I also really liked how he was drawn in this issue. While the majority of the characters seemed to be mutating throughout the artwork, Creed looked just about right in his bits.

There’s not much to be said about this issue, as you’ve stated, it’s a transition issue with some of Claremont’s patented X-Men family baseball fun moments he puts in from time to time. Mostly forgettable.

In fact, one could say it was almost entirely pointless. We didn’t need this explanation as to why characters were sticking around. They could have simply said “6 months later” (or what have you) and let us fill in the blanks.

There was a couple of pages in the story I absolutely loved though. The scenes with Sabretooth rattling around the mansion and talking with Charles.

I thought it was a neat use of who Creed is as a mutant, sniffing out the locations of his fellow mutants. And then drifting into an introspective about how he feels Logan is laughing at him from beyond.

This scene is transitioned well when we go from a thought bubble directly to a text bubble with Sabretooth figuring out that everything he has been thinking, Xavier has been listening in on.

The two begin arguining, in what I felt was the most in-character moments of the issue, about how Logan was Xavier’s friend, and his opinions and familiarity were earned. Whereas Victor has no such privilege. To which Sabretooth responds that he really doesn’t care.

I could go on and on about these two pages. I really loved that interaction. At the end of the day, it was really the only saving grace for me for the issue.

And thus far, it looks like Sabretooth may turn out to be Claremont’s most endearing character. Though I can’t say that’s really surprising, as when he wrote the character in New Exiles, it was by far his best of the bunch.