In Marvel Comics, Sabretooth is more deserving of the nickname than Logan. While Wolverine may be the best there is at what he does, he’s not a cold-blooded killer like Victor Creed. That’s the difference between them and helps to show why Sabretooth should have the title of Weapon X.
Originally established in Marvel Comics Presents #72 by Barry Windsor Smith, the Weapon X program was the secretive government initiative that first implanted Wolverine with his adamantium skeleton and attempted to fully control his mind. The program also recruited Wolverine’s partners from the CIA’s Team X, including Sabretooth, as their scope expanded. Eventually, it was also revealed that Weapon X was in fact Weapon 10, the 10th iteration of the Weapon Plus Program that had attempted to recreate a super-soldier in the model of Captain America, aka Weapon 1. While Wolverine eventually broke free of the Program, he’s often gone by Weapon X as a codename since, especially during his darker moments.
However, Sabretooth is more deserving of the title Weapon X because not only has he willingly worked with the program, but he represents their true aims and failures better than Logan ever could. In Frank Tieri’s runs on Deadpool, Wolverine and Weapon X, Sabretooth helps to rebuild Weapon X and then s the program for a time. While he does eventually betray them to further torment Wolverine, he still commits heinous acts in their name. Victor is also more representative of both iterations of the Program’s goals.
The program might not have stated it in so many words, but Weapon X wanted to make a killer. They chose Logan as their focus, but he wasn’t a natural. They had to make Wolverine into a mindless killer. Sabretooth was already a willing mass murderer long before Weapon X existed, proving that he's the perfect subject they ignored. Sabretooth also only became more emblematic of the Weapon X moniker as the program evolved. When Weapon X restarted in Frank Tieri’s titles, it expanded to become explicitly anti-mutant, opening concentration camps in which mutants were killed, despite Weapon X's operatives being mutants themselves. This parallels Sabretooth himself, who willingly ed Mr Sinister’s Marauders, with whom he would massacre countless fellow mutants, most famously in the Mutant Massacre crossover from 1986. Nobody represents this program better than Sabretooth, so he should be the one to bear its name.
Sabretooth being a perfect fit also highlights a bitter irony in the Weapon X Program. While the stated original goals of the Weapon Plus programs were to recreate a super-soldier in the mold of Captain America, each program missed the point of what makes Captain America so successful. Cap wasn’t successful because the government controlled him. He was a success because he was a good person who was willing to fight for a just cause. By attempting to force Logan to be a ruthless killer, Weapon X became the architects of their own destruction. Imagine a world where Wolverine worked for, and became Weapon X by choice, what good could he have done? But Weapon X didn’t want Captain America, they wanted a weapon they could point at the world. Who better represents that living weapon that Sabretooth, the mad dog who occasionally needs a shorter leash? Weapon X lowered themselves to Sabretooth’s level, and that’s why it’s him, not Wolverine, who’s truly deserving of the nickname.
