“You can’t even comprehend what I am! I’a a force o’ nature — the beast in the wild! That little runt you’re all so scared of is nothin’ but a pale imitation o’ me!”
—–
“It’s Latin. Back in the days of the Roman Empire. ‘Quod sum eris.’ ‘I am what you will be.’ No matter where you go, no matter what you do or don’t do, it can’t be stopped. You are going to become… me.”
Sabertooth

In honor of the Wolverine movie coming out and the fact that geeks usually have something to complain about when comic movies are made, sometimes I’m one of them, I thought it would be interesting to look at one complaint about the film from a different take. The biggest group of complaints about any comic book movie rests in getting things right. If it wasn’t like that in the book many geeks won’t like it. However, sometimes there is a bigger issue with the comic than the movie…that issue my friends…is retcon. So here’s the complaint I’m working with:

Geek voice: “Wolverine and Sabertooth aren’t brothers.” That’s true…now. The relationship between Sabertooth and Wolverine is complex and depending on what writer was working on the books at the time it has changed…a lot.

1. Same Person, kinda - John Byrne drew a face for Wolverine and upon learning that John Romita Sr. had done one that had been used…he turned this character into Sabertooth a villan for Iron Fist

3. Father - After creating Sabertooth Byrne, who had fought to not have Wolverine dropped early on, wanted to make him Wolverine’s father (Chris Claremont wanted this as well). Later writers didn’t.

3. Brother - Origins depicted Dog Logan as Wolverines half-brother (who hated him) he had a strong resemblance to Sabertooth and it was revealed that this was going to become a possible origin of their fued. (The writer didn’t intend this, but said it wouldn’t bother him if another writer did it later). Later writers didn’t.

4. Members of rival clans - Some story line in another book had them as members of rival Wolf and Bear Clans that had been fighting throughout history. Other writers did not pick up on this.

5. Son - It’s a different continuity for certain, but in the Ultimates they made Sabertooth Wolverine’s son.

6. Lupines - So a continuing Arc is has some dude named Romulus as a mastermind behind the experiments and tampering done with Wolverine. This dude has an interest in all the “Feral” type mutants. In this arc Sabertooth has been used as one of Wolverines “handlers”.

7. Teammates - One thing that hasn’t changed once established is that at one time the two were teammates working for the CIA and they were both part of the Weapon X project that gave Wolverine his Adamantium skeleton.

8. Rivals - This also never changes…so much so that at one point Sabertooth was apart of the X-Men and when Wolverine heard (he wasn’t around at the time) he came straight to the Mansion and the two of them started scrapping.

8. Whatever comes next - A retcon is a tool for a writer to change something in a stories history. Or for a different writer to toss out his predecessors idea so he can do whatever he now wants. So down the line who knows what the relationship will be?

WWWD:
Wolverine: “I… urkgl.. wanted to know what you… what you meant by.. ‘quod sum eris.”
Creed: “What? You ask me that now after all these years? You can go to hell.”
Wolverine: “Been there. They got your bed all made up and ready for you. Got a feelin’ though. A real sick feelin’, Creed.. that we’re going to be sharing a room together down there.”