Sabretooth has new playthings in Sabretooth #2, by writer Victor LaValle, artist Leonard Kirk, colorist Rain Beredo, and letterer Cory Petit. This one digs even deeper into the book’s incarceration metaphor and remains impressive.

In flashback, the trial of the five mutants remanded to the Pit- Nekra, Oya, Melter, Madison Jeffries, and Third Eye- is revealed, with Cypher protesting. In the present, Sabretooth hunts the five of them, with only Third Eye abstaining. He sees things for how they are and is able to astrally project out, finding Mole and asking him to get help. Back in the Pit, the mutants get the best of demon Sabretooth. In Krakoa, Mole goes to multiple mutants for help to no avail and decides he’ll do it himself. Later in the Pit, Sabretooth talks to the five mutants, telling them that he’s changed his mind about torturing them and has a new plan- revenge on the people who put them there.

LaValle is doing something wonderful with this book. Sabretooth’s treatment by the Quiet Council has always seemed unfair- he was working for them after all when he broke their laws. Being condemned by mutants who had done way worse than him like Sinister and Apocalypse- so using his situation to talk about the injustices of the US prison system was perfect. This issue compounds things. At the beginning of the issue, readers have no idea why the five mutants are condemned, but the whole thing feels as wrong as Sabretooth’s own incarceration. By the end of the issue, readers only know of two of their crimes- Nekra’s and Melter’s. Nekra is an unrepentant murderer, but Melter accidentally melted a boulder, which is part of Krakoa, and breaks the third law of the nation, showing how the wolves and sheep have put together in prison the unfairness of the whole thing.

Adding Mole to the story is interesting as well. He has a history with Sabretooth but what he represents in the story is the person who speaks out about the barbarism of the prison system and what happens? No one cares. No one has time to listen. It’s such a potent metaphor. Sabretooth’s final plan- to take revenge on the people who put him there and use the others as weapons- shows the results of what the prison system does to the people inside of it. If most of the five prisoners aren’t that bad, they will be by the time they get out. Sabretooth ensures this earlier in the issue by letting them attack him, using their lust for violence against him, who they think is their enemy, to turn them.

Kirk’s has a very particular style, and it doesn’t always work for everyone. However, the areas in this book where the detail seems to give away makes a lot of sense. It dehumanizes the characters, reducing them to human-shaped blobs, which plays along with LaValle’s metaphors on what incarceration does to people. It’s definitely an artistic choice, and it works very well.

Sabretooth #2 is such a great work. LaValle is working his metaphor and giving readers an exciting story, which is more than a lot of the current X-Men writers are capable of. Kirk’s art may get some complaints, but that’s for people who don’t really understand what this book is doing because elsewhere, it’s excellent. Sabretooth is turning out better than anyone expected.

Grade: A+