This week marks not only the conclusion to Laura Kinney: Sabertooth, but the end of Erica Schultz time with the character. What do you think of her time with Laura? Would you like her to return?
As we try to promote the discussion culture of Laura's comics I ask that we all be civil and respectful. Feel free to air your opinion and grievances, but also try to remember that both the people we are speaking to here and the people who write these stories are in fact as I've called them, people.
I'm trying to figure out who this book was actually for.
Hellion fans are pissed because oh look, it's yet another book where he gets dumped on. And then he gets unceremoniously shanked at the end of the first issue.
Helix fans are pissed because it takes the build-up of LKW 6-8 and we get a retread of Liu going out of her way to act as if Hellion is a horrible horrible person to justify trashing a popular ship.
And Laura are pissed because it didn't service Laura as a character. Literally the whole thing is her being mind-fucked by Doug and having no agency in anything that she's doing.
What was the point?
Yeah. Its very confusing. Is it even a story about family when Laura is at odds with hers and it ends with her son killing them all?
Who was it for? And what was it about? Its the questions I am trying my best to figure out and can't.
For the Zane Creed fans.
You're awful /s
I've been out of the loop with Marvel and X-Men comics but I'll just ask, Laura has a kid?? Wouldn't he be maybe 2 in comic years?
Laura Kinney: Sabertooth is part of a line-spanning event that takes place ten years into a dark future.
Thanks for the explanation, I was really wondering what the heck did I miss
Try not to mention Julian: level impossibleš
Thank god
Laura's had a problem through several iterations of writers that there is just nothing there. Snickt, slash, repeat. Most of the plot of her own stories happens around or to her. She's about as deep as a toilet. Which might work for Logan (and then only sometimes), but doesn't work for Laura at all. What made her special wasn't being the Wolverine. It was exploring the human side of her, which now barely even gets a throwaway line. (I always wanted to belong!!!)
That is my biggest complaint of Schultz and NYX and Krakoa and even before that. She is mostly just present slashing things. Here, she isn't even her own character and slashed all the wrong things with all the good parts of the story (how Revelation got to her, the falling out with her family, her meeting and time with Alex and being a mom) happening off panel. Reminds me of how we were told she fell madly in love with Synch. The result is 'Who cares?' No emotional attatchment at all.
My complaint is that they are purposely not showing the best parts of Laura and turning her into a generic action waifu. This story could've been about any mutant. And that is why Schultz had to use a zero character like Zane. Only a character who doesn't even appear in the story wouldn't show her up with this kind of writing.
Hellion can't be her love interest because as they are currently written he is a much better and more compelling character. Julian is complex and complicated and edgy and has a dark side he struggles against. He's personable and relatable for all those things. Julian had more character development in one issue of NYX than Laura has had in 5 years. And Lanzing hates the character!
Very much agreed. Its all I've ever been talking about. The lack of depth with Laura. NYX to its credit did try something. They did something that Laura needs and that's not being a Loner. By introducing Julian and Kiden back into her life you put Laura in that position where she needs to do more than hack and slash.
Schultz's run quickly fell in the painful habit that Logan has where the stories are: "Who are we going to stab today?" With the dream reality issue being an outlier.
Easily the worst book of the event.
In regards to Schultz I liked her voice for Laura and how she tried to inject a bit of edge back into the character, but other than that it was pretty unremarkable. I can't say I'd want her to return, but I wouldn't be against her returning even if I probably wouldn't check the book out.
I think it's tied with Binary for the worst spot.
Laura Kinney: Sabertooth #3 is all of Schultz's writing flaws put at the forefront. The worse thing? This story could have worked a lot better if it was more focused, because there are some genuinely good ideas. The ending has Alex basically show he's extremely powerful, kill everyone and then set up to be used by Apocalypse. The problem is that we don't know anything about the young boy other than he's Laura's son.
The entire story could have skyrocketed and meant something if Schultz took even took one issue to focus on Laura and Alex's relationship. Like really show how they interact and feel about one another, because Laura has a thing about mothers having lost hers. Who sacrificed her life to free her, but Sarah Kinney is a non-factor here. There's no thought about her in wanting to defend Alex that actually means something. Alex causing the death of his mother directly puts him in the same situation we once saw Laura in when she escaped the Facility. This? This just feels flat and asks only one question: "Who is this for?"
When it comes to Schultz's run I think almost anyone who's frequent on this sub knows my opinion of her Laura Kinney: Wolverine. I don't have a hatred for the book nor do I consider it a bad book. Schultz's run is okay. Just okay. She has a solid voice for Laura, but she doesn't do anything with it. She teases these ideas of exploring something deeper, but never actually goes for it. There's nothing to truly grip you about the book or even make you remember it.
If you asked me if I wanted to see Schultz on a Laura book again I'd probably say yes. Prior to this book she wrote a story for Laura set in her past. I think the journey for Laura though redundant for us fans, was one Schultz needed to go through with the character. Because she did have good ideas. Polly, Haymaker, Oasis and Laura teaming up with other heroes (though I didn't quite care for that little undertone where Laura felt like a rookie in comparison to them)ā those were all good ideas that should have been built upon.
That was the big thing for me about the run. Nothing was being actually being built upon. Laura thinks about something and by the next issue the thought seems to have vanished. She doesn't seem to dwell on it. Because back in that moment that's what everyone saying. She's building to it. Its building with Issue #7&8 being the most direct confrontation Laura has with things. Then we reenter Gabby and its kinda messy. We're basically told Laura effectively abandoned her so Gabby started doing things on her own. We eventually wrap with Laura accepting the lesson that she isn't alone and she has people she can trust and rely on. A lesson that doesn't make sense, because she already knows this. One could argue that maybe this is playing on the Krakoa Duplicate things, but that's a non-issue in the run and nothing Laura brings up herself or ponders upon. It may as well effectively never happened.
But like I said, maybe that was a journey Schultz needed to get out of her system. I don't know. Its easier to move on knowing already you have new stories for the character coming up with hopefully some explosive new concepts to explore, but when it comes to the short Era of Schultz's run I can only shrug. That's not a slight or anything. I just look back on the book and I don't really care anymore. Its not a run that will be remembered in the grand scheme of things. Not in the way many others have been cemented in the minds of Laura fans. It was a thing that happened and then moved on. As for AoR, the less said about that the better. I have my opinions on the entire event, but Laura Kinney: Sabertooth was not for me and I found little enjoyment or purpose in the book and I am not going to suddenly flip on Schultz's and call her the worse thing ever. That event has even what I consider great writers not giving a good performance.
Erica Schultz's Wolverine was okay if a little forgettable and I am already looking ahead at the next thing. Regardless, it was fun and exciting to see Laura get so much coverage post-Krakoa even if to mixed results. It means she has presence and with more stories come more opportunities and I ever looking forward to that and seeing the character grow. She's still too young as a character to be stagnant. There's so much more out there for her to do and I want to see that.
The negative of Laura getting so much coverage is that, i feel, the longer she's portrayed as this 2d version of herself and the harder it'll be to get rid of it. NYX had her single best moment in years, reaching out to Julian (not even because shipping, just showing proper growth and how she's become the person who can help other people- emotionally too, unlike Logan), and we know how that went.
I think Schultz was trying to get her back where she was pre-Krakoa, kind of trying to tell her own ANW kinda story, but it just ended up with a Laura that bounces between stances and ideals- not to say, one that behaved like a complete rookie.
Might've maybe been better if this Laura had outright been treated as a clone (of Talon's) and that was her getting a grasp, but that's a whole can of worms as well.
LKS was a comedy.
Yeah that's the biggest fear. That the more recent stuff cements the wrong ideas about Laura going forward. We just have to hope and see.
I think the thing that is defining Laura for this run and NYX is that they are actually writing her as the clone of Talon, but they also want to make use of Laura's past connections so they can't actually treat her as a clone (would also probably be a bad idea).
Yeah, i can see it. We might say NYX was the clone learning to pick up from where the OG had left off, while LKW was... stuff. Idk. Relearning stuff after imitating Logan for all of Krakoa (which could be an interesting angle in itself).
Though i can frankly also see why they don't want to go that route. They made their bed by disrespecting OG Laura as throughly as they did, and a clone just hits different and is inherently sad. Like MCU Gamora's deal, but all written like shit.
When LKS was first announced. I was intrigued if not a little worried. Because with any dramatic status quo shifts/time jumps you have basically have to tell two stories. The story you set out to tell as well as how you got there.
A Herculean task...that sadly ended up Sisyphean.
ESPECIALLY with three issues.
Like to me there really is no clear mission statement to this mini-series.
IF it was supposed to be about how Laura takes the Sabretooth mantel, it should have been set in the early days of AoR and give us a speedrun of Laura and Zane leading to the birth of Alex and the death of Zane and Laura's desire to honor the legacy of her late husband.
IF the whole idea is to explore WHAT IF Laura was a Mom; then just make Julian the Dad and have the story centered around Laura trying to protect her child whose powerless and focus on the dynamic between Mother and Child.
Instead we get some weird combo where characters just do things; characters are mind controlled and people die and the audience feels nothing.
I enjoyed her run enough, but this weird ass miniseries was awful. Sheās not quite on my shit list (wells, Phillips, Seeley) but sheās not far above it
Absolutely agreed on the ranking. Not as bad as the outright offensive kind of bad (i'd easily add Duggan), but it's bad.
Yeah. A lot of good will has been lost and it happens. Its how I felt with Hickman post-Imperial.
Ugh I still need to make my way through those 4 issues. Read the one shots, loved 2/5 of them
The first was solid. Issue two was rocky for me, but three and four. I don't know I just don't agree with the decisions made here.
Totally fair. Did you check out any of the one shots?
Nova impressed me with the sci-fi intelligence angle, and I actually found the imperial guardians so fun. Carol and Gamora are excellent foils to each other
I did, all of them I think. Nova was great. Dan hasn't lost his touch. Planet She-Hulk was disappointing.
Generally I have high hopes for Mackay and his Nova run. Its doing good so far.
Itās always a pleasant surprise when you run into someone with the same taste as you haha.
I was also bummed by the new She Hulk, sheās one of my all time faves! Thanks for sharing your thoughts
The discussion thread is working. That makes me glad and yeah, after Rainbow's stellar time with the character it was rough. Hulk brought strength to Skarr. I hope that Jen brings her own uniqueness to the planet shaping it like her cousin did but in a way he couldn't.
But the murder mystery of the One-shot wasn't great. Especially the reveal.
I know! I was like āwaitā¦ so Jen found evidence but the evidence was wrong, and all the wives teamed up, and they were justified, and also itās not illegal.ā
Not her best moment
Exactly! It just didn't work. Because then what was the point? The one-shot could boil down to
Laugh track. "That's Skarr." Cue outro.
"Good grief"
Let's hope Gen X-23 saves us from this drought.
Its not even a drought. Its getting a hurricane when you asked for a little rain. Like rain is there, but its causing nothing but damage.
I didn't mind Schultz's LKW. Sure it had it's issues, but compared to Laura in New Avengers, it's good. I'd put it alongside Wolverines & Deadpools for things I don't mind Laura in and may well read again.
So. Laura Kinney Sabretooth.
I really don't buy the whole "It's an apocalyptic future, the story is deliberately terrible to the characters to show this." To be honest.
You know what was also a literal Apocalyptic future? The original Age of Apocalypse that this event pays homage to, which was also done over a series of minis. AoA Sabretooth manages to have character agency, and a really well fleshed out relationship with his daughter, Blink, while still living in a crapsack world where they all die in the end.
Heck AoA Blink was such a good character that she's arguably the more popular Blink, has had her own series, 2 exile runs that she's led, and both she and AoA 'Tooth have appeared in several other comics since.
Alex on the other hand could have just about been anyone's child, because this entire thing now reads, to me personally, like a vehicle to give Apocalypse a strong enough mutant to take the fight to Doug's Seraphim, and we'll probably never see the kid again after.Ā
You can say exactly the same things for Zane, Gabby and Akihiro in this. Zane just exists to give Laura the Sabretooth name to make this an AoA homage. Gabby & Akihiro are just there to demonstrate Laura's brainwashed and for shock value at the end.
Laura and her whole "I have the Sabretooth moniker because of my dead husband and also I'm a mum, and completely brainwashed now." personality doesn't read well at all either. She doesn't get any bonding moments with her son, we know approximately nothing about her dead husband beyond "He's a Creed." Also brainwashed Wolverines has been done to death.
The whole thing does not read as a Laura story. She just happens to be in it. There were so many more interesting ways that Laura becomes Sabretooth could have been done. Heck, I don't even think that we needed a Sabretooth at all, but we're doing an AoA homage, so here we are I guess.Ā
I dunno, maybe Schultz hated the premise and constraints she was given to work with, and that's what's shining though here, maybe it's good old fashioned editorial meddling, but either way I'm glad to be done with it.
Very much agreed. Too often this is used as a cover what is just bad writing.
Also agree on this front. Thanks for lending your voice to the discussion and I can tell you what, I made discussion thread for LKST, but New Avengers is not getting that treatment. That's Lara Kidney in that book not Laura Kinney as far as I'm concerned.
Iām not a fan but her AOR tied in series was not good.
Yeah it left a lot to be desired.
I havenāt bothered with the Revelation tie in because 3 issues wouldnāt be enough for me to entertain the idea of Laura taking the name āsabretooth.ā Itās a bad premise from jump.
For Schultzās actual series: I liked it, I think she did a good job characterizing Laura though the breakneck pacing and āmonster of the weekā type format made the series a bit janky. I think part of how the issues are ordered/approved by Marvel contributed to this. Her time with Daredevil in New York and the terror attack as well as the manufactured mutants story with Bucky felt like they deserved to be longer arcs.
i only searched for this subreddit because i just finished sabretooth issue 3 and i need to talk about it. wow. that wasā¦not good. i was certain that i mustāve skipped a page when it went from the arena right to laura showing up. just an immediate jump. and that ending sucked. this very much wouldāve benefitted from more issues. iām disappointed.
Wish you'd come during better circumstances but happy to have you, welcome to the sub. Generation X-23 has already been announced for next year. So stick around for that and if you aren't all caught up we have a solid reading list pinned, feel free to browse that.
much appreciated and thank you for the warm welcome! iāll make sure thatās on my pull list and iāll check out the reading list
Im glad she's gone.
Thanks everyone for reading it so I wouldnāt have too LOLZ
THANK YOU for the tone and the reminder at the top of this post!!! The writers and creative teams are people. They do read and absorb our āfeedbackā (for lack of a better term). The improvement in Lauraās characterization over the course of Schultzās LKW is proof that they were listening.
Ā However, I am not surprised to find that she didnāt continue; if every writer is treated with the kind of venom Schultz has constantly received over the past year, Marvel will rapidly run out of creative teams who want to write Laura, and sheāll quietly disappear from publication. Marvelās writers will simply leave her on the shelf because they donāt want to deal with her fanbase. There are lots of other characters in the X-Men roster who are competing for Lauraās role as badass blade lady: Psylocke and Magik to name two VERY popular options.
Negativity is easy and lazy. We can do better. And if we want to support Laura, we have to.
As for this issue and the story as a whole:
Iāve read better Laura stories. Iāve also read far worse *in this era*. Even I canāt stomach New Avengers, and Iām an optimist when it comes to Laura comics. But all of this seemed like a pretty logical conclusion to the story, and it followed the themes of the event. Everyone was so shocked and enraged by Zane, death of Julian, by Revelationās control of Lauraā¦ but likeā¦ thatās the point? Itās a tragedy?
Age of Revelation is a dystopian nightmare alternate reality where everything has gone wrong. It is meant to be a bad ending for her, and for the world as a whole. Tragedy is an entire genre of drama and writing.
-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Instead of being free and acting on her own impulses, Laura is once again someone elseās tool. She tries to free herself and fails in the end.
-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Instead of ending up with one of her own love interests like Julian, she gets paired off with a rando, and instead of talking things through and getting back together, Laura is so far gone that she straight-up kills Julian.
-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Instead of living out a happy life with her own family, in her final moments she cuts down Gabby and moves on to Daken.
And even when she tries to overcome all of it and free her son, he ends up killing her like she killed Sarah, and he ends up a tool of apocalypse like she was for Revelation. ā¦And The Facility. ā¦And Cyclops/Utopia (but we donāt talk about that part).
My biggest disappointment is that it as never confirmed that Laura/Zane was Revelationās doing. That would have added a little extra spice to it.
This run has been pretty good. Not ANW great, but pretty good. Iād take it any day over Dugganās X-Men. ā¦But really? No one should have ever been surprised that this story was full of bad and disappointing things, when thatās the purpose of the entire event.
And this? I have no issue with this. I know when something is meant to be dark and a lot of the times I love dark stuff, but I think that too often this gets thrown around to excuse weak writing. Something can still be dark and well-written.
That's where my grievances come in with the book. It doesn't feel well-written. IN my own comment about things I talked about the potential of this book. I hate Laura is Sabertooth, but I also get that I am supposed to hate it. The issue is that there's no real meat to it. We got the mind control bit, but that's soft.
The relationship between Laura and her son is under baked. So much of it feels under baked and I can't feel the tragedy of her son because I genuinely don't know anything else about the kid other than his name.
Of course, we have to also acknowledge that this book only had three issues to tell its story. And I am also speaking with the benefit of hindsight, but like I said in my comment Laura Kinney: Sabertooth highlights a lot of Schultz's previously seen flaws. There was great potential, but we keep skimming the surface of the bowl instead of digging deeper.
I think a lot of these issues simply stem from length. A lot of ideas are underbaked not just in Sabertooth, but across the entire lineup. Giving only 3 issues to Age of Revelation has resulted in summarized, bullet-point style stories where plot points are touched on, but we are given no time to explore the emotions of the characters. Comics are already a condensed genre where storytelling space is at an absolute premium. Exploring ideas as complex as AoR, or even a lot of the stuff Schultz wrote in LKW, requires 3-4 more issues per arc than they got.
But that seems like an editorial/Management decision.
That is very true and it would forever be wrong of me to be so deeply critical in those circumstances. Because the three issue limit is genuinely stifling and I can't imagine trying to tell the story in that short enough time. Let alone making people care about new characters. No matter which way you go you lose something due to the restraints.