Laura Kinney: Sabertooth #1 // Review
A bomb has detonated in the US. Many had died. Those who hadn’t died had become superhuman mutants. Laura Kinney. In this particular aleternate timeline, she’s a mother. She may have the adamantium skeleton , claws and healing factor, but she has taken-up a non-wolverine alter ego in Laura Kinney: Sabertooth #1. Writer Erica Schultz explores a Laura Kinney of another world with artist Valentina Pinti and color artist Rachelle Rosenberg. Schultz and company somewhat gracefully manuevr through the parallel universe tango with Kinney and a cast of distinctly familiar characters in a decided unfamiliar setting.
He is known as Revelation. He might have once been called “Cypher.” He could understand any language of any kind. Now that power has grown. He’s capable of completely debilitating the language centers of people’s brains. This power has allowed him to become something of a dictator of the newly-formed nation of mutants resting within the United States. And now Laura Kinney has to answer to him. SHe has dropped-off her son with those who AREN’T algned with him. As ominous as it might be to try to confront a super-powered dictator, he is as nothing to the difficulties she will have to face alone.
Kinney has recently been exploring a little bit of alternate reality energy in her own titleLaura Kinney : Wolverine. It's kind of fun to see it extended in a different direction with respect to the new multi-title event. Her personality remains strong, even in the face of something as personality altering as parenthood. Theoretically, the big event would be an interesting opportunity to explore a different characters might interact in a world where they're really is a mutant dictatorship. Kenny could have gone in either direction of supporting the dictatorship or being part of the resistance. Choosing to have her as an ally of the dictator is an interesting maneuver. It will be interesting to see where this leads for Kinney.
Pinti does this solidly respectable job of bringing the darkness to the page. The action is very heavily rendered with lots of hatching. There's some pretty heavy ink in there as well. Rosenberg delivers a color palette that is somber and moody. Throughout there is a sense that there's something that's fundamentally wrong even though this should ideally be a very pleasant place for mutants who can live openly. On a larger scale, it would have made more of a visual impact to move away from traditional post apocalyptic imagery for this particular event. But that's not necessarily the fault of the art team for this particular issue.
As much as things change in these types of titles, the overall story and the overall approach the story don't really change all that much. Kenny's writing works well in a sort of a post, apocalyptic, superhuman, mutants, political setting like this one. It feels very well integrated. It's just not anything terribly new for the character. Even though it's something that's drastically different. And maybe there's some kind of a problem there. But maybe it's just another look at the same character without trying to change too much to make her look completely different. There would be a real danger of that if Schultz were to try to do something more revolutionary with what she's putting to the page.
