Laura Kinney: Sabretooth #3 annotations
LAURA KINNEY: SABRETOOTH #3
Writer: Erica Schultz
Artist: Valentina Pinti
Colour artist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Laura fights Apocalypse.
This is the final issue of Laura Kinney: Sabretooth, which was the stand-in book for Laura Kinney: Wolverine. That book isn’t returning in 2026, though Laura is moving over to a new title called Generation X-23.
PAGES 1-3. Revelation sends Laura to Arakko.
Last issue, Laura failed to stop dissident mutants from escaping through their gate to Arakko, a group that included Gabby, Akihiro, Laura’s son Alex, and Shark Girl. Laura sustains a head injury in that story, which she rather oddly ascribes here to “Sage’s force field”. Sage did have a sort of energy bubble thing in the previous issue, but it injured Laura’s arm, not her head.
At any rate, the basic idea seems to be that when her healing factor repairs damage that affects her mind, it also shakes off some of Revelation’s control over her. That would be consistent with Revelation’s need to reprogramme Wolverine in Amazing X-Men #1.
Laura still expects to get away with addressing Revelation as “Doug”, and is naturally annoyed at being mind controlled, particularly given her back story. She announces her intention to quit but instead is compelled to go to Arakko – the portal was indeed still running at the end of the last story – and bring everyone back. This sounds a lot like a suicide mission, since it’s hard to see how Laura could ever do that singlehandedl, but she does in fact round up some men before proceeding with the mission.
Note that Revelation also asks Khora to arrange for Sage’s teleporter to be brought to him – this doesn’t feature into the plot of this issue, so presumably it’ll come into play elsewhere in the event. It also begs the question of how Revelation expected Laura to get back, if indeed he did. We were told in issue #1 that this teleporter was somehow powered by the consciousness of Blink, something which also never figured into the plot – so perhaps that too will show up somewhere else.
PAGES 4-5. Apocalypse puts Gabby and Akihiro in the arena.
As threatened by the Arakko welcoming party at the end of the previous issue. Apocalypse seemed to have interrupted that scene to ask for information about Revelation, but no, we’re doing Day 1 Arakko stuff where people fight in an arena because that’s just what they do there. The opponents are Shark Girl and Rictor; Shark Girl arrived along with Gabby and Akihiro last issue, and presumably Rictor was in the same boat, though we didn’t see him. Rictor idolised Apocalypse in the Krakoan era, which might explain why he’s rather more enthusiastic about the fight than anyone else.
This version of Akihiro seems to turn into Hellverine as his equivalent of a berserker rage, with the demon that possesses him having the upper hand during these periods.
PAGES 6-8. Laura and her forces arrive.
Somehow they can calibrate the teleporter to arrive right in the arena. How did they know where to aim? Or maybe the teleporters send them to the same location and one of her soldiers teleported them into the building. Let’s go with that, shall we.
Laura’s narration is back to rationalising Revelation’s instructions, but focussing on her desire to protect and reunite with her family – presumably because it’s the most immediate concern she has that’s consistent with Revelation’s instructions.
PAGES 9-10. Gabby saves Alex.
Alex’s headache is due to his powers emerging, as seen later in the issue. We were told in earlier issues that he hadn’t developed any mutant powers, which was awkward in the Revelation Territories, but apparently he’s just a mutant after all. Stress seems to be the factor in making his powers emerge, which is nothing unusual.
PAGES 11-13. Laura stabs Gabby.
As Gabby points out, Laura has done a complete U-turn since issue #1, where she wanted Gabby and Akihiro to get Alex to safety on Arakko, but Revelation’s mind control prevents her from seeing this clearly. The idea here seems to be that when Gabby tries to warn Alex to stay back for his own safety, Laura flies into a rage because she’s being kept away from him.
PAGES 14-17. Alex’s powers emerge, killing everyone in the arena.
Laura’s dying thought is that she was easy to manipulate because she wanted to belong. This doesn’t make a great deal of sense, because Revelation’s whole concept is that he can control literally anyone. Perhaps the idea is that because he was able to manipulate her, he didn’t have to break her to the degree that he did with Logan.
The issue ends on an utterly bizarre note with Apocalypse trying to enlist Alex in his army and Alex crying that he’s lost everything before a caption reading END. This would make more sense if Alex was going to show up alongside Apocalypse in the Finale one-shot, and the final page was being pitched as a cliffhanger, but presented as an actual ending, it’s simply baffling.
Okay, I burst out laughing when I read the end of the annotation. Then I saw that it only went to page 17 and thought that must be a mistake (and that “thought” is more like “praying it is a mistake”). The other books released this week go to page 20, so maybe that recruitment takes up pages 18-20? I don’t know, I’m just hoping that Marvel hasn’t cut pages even further.
It’s 17 pages digitally – there are a lot of double page spreads which count as one page in the digital version.
“Note that Revelation also asks Khora to arrange for Sage’s teleporter to be brought to him – this doesn’t feature into the plot of this issue, so presumably it’ll come into play elsewhere in the event.”
I assumed it was Sage’s teleporter that sent Laura and friends to Arakko.
I get that Laura was angry about being mind-controlled but walking right up to someone with a Compelling Voice instead of attacking them from a distance is just Too Dumb to Live.
This issue doesn’t seem consistent with the Arakko story in World of Revelation. The refugees from Earth seemed okay in that story but in this story we see that Apocalypse is making the refugees he encounters fight to the death. Besides, this seems to take place after Xavier delivered the message to Apocalypse. If Xavier knew about it, you’d think he’d be mad that Apocalypse is making his students fight to the death.
“Laura is moving over to a new title called Generation X-23.”
(Laughs at title) Well, I guess they already had a book called Weapon X-Force. I suppose we should brace ourselves for X-Treme Weapon Excalibur somewhere down the line. Or possibly District X-Factor.
Killing the entire cast in the final issue is a bold move, worthy of Generation Next from the original AoA.
Or a baffling choice.
Also, a blond Alex with uncontrollable energy powers? Be a lot funnier if Laura had married Havoc instead of *checks notes* Sabretooth’s random son.
I do love the mashup of titles. Imagine if they got even more creative. Who else would read X-MAN OF LA MANCHA?
Sorry, sorry, one more.
THE X-MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE.
Well, Disney owns both Marvel and Lucasfilm so they could do “The X-Mandalorian” if they wanted to.
The next DC/Marvel crossover: X-Man and Superman, except it befuddles all the comic fans by being a sequel to the play by George Bernard Shaw, with Nate Grey standing in for Tanner and symbolically representing Nietzsche’s ubermensch, while Clark Kent stands in for Roebuck.
What a cursed book. Who was clamoring for Laura to kill, of all people, Gabby?
And do we sit with that for a while? Have Laura live with what she’s done? Nope. Explode & die a second later.
Terrific. Another Michael. A new Michael in a forum already overrun with guys named Michael. Another Michael making posts and this one’s name is actually Michael Post. It’s going to be more confusing than ever.
“Hey did you read Michael’s post?”
“Which Michael’s post? Michael’s?”
“No, the other Michael.”
“The Other Michael didn’t post anything.”
“No, not the Michael who calls himself “The Other Michael”. I meant the other Michael’s post.”
“What’s the other Michael’s name?”
“Michael Post.”
“Yeah, you already said it was a Michael post. But which Michael?”
Moo says:
December 6, 2025 at 1:11 AM
“Laura is moving over to a new title called Generation X-23.”
(Laughs at title) Well, I guess they already had a book called Weapon X-Force. I suppose we should brace ourselves for X-Treme Weapon Excalibur somewhere down the line. Or possibly District X-Factor.
Moo! X-Treme Weapon X-Calibur was right there. To be replaced with X-Treme Weapon X-Calibre when the time is right.
No Country for Old X-Men,
and it’s sequel, No Country for Old Man Logan
12 Angry X-Men
The X-Men Who Stare At Goats
When is the next issue of Waiting for X-Godot coming out?
>Killing the entire cast in the final issue is a bold move, worthy of Generation Next from the original AoA.
This was something memorable from that book. It was shocking to see Kitty and Colossus sacrifice their whole team just to get Illyana out. While every AoA book had a few casualties that you get for free in an alternate universe (Banshee was the most poignant, Sunspot was the most pointless, Sunder was the most sad), this one hit differently
@Michael – the discrepancy between World of Revelation’s portrayal of Arakko and this is easy to explain. The WoR story was written by Al Ewing who tried very hard to turn Arakko into a viable setting, and no other writer seems to care.
[…] KINNEY: SABRETOOTH #3. (Annotations here.) Well, that didn’t work. And it’s not like Binary, which didn’t work, but you […]
“Waiting for X-Godot”
“X-Treme Weapon X-Calibur”
Will both be co-written by the team of Steven Murray and Chip Zdarsky. Art by celebrity Benedict Cumberbatch. A story about a mutant named Benechip Cumberzdsnarky who never actually appears on panel, but all of the supporting cast snarkily talk about how X-Treme he is.
The scheduled release date is February 31st.
Look for the preview review by Michael Michael Michael not to be confused with Michael or the Other Michael.
“Bengt says:
When is the next issue of Waiting for X-Godot coming out?”
Well, never, of course, but it makes me think of the aborted Malaise of Future Past arc, occurring some X(x)X(x)X years later in an alternate future timeline ruled by evil mutant twins named Bendris, where everyone waits uneasily for something to occur but nothing ever happens no matter how well they use affected conversational tics to pass the time.
@John- Also, the final issue of Generation Next actually advanced the plot of Age of Apocalypse. Kitty and Peter escape with Illyana and the Sugar Man hides in Peter’s boot. Both Illyana and the Sugar Man wind up playing a role in the finale of Age of Apocalypse. What Brevoort doesn’t understand is that Age of Apocalypse worked because the editors of Age of Apocalypse were good at having most of the titles contribute to advancing the plot while in Age of Revelation, the only titles that matter are Amazing X-Men and World of Revelation.
Michaelmas come ‘round again already? My, how time flies.
“What Brevoort doesn’t understand is that Age of Apocalypse worked because the editors of Age of Apocalypse were good at having most of the titles contribute to advancing the plot while in Age of Revelation, the only titles that matter are Amazing X-Men and World of Revelation.”
AoA Alpha featured a bit of story for all of the characters with books to spin off into. Overture had none of that. I suppose it’s down to the editor for not telling Mckay to do it. Or maybe the other writers didn’t want that? But it clearly would have been better.
I think AoA also had the advantage that it wasn’t a puzzlebox plot like AoR is. Since it was basically “the X-Men aide of the Marvel Universe gone wrong because Xavier wasn’t there,” it was able to do interesting side stories more easily on the way to the inevitable Big Fight before everything was reverted to the status quo.
AoR has ended up reserving the puzzlebox elements to McKay, which leaves the other titles kind of awkwardly killing time in the margins.
I still think Howard’s Apocalypse-as-Magus in the Krakoan era was a weird swerve that was inconsistent with his former personality, but Apocalpyse-Survival-of-the-Fittest really is a bore here.
I knew they were going to have the Arakki be budget Klingons but it still disappoints me. My god, there’s a million mutants living on Mars with their own society. How is this not a huge deal for literally every human government and super team? The link between the Avengers and Arakko is right there too, with Storm.
What a waste of potential.
I’m looking forward to X-MANCHESTER, Marvel’s latest attempt at a British superhero book, with a northern twang.