story So Far...
When The Marauders attacked the X-Men on their home turf, the short-lived siege was seemingly thwarted -- but a hidden explosive device within the X-Mansion itself allowed Mister Sinister to make a final strike.
The combined ranks of X-Factor and the X-Men recovered from the blast to defeat Mister Sinister, but there was nothing they could do about the mansion's destruction.
When the New Mutants return home from battling the alien Gosamyr, they're shocked to discover the school in ruins. Unaware of the battle that transpired, they scour the wreckage for survivors. When Mirage senses someone clinging to life, they jump into action to rescue them from the rubble.
Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Sunspot 5 (Super-Human)Intelligence: Sabretooth 4 (Tactician)
Speed: Cannonball 5 (Super-Human)
Stamina: Sabretooth 5 (Marathoner)
Agility: Warlock 6 (Malleable)
Fighting: Sabretooth 7 (Living Weapon)
Energy: Magik 5 (Lasers)
Total: Sabretooth 28 (Metahuman)
Sabretooth is no stranger to stalking young mutants, and today he's got the scent of a fresh batch of students from Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters!
The New Mutants are: Cannonball, Sunspot, Wolfsbane, Mirage, Warlock, and Illyana Rasputin. The team is green, but not so untested that they can't rely on their powers to handle themselves.
There's an obvious parallel between Wolfsbane's werewolf-like, lycanthropic transformation, and the animal savagery of Sabretooth. He was quite lean in these days, but probably still holds a size and weight advantage over her -- something Wolverine had to contend with over the years, as in Wolverine #50.
Sabretooth also has a wealth of experience as a mercenary, but that hasn't always informed his fighting style. He typically relied on brute strength and malice against the speed and finesse of Iron Fist, narrowly coming up short in both Iron Fist #14, and Power Man & Iron Fist #66.
None of the New Mutants has the martial arts skills, or speed & agility of Iron Fist, but that might not be such a problem. in Adventures of the X-Men #7, he returned to the X-Mansion to stalk Jubilee, but was ultimately thwarted when she gave Professor Xavier enough time to recover from being attacked.
Mirage could use her empathic image casting to mentally soothe the savage beast with visions of something calming. Failing that, there's always the kinetic impact of Cannonball, or solar enhanced strength of Sunspot!
DC's Superboy combined both flight and strength to put Sabretooth down hard during a crossover battle with the Teen Titans in Unlimited Access #3! He won't have the tricks Deadpool used to ground Cannonball in New Mutants #98, or solar absorption that helped Iron Man win in Contest of Champions II #1.
Can the New Mutants stare down the intimidating sadism of Sabretooth? He's got the element of surprise, but also the bruises of recent battle. How will it all play out? Let's take a look...
The Tape: New Mutants Ranking: Sunspot (#155)
What Went Down...
Standing in horror amidst the wreckage of Xavier's decimated School for Gifted Youngsters, the New Mutants are alone and shell shocked.
As they consider the possibilities of who could've been responsible for such destruction, and who may've been present: Mirage detects the rising death glow of someone clinging precariously to life. Sunspot powers-up to investigate...
Sabretooth springs from beneath the massive piece of rubble lifted by Sunspot. He thanks his rescuer with the sharp side of his claws, raking them across his solar-powered face!
Seeing his friend in peril, Cannonball launches into action -- flying across the battlefield on a beeline towards the attacker!
The mutant missile collides with Sabretooth with unforgiving speed!
The force of the blow snaps Sabretooth backward, sending him tumbling head over heels back into the rubble. Face down and already exhausted, the fight leaves him as the New Mutants attempt to find out who Sabretooth is.
He introduces himself, gloating over the fruits of the Marauder's labour. It was their siege on the X-Men and X-Factor that led Sinister to destroy the mansion!
The taunts trail off -- seemingly Sabretooth's final words when Warlock detects his vital signs ceasing. Mirage senses no such passing, intuiting his inevitable survival through her "Valkyrie Gift" to see death coming, while the group resumes contemplating their present situation.
The Hammer...
Seeing his friend in peril, Cannonball launches into action -- flying across the battlefield on a beeline towards the attacker!
The mutant missile collides with Sabretooth with unforgiving speed!
The force of the blow snaps Sabretooth backward, sending him tumbling head over heels back into the rubble. Face down and already exhausted, the fight leaves him as the New Mutants attempt to find out who Sabretooth is.
He introduces himself, gloating over the fruits of the Marauder's labour. It was their siege on the X-Men and X-Factor that led Sinister to destroy the mansion!
The taunts trail off -- seemingly Sabretooth's final words when Warlock detects his vital signs ceasing. Mirage senses no such passing, intuiting his inevitable survival through her "Valkyrie Gift" to see death coming, while the group resumes contemplating their present situation.
The Hammer...
Cannonball claims a pretty major scalp early in his career, even if Sabretooth was already pretty banged up by the X-mansion explosion.
Could it have gone any other way? It's hard to say. Despite his well earned and fearsome reputation; Sabretooth has a knack for being a bit of a punching bag -- especially during this period in the late eighties.
Even before the mansion was brought down, he'd been defeated with a psychic strike from Psylocke, in one of their first encounters. We also saw Mister Sinister brush him off pretty swiftly barely two years prior, in Uncanny X-Men #221.
Sabretooth is currently the lowest ranked character in the Fight Club Rankings at #961. The string of unanswered defeats doesn't seem adequately reflective of his stature, but it's difficult to deny a higher than average rate of losing.
Bad guys generally trend toward more losses than wins, and Sabretooth is one of the worst! He also has the added pressure of a healing factor, which means he can take a kicking and come back ticking. That gives writers license to knock him around. In fictional terms, it can also make him over confident and a bit sloppy. Similar can be said of Wolverine, who currently has a 52.5% win rate.
Appropriately enough: Wolverine is the only opponent on record that Sabretooth has managed to fight without losing. Even then, the Wolverine #50 tied result ended with both characters mortally wounded. He's decapitated and written off for several years by the end of the multi-issue struggle. Not a high point.
He seemingly died at the end of this battle, but as Mirage notes for the reader, death isn't coming for him. A pretty clear message that fans can look forward to more trouble from Sabretooth.
He will return in the pages of New Mutants, and I seem to remember something about Mister Sinister experimenting with Sabretooth clones, but that's a messy concept I'd rather not think about right now.
We shall simply commit this one to the books. It's a pretty obscure fight, easily overlooked in favour of two others, most notably the cover featured main event between Magneto and Sebastian Shaw. You can bet we'll be revisiting the issue to look more closely at both of the other battles at some time in the future.
If you want to read ahead to see the whole shebang for yourself you can find this issue collected in Epic Collection New Mutants: Curse of the Valkyrie. Use the Amazon purchase link provided and you'll get yourself a good deal and make sure Amazon supports the site at no extra cost to you!
You can discover more battles by following links throughout this post, or by diving into the Secret Archive, where featured fights are indexed by publisher, series, and issue number.
If you like what Secret Wars on Infinite Earths is all about, and the many hundreds of articles available to read, you can make sure it continues by joining Patreon. Patrons gain extra access to schedule notes, bonus polls, and user selected articles.
You can also receive daily links to featured fights inspired by the topics of the day by following for free on Twitter and Facebook! Don't forget to like and share battles, and keep your eyes peeled for the Top 3 trending fights of the week!
Winner: Cannonball (w/ Sunspot)
#114 (+229) Cannonball
#153 (+2) Sunspot [+1 assist]
#961 (--) Sabretooth
Could it have gone any other way? It's hard to say. Despite his well earned and fearsome reputation; Sabretooth has a knack for being a bit of a punching bag -- especially during this period in the late eighties.
Even before the mansion was brought down, he'd been defeated with a psychic strike from Psylocke, in one of their first encounters. We also saw Mister Sinister brush him off pretty swiftly barely two years prior, in Uncanny X-Men #221.
Sabretooth is currently the lowest ranked character in the Fight Club Rankings at #961. The string of unanswered defeats doesn't seem adequately reflective of his stature, but it's difficult to deny a higher than average rate of losing.
Bad guys generally trend toward more losses than wins, and Sabretooth is one of the worst! He also has the added pressure of a healing factor, which means he can take a kicking and come back ticking. That gives writers license to knock him around. In fictional terms, it can also make him over confident and a bit sloppy. Similar can be said of Wolverine, who currently has a 52.5% win rate.
Appropriately enough: Wolverine is the only opponent on record that Sabretooth has managed to fight without losing. Even then, the Wolverine #50 tied result ended with both characters mortally wounded. He's decapitated and written off for several years by the end of the multi-issue struggle. Not a high point.
He seemingly died at the end of this battle, but as Mirage notes for the reader, death isn't coming for him. A pretty clear message that fans can look forward to more trouble from Sabretooth.
He will return in the pages of New Mutants, and I seem to remember something about Mister Sinister experimenting with Sabretooth clones, but that's a messy concept I'd rather not think about right now.
We shall simply commit this one to the books. It's a pretty obscure fight, easily overlooked in favour of two others, most notably the cover featured main event between Magneto and Sebastian Shaw. You can bet we'll be revisiting the issue to look more closely at both of the other battles at some time in the future.
If you want to read ahead to see the whole shebang for yourself you can find this issue collected in Epic Collection New Mutants: Curse of the Valkyrie. Use the Amazon purchase link provided and you'll get yourself a good deal and make sure Amazon supports the site at no extra cost to you!
You can discover more battles by following links throughout this post, or by diving into the Secret Archive, where featured fights are indexed by publisher, series, and issue number.
If you like what Secret Wars on Infinite Earths is all about, and the many hundreds of articles available to read, you can make sure it continues by joining Patreon. Patrons gain extra access to schedule notes, bonus polls, and user selected articles.
You can also receive daily links to featured fights inspired by the topics of the day by following for free on Twitter and Facebook! Don't forget to like and share battles, and keep your eyes peeled for the Top 3 trending fights of the week!
Winner: Cannonball (w/ Sunspot)
#114 (+229) Cannonball
#153 (+2) Sunspot [+1 assist]
#961 (--) Sabretooth
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