- Name: Hank McCoy
- Code Names: Beast
- First Appearance: X-Men #1 (Sept‘63)
- Powers: Beast like strength, reflexes, and agility
- Team Affiliation: X-Men, Avengers, Defenders, SWORD, Illuminati
About
Intellectual intelligence and emotional intelligence are two different things. It often seems that the brightest of minds have a chip on their shoulder. Even if they play the scenario out a dozen times in their minds, even if they know it isn’t the logical choice, they may still lash out irrationally. No matter how many degrees or patents or accomplishments you might have, there is still an emotional, almost animalistic core to all people. It is that juxtaposition that is best exemplified in an X-Man who is brilliant and funny, irrational and petty. Hold on tight, because we have the bouncing, blue Beast.
Hank McCoy was born different. His parents knew he had massive feet but they didn’t much mind. He was athletic as all get out and one of the most brilliant students Dunfee, Illinois had ever seen. He was able to graduate early and attend Bard College (an odd choice for both a gifted scientist and athlete) where he was a star on the football field. A villain known as El Conquistador sought to blackmail young Hank into stealing a nuclear reactor for him but he was stopped by Charles Xavier and his X-Men. He told Hank that he was not only gifted, he was a mutant and offered him a spot at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters.
Hank excelled as the X-Man known as Beast. His jovial nature and astonishing acrobatics were the perfect fit for the team. He would often frequent the Coffee-A-Go-Go with his paramour Vera and the other X-Men. Still, Hank felt called to bigger things and returned to school to get his doctorate in genetics. He worked closely with Dr. Carl Maddicks (Artie’s dad) to create a mutant serum that Hank, disregarding every lab safety and common sense standard, drank. He grew grey (later blue) fur all over his body, becoming more bestial and apelike. After some brooding, he began moonlighting as a superhero again, preparing for greater things.
Those things were just joining the Avengers, which he quickly did. He outed himself to the real world as a mutant but was an oddly popular Avenger. He developed a deep friendship with everyone’s least favorite Avenger, Wonder Man. He joined his former team when the X-Men were in need but mostly kept his distance. He left his post as an Avenger but quickly became the leader of a new incarnation of the Defenders with former X-Men teammates, Iceman and Angel. Everyone without an X-Gene on that team got killed pretty quickly and Beast decided to disband the team.
His furry form hindered his ability to get a job at a prestigious university. It didn’t matter because Jean Grey had just come back to life and Angel decided to start a superhero team again. As X-Factor, they hunted mutants, as the X-Terminators, they rescued them. It wasn’t a good plan. Dr. Carl Maddicks captured Beast and experimented on him, removing his blue, furry form. The Horseman of Apocalypse, Pestilence, infected Beast with a virus that sapped his intelligence every time he used his strength. The villain Infectia gave him a different virus that reversed all those changes and made him regular, old, Beast again, rendering several years of bad stories pointless. On the plus side, Hank met intrepid reporter Trish Tilby and began a long relationship with her.
X-Factor soon rejoined the X-Men proper and Beast was placed on Cyclops’ Blue team. When the Legacy Virus was unleashed on the mutant world, Hank made it his mission to find a cure. He became consumed with his work, even flexing his morals to allow the likes of Mr. Sinister to assist in the cure. Trish Tilby discovered the virus and felt she owed the public that information. This however, only heightened anti-mutant hysteria and put a strain on her relationship with Beast. After years of searching, Beast finally had the base of a cure, but it could only be distributed through the atmosphere by the death of a mutant. Beast wanted more time to find a better solution but Colossus, who had lost his sister to the virus, was unwilling to wait and sacrificed himself for the betterment of the mutant race.
After experiencing a secondary mutation, one accelerated by Sage jumpstarting his biology, Beast found himself content to study mutant genetics at the Xavier Institute. Trish was unwilling to accept this more feline Beast and told him that she could no longer be with him. He had already been dealing with fears that his humanity was slipping away, but this was the last straw. Hank lashed out, and in a moment of absolute pettiness, came out to the public as gay in some attempt to hurt his ex. Cyclops, one of his oldest friends called him out on it. He knew when Hank was lying and he knew Hank was better than that. This began a new chapter of mutual respect for the old friends, one that would be tested in the years to come.
Beast was excited to get back to being a superhero again and was absolutely thrilled when Cyclops announced that the X-Men would be returning to their roots. When Dr. Kavita Rao presented her mutant cure, Beast had to know if it actually worked. He met her in secret and took a sample back to his lab. He learned that it was, in fact, viable and he was tempted to take if for himself. Being a mutant was easy for some, but they didn’t have to worry about shedding on the furniture. He decided that, regardless of what it had cost him, his X-Gene was part of him and he would continue being the Beast. That self-confidence was reassured when he met SWORD director Abigail Brand who had a thing for the blue fur.
When M-Day struck and depowered all but 198 mutants, Beast felt like his world was crashing down again. He spent so long curing the Legacy Virus, and that was science. This? This magic was beyond him. Still, he consumed himself with work, even going as far as to work with terrorist and monsters to try a find a cure. He became a close advisor to Cyclops and created the X-Club, a group of the brightest minds on Earth, dedicated to solving the crisis. Regardless of the lengths he was taking, Beast felt wary of Cyclops’ militaristic attitude towards survival and tensions began to rise among the mutant leaders.
Beast sympathizers led a peaceful resistance against anti-mutant bigots, however, the demonstration turned violent and HAMMER took Beast into custody. He spent days under mental and physical torture at the hands of HAMMER before Cyclops sent a team to rescue him. Beast felt a deep sense of betrayal and, again, lashed out. He told this revolutionary Scott Summers that he had gone too far and left the X-Men. He only returned after news of Nightcrawler’s death, and only then to remind Cyclops that his radical ideals were responsible for it. He spent some time with SWORD and on Steve Roger’s Secret Avengers squad but after the Schism between Wolverine and Cyclops, Beast returned to Westchester as a teacher for the new Jean Grey School.
Beast sided with the Avengers during the war between the Avengers and X-Men where he saw Cyclops lose all control and become corrupted by the Phoenix Force. In the end, the mutant race returned from the brink of extinction, Xavier was murdered, Cyclops was a fugitive, and Beast felt like he was dying. His body was undergoing a mutation yet again and he knew his cardiovascular system couldn’t take the strain. He decided to return to a moment when he had lost hope, a moment when young Hank briefly quit the X-Men. He told the original five X-Men that Cyclops killed Xavier and was on a path to committing mutant genocide. He convinced the original X-Men to return with him to the present and between Jean and his younger self, Hank worked his way through his mutation.
At the same time, Beast discovered that he had been bequeathed the Mind Gem by Charles Xavier, as well as a spot on the Illuminati, a group of the smartest, and proudest, men in the universe who came together to solve big problems. They discovered that the universe was collapsing on itself, different Earths were colliding into one another in events called Incursions. They learned that the only way to save their Earth was to destroy the other Earth and everything on it. They tried to find other solutions but the Illuminati was unable to find another solution. When given the choice between his soul and all the lives on two Earth’s, Beast couldn’t bring himself to destroy worlds. The choice was taken from him when Namor made an executive decision to save Earth-616.
Hank felt the weight of his decisions over him. Should he have manipulated the time stream? Should he have joined the Illuminati? Should he have left Utopia? Uatu the Watcher visited his room one night to confirm Hank’s suspicions. Hank’s crisis of faith spiraled further and further down when the one who sees all said three words, “you disgust me”. Hank tried to ignore those words just as he ignored his teammates who questioned his methods. Hank pushed away everyone with his actions and went to the only one who would listen, Scott Summers. Cyclops had created a new mutant haven called Nation-X and Beast told him everything he knew about the Incursions, allowing to mutants to come up with their own plan.
None of that ended up mattering after the universe was recreated by Franklin Richards. The mutant race faced a new threat from the Terrigen Mists, the holy key to the Inhuman’s abilities. It was causing a deadly disease to fall over mutants called M-Pox and Beast took to the Inhuman capital of Attilan to study it. After months he discovered that all mutants had only days before the Mists rendered Earth inhospitable, information he brought to the leaders of mutantkind first. They had a choice, leave Earth forever or wage war against Inhumankind. Beast chose the former, the X-Men chose the latter. They incapacitated him and took care of themselves. A pariah to his former friends, Beast returned to the Avengers and Wonder Man, hoping to find some new future for himself.
Must Read
I had a hard time coming up with a must read story for Beast. He is often a foil for other characters like Cyclops or Professor X to bounce off of, but I finally settled on one that cut to his core. Plenty has been said about Joss Weadon’s Astonishing X-Men, but the first arc, Gifted, showed that Joss got Beast in a way few writers do. In it, Beast is excited and morose, rational and irrational. The balance is so key to the character and it something many writers have struggled with since. On top of that, this is a brilliantly plotted story with gorgeous art by John Cassaday. Check out the whole arc for less than a buck an issue!
Ranking
I love how complicated Beast is. He is a character who should always know better but continues to make the wrong decision. He can easily float between the team jokester and the stoic straight man. His complex relationship with his fellow mutants is just a ton of fun. He is better than his buddy Iceman but not as good as Cyclops. I don’t think he is as good a character as Rogue but I think his deep characterization puts him higher than Colossus. That makes the bouncing blue Beast the new number 8 in the Xavier Files.
Beast was requested by Nir Revel on Patreon among others. Thank you for the request. If you have a request for how about you send it below? If you want to cut to the front of the two-year long line, we have a Patreon you can support Xavier Files for just $1 to get a line cutting reward.
Make sure you check out my brand new podcast BATTLE OF THE ATOM. It’s where Bish & Jubez creator Adam Reck and I talk about every single X-Men story that ever existed and rank them from best to worst. Episode 8 is up and talk and we talk all about Manga inspired X-Men books. Make sure you subscribe on any of the following platforms (or others, I’m not picky) Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Stitcher | RSS.
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Next week we dive into the twisted world of Spiral! See you then!
Zachary Jenkins runs ComicsXF and is a co-host on the podcast “Battle of the Atom.” Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside of all this.
