Whither Weapon X, then?

It's now been five issues since we saw the regular cast, who seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth.  For Reload, we got a three-parter guest starring Wolverine and Fantomex.  Now we're getting a three-parter with Sabretooth and Mr Sinister.  And then... ah, hold on, the book seems to be missing from the October solicitations.

Given that Marvel have developed an unfortunate habit of simply cancelling titles without telling anyone, it's hard to avoid speculation when that happens.  Especially considering that even after Reload, the book was selling less than Thanos.  Maybe it's just taking a skip month, but Marvel only have themselves to blame for inviting speculation.

Anyway, Sabretooth is hired by (ahem) Megacorp to go after Mr Sinister, who's set up in business under a new cover identity.  Or rather, exactly the same cover identity as before, but what the heck.  This time he claims to be running a clinic for ill mutants.  When he gets an interesting one, he fakes their death so that he can take them off for further experimentation.  Fair enough - given Sinister's schtick, that's not a bad plan.

So Sabretooth goes after him and... yup, that's basically it.  There's a cute subplot with Sinister ignoring the loyal Scalphunter in favour of a new and more exciting henchman, but really the story never gets over the basic problem of villain/villain stories.  Who am I meant to be rooting for here, and why should I care?

To be fair, an attempt is made to answer that - Sabretooth is working for one of Sinister's victims, and therefore his employer has a legitimate grudge.  Besides, we know Sabretooth is the underdog against Sinister.  But that doesn't provide enough reason to make me root for Sabretooth, who's left to his own devices for most of the issue.  If Sinister just kills him... well, no great loss, is it?

And without somebody to really get behind, the story has a problem.

Rating: C+

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