Wolverine and Sabretooth have been mortal enemies from the get-go, but is their ongoing feud the result of brotherly jealousy?

In Marvel Comics continuity, Wolverine and Sabretooth have shared a long, drawn-out history that spans centuries, and more often than not, starts and ends with them being adversaries. They’ve fought, they’ve bled, and they’ve used their respective mutant healing factors to handily recover from each brutal battle they’ve waged against one another, but at the end of the day, is their contention really one born out of a traditional sense of good versus evil, or one of a sibling rivalry gone wrong?

Wolverine and Sabretooth may share a similar backstory and power-sets, but their connection beyond that isn’t always clear, especially with the messy X-Men film continuity constantly shaping the consciousness of the general Marvel audience when it comes to understanding how these characters originally premiered and how they developed over the years. So that being said, are Wolverine and Sabretooth actually related in the comics, or are they just such perfect foils for each other that it seems they must be connected?

The short answer to the question of whether or not Wolverine and Sabretooth are brothers in comic continuity is simple: they’re not. And regardless of what a certain X-Men movie might lead you to believe, Wolverine aka James Howlett aka Logan, and Sabretooth aka Victor Creed, never have been. From the inception of both characters all the way through any number of reboots and re-launches that might have changed the Marvel Universe as a whole, the details behind Wolverine and Sabretooth’s connection have been tweaked but never outright changed to them being anywhere close to blood related.

In fact, the early 2000s limited series called Origin (alternatively known as Wolverine: Origin) chronicled the mysterious beginnings of Wolverine that not only delved into the formative years of James Howlett in 19^th -Century Canada, but also introduced his actual half-brother, Dog Logan, an enormously built and menacingly vicious man that eerily resembled Sabretooth in both looks and demeanor. It’s here that the parallels and general confusion over whether or not Sabretooth is indeed Wolverine’s brother more or less stem from, an issue that was rectified years later when it was confirmed that the two characters were, without a doubt, not the same despite their overwhelming similarities.

Other than the false idea that Wolverine and Sabretooth are brothers, the closest these characters ever came to being related was when original creator Chris Claremont shared that he had originally intended Sabretooth to be Wolverine’s father. And although subsequent writers of the character ultimately canceled out the seed of that idea, it further muddied the waters of what the relationship between Wolverine and Sabretooth exactly is, keeping the debate of their blood relations a hot topic amongst fans to this day.

While it’s pretty clear that Sabretooth is in no way related to Wolverine, their relationship is special. Having worked together as colleagues in the past, Sabretooth became aware of Wolverine as the ultimate refutation of his own animal instincts - someone who is exactly like him but pretending to be better. Worse, because of their healing factors, Sabretooth knows that he'll be confronted by this existential challenge for the rest of his very long life. The obsessive hatred he feels as a result has led to Sabretooth taking several of Wolverine's loved ones from him, creating a mutual enmity that is its own kind of bond. Wolverine and Sabretooth are not brothers in Marvel Comics, but that doesn't mean either will ever be rid of the other.

Next: How Wolverine Finally Killed Sabretooth in Marvel Comics