Another Ultimate X-Men question.
 

In one issue of UXM, Wolverine beheads Sabertooth. Later, Sabertooth is seen alive.

What in hell?

A wizard did it.


Seriously, they will probably come up with a convoluted theory on how Sabretooth survived. Marvel is too afraid to kill someone and have them stay dead.

He was only mostly beheaded, there were a few slivers of tissue left connecting his head and his body, from which he was able to regrow his neck, spinal cord, etc.

Only mostly dead? Where have I heard that before?

But...how fast does his healing factor WORK? I mean, a couple minutes with no oxygen and your lungs are gonna pop. MINUTES. How do you regrow a whole head that quickly? It was a WHOLE HEAD.

Easy. You be popular. That is the ultimate mutant power: fan popularity. You could take a rocket to the face, which sent you flying into a pile of glass shards, which was then hit by a directed flow of thermite, and you'd still stand about a 70/30 chance of living.

And even if you died, you'd probably be a host for the g*****n Phoenix Force or something.

RUNAWAYS #18 spoiler
However, one measely knife to the heart, and Gert drops like a sack full of wet crap. She got killed by an extra from GTA Vice City!

How graphic. How terribly, terribly graphic.

Heh...sorry, it was late and I gota little carried away.

Well, Sabretooth is Evil Wolverine, even moreso in Ultimate X-men, since he has four wolverine claws instead of just adamantium fingernails. So far as I know, Wolverine has only died once, and that was in Days of Future Past, when his flesh was blasted from his body by a Sentinel. Decapitation? He can handle it. And if he can, Sabretooth can. Heck, adamantium bullets barely even fased Wolverine!

My point is, NO BRAIN. No brain equals not alive, and you can't heal if you are dead. Plus you wouldn't breathe, and Sabertooth even says in issue, like, 10 or so that drowning (no breathing) would kill Wolvie.

Actually, he just says his brain would stop working for a short burst of time, rendering him a vegetable for life. I'm pretty sure he could knit himself back together from the slightest bit of tissue left, since the healing obviously updates his physical condition (or else he'd get baby skin every time he healed). Besides, Sabretooth is already pretty insane, so what's a few less brain cells going to do? And then it's just a short leap to no brain! I just wish adamantium-less Wolverine would have fought Sabretooth. Maybe he did and I just missed it. Oh well...