While sitting and trying to think of a subject for this article I was browsing the X-Men wiki due to a conversation me and Sneeze had just been having about how Sabretooth and Wolverine are supposed to be brothers, but there was no mention of this in the first film, and I ended up completely confused as to what is canon in X-Men. Just a quick word of warning, this article may contain spoilers regarding the X-Men movies. You have been warned.
Now just let me state from the outset that I have never been a big X-Men fan. I was a 90s/00s child, so I was never big into the X-Men thing. I never read the comics or anything, or watched that many of the cartoons, and my first introduction to the whole concept was really when the first film came out in 2000. Before this I had little to no interest in the whole X-Men thing. I loved the film though and that got me into the concept, although I still never bothered reading any of the comics or anything.
I’ve seen all 4 of the film releases (X-Men, X-2, The Last Stand and Origins: Wolverine) and I enjoyed all of them (even though X-2 was one of the most confusing storylines I’ve ever seen, and I’m a JRPG fan!) I was particularly interested in Wolverine’s backstory, since in my opinion he’s the most kickass of all the X-Men, and thought the story portrayed in Origins was excellent, if a little contrived. That’s what led me to browse the X-Men wiki today while eating my lunch. In particular I was looking at the story between Wolverine and Sabretooth, and it left me completely confused. There seem to be about seven different canons for X-Men (slight exaggeration there, but that’s what we do at Gabbling Geeks) and I’m even less clear on the story now than I was when I started.
According to Origins, James (Wolverine) and Victor (Sabretooth) are brothers with similar powers of healing and retractable claws. Okay I added this sentence later, after I’d written the article, but it turns out that Wolverine and Sabretooth are step-brothers, which begs the question: why do they both have similar powers? Anyway back to the article... Wolverine kills some dude who he thinks is the groundskeeper, but is actually his father, after the groundskeeper/real father dude kills the person who Wolverine thinks is his dad. The groundskeeper/real father reveals this information to Wolverine as he dies. Confused? Yeah, me too. Wolverine then flees with Victor (who later becomes Sabretooth) and we see various events of his life...blah blah blah... Throughout the film Wolverine and Sabretooth fight over Wolverine’s dead wife...or some such, until the end when they team up to fight Weapon XI, after which Sabretooth disappears.
In the first X-Men film, Sabretooth is a mutant serving Magneto with feline-like grace and superhuman strength. His character is never explained and he apparently dies near the end of the film after being stabbed in the chest by Wolverine and knocked off the Statue of Liberty into a boat or something, although you never actually see his body (if I remember correctly). Now this is where I’m confused. Is this the same guy? I seem to recall reading something on the wiki about Sabretooth descending into some kind of feral rage so he doesn’t remember who he is, but I don’t recall his claws being retractable in the first film. Admittedly that would be an interesting plot development, Wolverine and Sabretooth meet up years later, neither remembering the other, but who knows? Besides Stan Lee I mean.
The sections that I read on the wiki about Wolverine (http://x-men.wikia.com/wiki/Wolverine) and Sabretooth (http://x-men.wikia.com/wiki/Sabretooth) seem to be derived from the comic books, and mention absolutely nothing about them being brothers, or even them knowing each other during Wolverine’s childhood. The groundskeeper dude Wolverine kills is apparently just that: a groundskeeper, with nothing being mentioned about his being Wolverine’s real father or anything. Also, according to the wiki, Sabretooth is Wolverine’s “deadliest enemy” who he meets during the time he lives in the Canadian Rockies with the aforementioned dead wife, who it turns out isn’t really dead at all, even though she was apparently killed by Sabretooth, and has nothing to do with him before this point.
In summary I’m going to wrap this up here before my head implodes or something. I know there are probably about 20 errors with this article, probably as a consequence of me not remembering the films properly or not reading the articles properly (don’t forget I was eating at the time), so if anyone wants to leave a comment explaining the “real” canon to me feel free. It’d be interesting to know. Anyway, thanks for reading this mash of text that can loosely be called an article, albeit a confusing one, and congratulations once again if you managed to get to the end of one of my articles without flying into a homicidal rage or something.
Monday 15 March 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
yeah me n my mate have been wondering the same thing. and we came to the same conclusion. but what we dont fully under stand is why they didnt keep consistency form x-men to origins like his skeleton was like plated armor and in origins its all over, and like the claw marks in the walls and when he runs out he looks at his hands all bloody and bewillded but in origins its all different but it shdnt be as they cdhv made it the same as its a precual
Post a Comment