Daniel Way and Bart Sears' Sabretooth miniseries ships for the second time this month.  When I reviewed issue #1, I was pleasantly surprised, because it was actually readable.  With my expectations suitably raised, issue #2 disappoints me.

It's more of the same, basically.  Everyone wanders around in a snowstorm, there's a killer out there who is implicitly Sabretooth (but probably won't be, because I'm assuming that's the twist), and for some reason, Sasquatch has turned up as the local hero.  If you've got a burning desire to see Sabretooth fight Sasquatch out of Alpha Flight for seven pages, then this is your issue.  But they're not very attractive pages - not as ugly as some of Sears' recent work, but still overmuscled and awkward.

The book is competent enough, but leaves you wondering: in the name of god, why?  Why does this exist, other than to stretch an already overstretched franchise to breaking point, by trying to squeeze a few more sales out of a character who passed his commercial peak over ten years ago?

It reeks of laziness - not so much by the creators, who are making a reasonable effort to do an entertaining story with him, but on the part of whoever decided to commission a Sabretooth miniseries in 2004.  You can practically see somebody working their way down a ticklist headed "Safe Ideas, Done To Death" and phoning round writers to see who wants to do them again.

Rating: C+

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