In Jason Aaron’s “Wolverine” run (which we loved, by the way), Sabretooth returned from Hell despite being killed with a sword that was supposed to prevent him from coming back to life (comics, everyone!). It’s just hard to keep a good arch-nemesis down, I suppose. Yet, it was never actually explained how he came back from the dead. He just sort of … did.
Well, after being announced at NYCC last year, it looks like the story is finally happening this July, starting with Wolverine #310. Following an arc from Cullen Bunn and Paul Pelletier, Jeph Loeb and Simone Bianchi take over the title to tell the follow-up to “Evolution,” the story that introduced Romulus and killed of Sabretooth, leading to the launch of “Wolverine: Origins” by Daniel Way and a Sabretooth-free run of Wolverine stories until — well, recently.
Loeb remarks that the story will pick up right where he and Bianchi left off, although it will take into consideration everything that has happened since with Way’s book. Apparently there has always been a door back to his return placed dormant for if and when the two would return to the story, and that time is now. The series will also see the return of Romulus from his defeat in “Wolverine: Origins,” as well as introduce a few new characters.
Of course, the most interesting comment is in Loeb’s Marvel.com interview:
“We want to clear some things up from ‘Evolution,’” explains Loeb. “All I can say is that if you went to ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and Darth Vader said–spoiler alert–‘Luke, I am your father,’ and you left the theater, you had to take Vader’s word for it. If [‘Return of the Jedi’] had been different, everything Vader said could’ve been a lie. Could’ve!”
We hate to make assumptions (Editor’s Note: No we don’t!), but this would seem to indicate one of two things: a) that Sabretooth was never really dead or b) that Romulus was never manipulating Wolverine and Sabretooth for their entire lives. Given that we saw Sabretooth in Hell during Jason Aaron’s first “Wolverine” relaunch arc, I’d wager Jeph Loeb just tipped his hand a bit there.
Look for ‘Sabretooth Reborn’ in the pages of “Wolverine” this July.
