Sabretooth and the Exiles #3
Sabretooth and the team come up with an interesting way to save the world in Sabretooth and the Exiles #3, by writer Victor LaValle, artist Leonard Kirk, colorist Rain Beredo, and letterer Cory Petit. This issue goes in crazy directions while still being exactly what fans want.
While on the Astral Plane, Third-Eye explains the plan: since time flows differently there, it gives them time to design foolproof armor to protect Orphan-Maker. However, they find something intriguing on the Astral Plane: an Orchis station. As that’s happening, the prisoners at the station start to make their escape as Orchis gets ready to dump the whole thing into the volcano. As the others work on the armor, Sabretooth, Toad, and Oya recon the facility. Sabretooth and Toad fight because of the circumstances of their last meeting - the mission that got Sabretooth put into the Pit - when they discover a person surrounded by monstrous growth. ‘Tooth and Toad run off, leaving Oya to find out who it is. On Station Two, Dr. Barrington prepares her next step. With the new armor made, the team prepares to leave, when Oya returns and reveals the mysterious person’s identity: Victor Creed.
LaValle likes to remind people that this isn’t a run-of-the-mill X-Men comic, so he links Orchis to the real world in a macabre yet brilliant way. For years, doctors who messed up in the white world, for lack of a better term, were sent to the various US agencies that were responsible for the health of indigenous people. It’s a monstrous piece of American history that isn’t surprising, and LaValle uses it here, as Orchis does the same thing to torture test mutants, just like doctors did in the real world. It’s the kind of realism filtered through fiction that X-Men books do so well, which has also been sorely missing from the Krakoa Era.
Of course, LaValle does all the X-Men stuff this book needs as well. From the Astral Plane setting to Sabretooth and Toad fighting it out to the villains chickening out when it counts, this is an entertaining comic and a chilling piece of history disguised as plot. There are a lot of great moments in this issue, but the best is when Melter pretends to be Human Torch to keep Orphan-Maker calm. It’s some wonderful comedy, something that LaValle has peppered this book with but no one ever really talks about.
Kirk and Beredo do an excellent job on the art. From the moment the book opens in the Astral Plane, they go old school with the background. It’s like a Ditko dream, and it’s fantastic. As far as opening splash pages go, it’s very memorable. Later on, Kirk draws the battle between Sabretooth and Toad, where Toad sprouts more tongues because they’re on the Astral Plane, and it looks amazing. It’s like fingers on a hand in AI art, but in a good way. Sabretooth, Toad, and Oya’s discovery looks frightening and terrifically designed, which helps make the big reveal so much better.
Sabretooth and the Exiles #3 does everything right, but at this point, that’s to be expected. The Krakoa Era has accrued its own stable of failures, but this isn’t one of them. LaValle continues to do everything right when it comes to a Sabretooth comic and mutant book. Kirk and Beredo are brilliant. There’s really no other way to describe their art. It’s always top-notch, and this issue shows off why. As usual, this book rises to the top.