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positivelybeastly · 5 months

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Do you think you can explain in explicit detail why Percy's version of beast doesn't work?

All right, so, hopefully you can forgive me for taking a bit of time to come to this ask, because it's quite the subject matter, and it's one I take very seriously. I want you to have a good answer or no answer at all.

In order to explain why Percy's Beast doesn't work, we first need to establish a continuity for Beast, and why and how he works.

Which is why it's a good thing I have a 14 page Google Doc that goes into detail about all of this, which I'm going to drag and drop here:

Beast in the Krakoan era is a fascist mutant supremacist, who believes that the ends justify the means; he's cold-hearted, cruel, endlessly self-justifying, unfunny, shortsighted, and overall, a bastard. He is without nuance - and it's not just me saying that, that's both the writer and the characters saying that. He has, apparently, always been evil, and all it took was power for his true self to come out.

This does not jive with any of his characterisation prior to this point. Don't believe me? Let's deep dive.

Hank McCoy was born in Dunfee, Illinois to two very normal human parents. His mutation was apparent from the moment he was born, due to his father taking an enormous dose of radiation after an accident at the nuclear power plant he worked at, and while it would occasionally raise an eyebrow, he was able to hide what he was for the first 15-17 years of his life (Marvel ages are vague, but Hank is usually portrayed as the oldest of the O5, so we'll just say he was 17). He was recruited for the X-Men by Charles Xavier after his parents were taken hostage by a Z-list supervillain called the Conquistador, who wanted Hank to steal components from his father's place of work.

I should note that already, pre-X-Men, Hank did not believe in giving obvious supervillains nuclear power plant components, and gave the Conquistador a box full of flashbangs that disoriented him and his goons before defeating them in a fight. He did the right thing, at potential great personal cost to him and his parents, whom he loves very much.

Xavier then proceeded to step in, and, depending on the continuity, wiped the minds of everyone Hank had ever loved of the memory of him, so as to keep him 'safe,' or wiped the mind of Hank's first love, a girl called Jennifer Nyles, who is consistently depicted as being the woman who encouraged Hank to step out of his shell and do something with his obvious natural physical and intellectual gifts. Either way, this quite irritated Hank, and mere hours after he had put on his X-Men uniform, he was already about to fight the Professor over an egregious breach of mental privacy and security. But because he believed in what the Professor espoused, he let it slide.

It's worth noting that this mindwipe was seemingly undone later, because there are comics released both before and after Mike Carey's Origins issue that depict Hank having a deeply loving relationship with his parents. This will be important for later.

Now, a lot of people love to point to Uncanny X-Men #8 as the first evidence that Hank has always been a supervillain in disguise, and while I think it's a little egregious to point to any issue of any 60s comic book and say that anyone acts in a way that is sensible, moral, or decent, it's worth noting that the act in question, dialling up Unus the Untouchable's powers to a point where he can't control them, is in direct response to Unus attempting to defeat/kill the rest of the X-Men, or at the very least, hand them over to Magneto (who, let's not forget, in the 60s was a homicidal maniac happy to nuke entire countries). Is the response of threatening Unus with a slow death by starvation disproportionate? Yeah, it is.

Scott and the rest of the X-Men seem completely fine with it.

So, now you have to ask yourself - do we accept the morality of the time, and assume that Hank was basically justified to do what he did, to save his team and stop a dangerous mutant, or do we judge him for acting like a supervillain would, and thus everyone else on the team is fine with it? Iunno. That's a personal judgement. It's 60s X-Men, it's shit. I basically hardly regard it as canon, and given that any time anyone comes on to the Reddit board looking to start X-Men gets waved away from starting there, it clearly isn't regarded as very well written, is it? Maybe we regard it as a point for him to grow past? After all the very next issue, Cyclops starts a fight with the Avengers over jack fuck nothing, just because Professor Xavier told him to, and he clearly outgrew that.

All right, so let's speed forward a little bit. Hank's been an X-Man for around 3 years when he gets a job with the Brand Corporation, a scientific research company in Long Island. People love to bring up the fact that it's a subsidiary of Roxxon, who are notoriously evil, or that it has its own nefarious plans going on, but we don't judge people who work at Cat Chow for the fact that Nestle is fucking evil, do we? Hank didn't know. He was a 20 year old scientist with budding aspirations of helping the world in ways he couldn't with the X-Men. So, what was he researching?

Now, this is where we get into a bit of a sticky wicket, because this has been retconned to hell, but in the original version of events, set in the early 1970s, Hank is working as a scientist at Brand when he finds out that the Secret Empire want to steal his research into genetic mutation. Understandable thing for him to want to research, given his father's accident and his own obvious mutation, and an understandable thing for the Empire to want to steal, especially given what his research had resulted in.

In the process of Hank's research, he manages to isolate the chemical/hormonal extract that causes mutation - naturally occurring, it's also the basis for MGH, or Mutant Growth Hormone, which later becomes used by humans all around the world to obtain temporary mutant powers. But this can't be attributed to Hank, especially since he goes to great efforts to destroy all of his research, rather than let it fall into the hands of spies.

Now, this is the point that everyone likes to point to as the moment that Hank reveals his true colours, as a true mad scientist, a Jekyll hiding a Hyde - except that even just hours after his mutation, even in the midst of a rage at his own stupidity, Hank attacks Professor Maddicks, one of the Empire spies, and tries to kill him. He has him dead to rights, he's strangling him, it would be easy.

He stops. He can't bring himself to do it.

It's worth noting that Hank already starts to show signs of a marked personality change here. Gone is the long winded, stuffy, Superman curled Beast of the 60s - now we have the grey furred Beast of the 70s, soon to turn blue due to the limitations of comic book printing. He cuts himself off from the X-Men, starts to fall into depressive slumps and fits of mania, which is a personality pattern he falls into regularly, leading to a lot of people, including myself and Grant Morrison, to consider Hank bipolar. Obviously, here, it's exacerbated by his mutation and his extreme circumstances, but it's something he comes back to, again and again. It also explains why he decides to attack Iron Man, also investigating Brand, and nearly kills him.

It's also worth noting that this is the first appearance of the Beast - not just Hank's codename, his mutation has now given him an animal bloodlust that he struggles to keep control of, not unlike Wolverine. This is something to keep in mind because it helps frame Hank's self-hatred, which is often brought up but not really examined as a character trait, and especially later on, it becomes clear that Hank hates himself for a good number of reasons.

For one, he makes dumb, impulsive decisions, usually with the best of intentions, and he chews himself out for one he made already, turning himself into a furry monster. For another, he hates the part of himself that wants to hurt people. To call forward many, many years into the future, Hank doesn't believe in the law of the jungle. He believes in art, and literature, and music. He believes in humanity. He desperately wants to maintain his own, and he hates his mutation because it literally makes him less human every time, it makes his impulses harder to control, it makes him dangerous - and oh, it does make him dangerous.

And here's the thing. Beast nearly kills Iron Man (or at least, he thinks he has, Mastermind is in play), and the moment he realises what he's done, he screams in anguish and runs away, hating himself. "Humans can't catch me there." He believes himself to be less than human - not because he's a mutant, but because he regressed to animal behaviour and thinks he's killed someone. What a monster, right? What a villain!

"During that fight, I saw his face up close - and got a hint of what's behind it. I saw a soul in torment - and I can't play God with that."

All right, so now we have to take a sideways trip, and go to X-Men Unlimited vol 2 #10, which depicts Hank going home to his parents right after he turned grey. It's honestly a kind of hard read, because if the Beast's rampage was his mania ramped up to eleven, this is his depression ramped up to twelve. He staggers through the streets like a ghost, unwilling to let anyone see what he looks like. "I could have been someone, Jennifer. A lonely high school kid with big, big fears and big, big dreams, I could have done something really wonderful. I could have become anyone, done almost anything. But now, Jennifer, now just look at me."

The story is called Ghost in the Graveyard, and it's aptly named because this is the moment Hank grows into who he's truly meant to be. His ego, which drove him to consume his research and nearly kill, is dead. He believes he is worthless, he believes he's fit only to flit between the waking moments of the living when they aren't looking. "What would you think of me if I was to tell you how terrified I am of everything right now, Jennifer?"

He saves his hometown, incidentally. Even while sleeping for days, depressed, barely eating, he still has enough curious spirit and intelligence to work out that the radiation coming from the bodies of people who worked in the same plant as his father has contaminated the water table, the soil, even the townsfolk. Jennifer tells him they should go to the newspapers, and he tells her he can't. He can't bear to. He can't bear to be seen. He reveals his appearance to her, and she tries to kiss him softly on the forehead, but he still can't bear it. He runs.

"Perhaps, then, a ghost is nothing more than a memory. A memory of who we once were, before we become what we must."

And this is the moment that Hank McCoy decides to run back to New York and join the Avengers.

Out of a moment of sheer despair, out of a moment of shame and guilt, out of a moment of self-hatred so deep he can barely get out of bed, he grasps onto hope, and the desire to do good, and he does it. He goes to New York, and he decides he's going to be a good man. And he is. He's a very good man.

He saves the Avengers from the Stranger at his team tryout. He becomes a master of disguise so adept he passes himself off as the President of the United States and gives a speech that makes the Squadron Supreme question their own spurious morality. He saves Henry Pym's life from a super-microbe. He's almost singlehandedly the reason that Patsy Walker becomes Hellcat, a storied superhero in her own right. He's the one who reaches out to Simon Williams, Wonder Man, former villain, and becomes his best friend in the whole world. He becomes the third mutant Avenger (technically first, depending on Wanda and Pietro's current genetic status), and the first X-Man to cross over. He becomes one of the most popular, celebrated, and beloved mutants on the planet.

Yet, he still cares enough for his friends that the moment the X-Men need him, even though they don't think to call him, he puts it all at risk. He catches the Hellfire Club's police call during the middle of the Dark Phoenix Saga, wipes the tapes, and abandons his post as a prestigious Avenger, a position Cyclops says he loves . . . to be with his original team. He's integral to them standing a chance against her, fashioning the diadem that immobilises Jean and gives Cyclops and Xavier the chance to shut away the Dark Phoenix for a short time - enough that Jean, or the Phoenix, or whatever is walking around in that story, can put together a plan to deal with herself.

He gets zapped to an alien spaceship, and the first damn thing he does is make a Wizard of Oz joke, then he calls Lilandra out for lack of due process.

Throughout the 70s and 80s, Hank becomes one of the most popular heroes in-universe, instantly recognisable and on first name terms with almost every hero. He goes through his hardships. His own mother struggles with his mutation, calling him a freak in a moment of despair, only to realise that no matter what he looks like, he's still her boy - still the man who throws himself in the direct path of Professor Power's attack to save a child.

One of my favourites is Avengers 209. Hank's girlfriend is poisoned by a Skrull, and he's forced to go back in time and fetch the two halves of the Resurrection Stone back to save her. One of the pieces is in the hands of a concentration camp prisoner in 1945, who keeps using it to try and hold on to his dead family, and Hank breaks down into sobbing tears as he begs in Yiddish for the man to please let go and be at peace. His heart breaks for a man he's never met because his pain is so mighty and so vast and it's so damned unfair.

But even when he has the Resurrection Stone in his hands, and he can use it to save Vera, he destroys it instead, rather than give it to the Skrull and risk the power being in any one man's hand. He puts his own wants and desires to the side, and hopes that another man smarter than him can save Vera, who's put in suspended animation and later saved by Daimon Hellstrom. Hank joins the Defenders at around this point, and goes through quite a bit, including quite the humbling as he realizes that he may be cock of the walk, but he's not yet a leader - or maybe never a leader.

One of the accusations I've seen aimed at Hank is that he resents Cyclops for being made leader of the X-Men, and I honestly don't see where this comes from, but it's not something I think has any truth to it. Hank almost actively avoids leadership where he can, because he knows he can't make hard decisions like who to leave behind, who to let die, who to hurt. Indeed, the one time we see him lead the X-Men, it's in Grant Morrison's New X-Men, where the strain of it causes him to break down and turn to Kick just to keep going. X-Club, a team of his creation, is barely in its infancy before he leaves, and it's pretty clear that Beast just . . . doesn't, care, about being a leader. He knows he's not good at it. He knows he can't inspire like Captain America. He knows he can't strategise like Cyclops. He knows that.

It's also at this point that Hank is called out in public for not doing enough for mutants, coasting on his celebrity and acting the clown - and he takes on the criticism. He becomes more politically active, forming an advocacy group. As we learn later on in Secret Avengers, he also becomes fast friends with a secret mutant politician by the name of Leonard Gary, and he's present at multiple meetings of Congress where Lenny blocks Senator Kelly's anti-mutant legislation. Way later on, he helps Lenny push through workers rights laws during Fear Itself, and makes sure that he can give a speech inspiring the nation at a time when they needed it most.

Now we move on to X-Factor, where Hank has his ups and downs, but it's significant that it starts with him being publicly discriminated against by no less than 15 universities for his visible mutation. His response? To call them a bunch of racists, strip off his clothes, and tell them to go hang. He doesn't descend into self-pity, he gets angry and embarrasses them the only way he knows how. But it's interesting, because Hank starts the series wanting to teach, and in a way, he gets to do precisely that. Enter young mutants Fire Fist, Boom Boom, Skids, Wiz Kid, Artie Maddicks, Leech, and Rictor.

Rictor is the kid that Hank becomes closest to. He teaches him to read, encourages him in learning how to use his powers, plays with him - when his intelligence is reduced by a quirk of mutation, he's still aware and good enough that he attacks someone scaring Julio. He fucks up a ton in this series, especially with Boom Boom, with him and Iceman being downright dicks to her, and there's no real excuse for it - but it's kind of important that Hank wants to learn to teach, and he has to learn. He's not immediately good at it. He softens. He gets better. In fact, in an alternate universe not dissimilar to 616, Forge remarks that no-one was quite as patient and as good a teacher as Hank.

Then we come to the 90s, where Hank is faced with his biggest challenge yet - the Legacy Virus - and his biggest moral failing yet - Threnody. Now, this is where I kinda have to call out the Cerebrocast, because there's this narrative that Hank is an Avenger narc who will sell mutants down the river at the drop of a hat, and I'm fairly certain it stems from the moment when Hank surrenders Threnody over to Sinister.

It's not a great look, tbh. I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't touch Sinister with a thirty foot barge pole. I certainly wouldn't leave a vulnerable woman with him. But Sinister is an excellent manipulator, and he plays Hank like a fiddle here. He points out that Hank won't cross certain moral and ethical boundaries. "Admitting it, and despising the choice are the first steps toward changing the indecision that has ruled Xavier's roost of late." Sinister is very canny about playing Hank's fear of inferiority, of not being good enough to save everyone, of not living up to his potential, against him. It's also worth noting that Rogue and Iceman don't seem to disagree with Hank's decision, and while I believe he's acting as field leader here, these are not people who would let something like an 'order' stop them from doing what they feel is right.

It kills Hank to do this. He feels dirty, unwashed, like a piece of shit on humanity's shoe, for doing this. He risks Infectia's - or rather, Josephine's - powers infecting all of them with the Legacy Virus she's dying of, because he needs to do something human, something good, something compassionate, or else all he's left with is the bad. "Henry McCoy holds her, tears flowing freely, not just for the loss of another life, but for what Infectia's death has meant to him. For in granting her last wish, Hank contradicted the scientist in himself for the sake of the man."

What a villain, right?

It's also worth noting that we see Threnody again, in X-Men #34. She's lucid, in control of her powers, vibrant. "Threnody, dear lass! I am both pleased, relieved, and - I must confess - a bit surprised to see you so lucid? No offence meant, of course." "And none taken, Dr. McCoy. When we first met, I was rather a headcase, wasn't it? I want you to know, Doctor, that going with Sinister was the best thing that could have happened to me."

Hmmmmm.

"I've thought about you and worried quite a bit over the decision we made to allow Sinister to take you with him. Seeing you here and doing so well, rather uplifts my spirits - but it beggars the question, why do you stay?" "Dr. McCoy. You're sweet. But isn't this a better life than the one I had?"

HMMMMMMMM.

"Thren, I'm concerned about you. You seem to be playing a very dangerous game here. I cannot in good conscience allow you to stay here and play in this danger zone any longer." "You have no choice, Hank. There's knowledge and glory [here] . . . and I want that, too."

HMMMMM???

All right, whatever, let's keep it moving, on to the point where Hank undergoes his most drastic change yet.

It's the year 2001. Hank is on the X-Treme X-Men team, and they're searching for Destiny's diaries foretelling the future. Putting himself in harm's way to try and save Psylocke's life, telling her to go on and leave him, he's forced to watch as Vargas kills her - and poses her on top of his own fatally wounded body for the rest of the team to find. Barely hanging on to life, he sits in a Spanish hospital room, until Sage decides to take matters into her own hands.

"But despite your appearance and the name they call you I will assume you are a man and not a beast . . . and that you have a soul - !"

"He has a soul, padre. Bright and shining as the stars."

She jumpstarts the next evolution of Hank McCoy, and he becomes feline. He loses a finger on each hand. His animal instincts explode into the forefront of his brain. His hormones are blazing. His brain is on fire. He's doing the best he can to cope, but it's - hard. Yet he still finds it within himself to be there for others first of all. He mentors Beak, serving as an example of a physical mutant who's made something of himself. He tries to counsel Scott and Jean through their ailing marriage. He reaches out to Emma, and they become fast friends. Meanwhile, Genosha burns, students are killed, and Cassandra Nova rips him to pieces and picks on those fears of devolution that have been skirting in the back of his mind for decades, bringing them right back to the front of his mind.

"Remember when you looked almost human in the mirror? Then it started. The fall from man to ape, from ape to feline. Poor ugly Henry McCoy. There's no place for you in ANY mutant future. You're a devolver! Zoo animal. Stumbling backwards down the tree of life."

This, coupled with Trish Tilby's decision to break up with him over allegations of bestiality from her coworkers, shatters his psyche, and he arguably never recovers until his body changes again in All-New X-Men. He covers up his body almost all of the time, he overdresses in human clothes and uniforms that are a stark contrast to his old X-shorts, he becomes more verbose, more mature, more bipolar, more depressed, more lonely. And yet, even through all of this, with the help of his friends, especially Jean Grey, he starts to recover. He starts to become more like his old self.

In Astonishing X-Men, he even starts to show a bit more skin and fur as time goes on and he gets further away from Cassandra Nova's attack. And then it gets worse. The mutant cure. "I used to have fingers, a mouth you could kiss." Cassandra Nova, living on in his friend Emma Frost's guilt, attacks him again, and pushes him further, causing him to feast on human flesh and nearly kill students. Pushing him further down the tree of life. And not only that, but he has to come face to face with the ghost of one of his greatest failures, that should have been his greatest success.

Roll it back to 2001. Just before the whole X-Treme X-Men thing, Hank manages to piece together a Legacy Virus cure, using fragments of his own research and Moira MacTaggert's - but he immediately regards it as a failure, not because it doesn't work, but because it would require a mutant to metabolise it and kill themselves in order for it to be released into the atmosphere. Hank regards the cost of one life to be too high, and locks the cure away - but not securely enough that Colossus can't get at it and use it anyway.

Colossus dies because of Hank, and it kills him inside. When he matches the mutant cure sample to Piotr's DNA sample, it mortifies him. It shames him. It deadens him. No good deed ever goes unpunished. Even while Scott and Emma are faffing around with relationship problems, Hank is quietly wallowing because this is his fault. He killed Piotr.

Well, he didn't. But he might as well have, right? He put the 'gun' in his hand.

But then we get to Abigail Brand, and man is this dynamic just Hank as hell. She's a government fist in green haired body suited form that doesn't care about your feelings, he's a blue furred idealist who constantly blames himself for everything and can do nothing but feel. They connect. Not because they're both awful people . . . but because they see in each other something that they like. For Hank, it's something base - she finds him sexually attractive, not in spite of but because of his mutation, and honestly, at this point? Being fetishised sounds kind of nice to Hank. For her?

She wants someone to keep her honest. Someone who will question her decisions. Someone who does nothing but question her decisions, in fact, because she fucked up, and she needs someone to call her out on her bullshit. Hm. Almost sounds like there's a human being behind those green shades.

More on this later.

Because we've started to reach the point where I'm told Hank's descent into villainy has started, and quite frankly, I'm not seeing it. He got sadder? He got more lonely (yes, the cat story happened, it's tragic and embarrassing, move on)? But villainous? "I always saw him as vulnerable," said Grant Morrison. "The thing about Hank McCoy is that he was always presented as the loquacious, happy-go-lucky character and then he became a little darker when [he turned into] the furry Beast, but then he became happy again in Avengers. Basically, I'm looking at this bipolar kid. It's not so much that he's a villain; he just falls into bad situations and that makes him more human."

If people mean Here Comes Tomorrow, then I invite you to read that story again and remember that Hank is only really present in maybe eight panels of that story. The rest of the time it's Sublime piloting his body, and Hank has nothing to do with it. You might as well blame anyone ever possessed by Malice for what they did while under her influence.

But anyway.

The Decimation.

What a time for mutant kind. 198 mutants left, and falling. And everyone is looking to Hank McCoy for answers. He'll do almost anything to get them . . . right? In comes Endangered Species by Mike Carey, wherein Hank scours the corners of the Earth and gets his hands dirty trying to find a way to kickstart the mutant race again. He consorts with villains, he exhumed corpses, he nearly kills a drug dealer who wants fresh MGH from him and Bishop's bodies. He's on very thin ice, and in danger of cracking. He is, quite literally, facing his darkest impulses.

Enter Dark Beast.

Now, Dark Beast has been a thing since the mid-90s, and honestly, I kind of love the guy because he's so incredibly and over the top evil - but I also kind of hate him because his very existence seems to make people think that Hank always had evil inside of him, that he was just born that way. How very Graydon Creed, to believe that evil is something people are born to be rather than something that people do or become. The truth is that Dark Beast was born into a world completely different from Hank's, and while we don't know the exact divergence point for him, X-Men Unlimited vol. 1 #10 provides us with some clues - namely, that he never knew his parents.

Hank's incredibly loving, incredibly guilty, incredibly proud parents.

The parents that Dark Beast, violent psychopath, mutant supremacist, literal killer of children and Age of Apocalypse's own Dr. Mengele . . . couldn't bring himself to kill, because they loved Hank McCoy so much, and on some level, Dark Beast recognised that. Felt afraid of it. Felt weakened by it. Felt infuriated by it. Had to kill a random passerby just to feel more like himself. Because they were just so damned good, and maybe if he'd had parents like that, maybe?

It's also worth noting that Dark Beast, both here in the 90s, and later in Endangered Species (2008), points out that Hank isn't him. "I told you when we started on this that we'd have to think the unthinkable, Henry. I knew you'd let me down. But I didn't think you'd reach your limits this quickly. [...] You're fighting for the future of your species. Did that slip your mind? It's the only fight that matters, Henry. It's the war in which nature enlists every last one of us. And you're a deserter."

Hmmm.

Where have I heard that before.

So, Hank gives up. He stops searching for a cure, because one doesn't exist - or if it does, it requires a moral sacrifice that he isn't capable of. He disappoints mutant kind, and it won't be the last time. He fails to find answers in 1906 San Francisco, he fails to keep the faith at Utopia, he fails to stop things from escalating at a demonstration and ends up captured by Osborn - and Dark Beast. What a pathetic sack of crap, right? How dare he fail. He should be more like Cyclops.

"We make the choice for ourselves. And we have to live with the consequences afterwards."

"I'll live with it."

"I said we. I need to live with it."

Hmm.

"Sometimes in war you have to do things that you hate. Things you can't even bear to think about. This is one of those times. [...] I'm not making that choice for any of you. If you have any doubts about what we're about to do, stand out of the line. No one will blame you or question you. Ever."

Hmmmmm.

"All's well that ends well, Scott?"

"Looks that way from here. Why? Something on your mind?"

"Something, yes. The fact that you decided to use the Legacy Virus before you asked me if I had a working antidote."

"Your conscience is one of the things I value about you, Hank. Really. Never stop challenging me on that."

HMMMMMMMM.

#CyclopsWasRight?

But whatever, let's keep moving on. Utopia's X-Force happens. It's bloody. It's messy. It's grim. Hank doesn't approve. Scott tries to keep him on side, but it's not easy. Eventually, it reaches a boiling point. Hank decides he can't stay anymore, because he's not effective in his current capacity. Scott doesn't need him anymore, he needs more guns and soldiers and mutants, and Hank can't make those anymore. He deserts. What a piece of shit, caring about morals at a time like this. What a traitor. Oh, it's also worth noting that before he died, Kurt found out about X-Force, and was on the verge of quitting the X-Men, just like Hank. Just a sidenote, by the way.

Now, I believe in fairness, and I don't believe in whitewashing Hank's actions, especially when he wouldn't want me to, so it's only fair to bring up the Ghost Box laser strike and the Secret Avenger nuclear bomb that Hank constructs. Clear examples of the slow erosion of his moral fibre on his way to becoming a villain.

Or he feels massively guilty, sickened, and disgusted about what he had to do, while both times, the leader that he tries his best to believe in and follow tells him not to lose sleep over it. Except, Hank does. Because that is the kind of character Hank is.

Hank McCoy is a "superheroic overcompensating altruist [...] perfectly nice people who think the universe is full of perfectly nice people." Hank McCoy is Scott Summers' "biggest brain and [his] oldest friend. Moment comes you have to take action, I'll never question it." Hank McCoy is "the most hard working, brilliant and heroic [person] I know." Hank McCoy is "a name well known in the great game of worlds. Others yous have done this before [...] simply evacuate this world, and then destroy it completely," rather than risk the destruction of two. Hank McCoy is "no killer [...] and no force, however great, could make you kill."

Hank is the man who reaches out to villains, and tries to help them. He did it with Wonder Man. He did it with Emma Frost. He did it with Infectia. Hank is the bleeding, dying heart of the X-Men. He believes in second chances. He believes in art, and literature, and music.

He doesn't believe in the law of the jungle.

I'd also like to point out, that even though he was called a traitor, and met with a frosty reception by the other X-Men when he asked for their help, he still came when they called for medical aid. He still held out hope that he and Scott would reconcile. He was one of the few people to look at the Phoenix Five and remember who they were before they got power, and believe that they could possibly control it. Even after Scott kills the Professor, even though Hank is furious with Scott, even though Scott literally says, "I've done abominable things. I don't ask for forgiveness. I don't deserve it. [...] But I'd do it all again"?

I guess you could read this a few different ways. Is Hank just pushing Scott out forcefully? Is he gentle? Is he squeezing his shoulder in a moment of what could almost be comfort? I don't know. I kinda think it's the latter. I think the best of Hank where I can.

"Thank god, Hank. You're alive. I was lost. I thought I killed y - "

Hank is still a man that Scott Summers wants to be alive, because Hank is good. Yeah, he can be FUCKING ANNOYING, and he can be hypocritical, and he can be an asshole, and he can be flawed, and he can be a nuisance, and he can be insufferable, but he is good.

Enter Brian Michael Bendis.

This is the point where Hank's character wrecks and arguably never recovers, to be honest. It's not just the small details. It's not just stupid things, like 17 year old Hank apparently being a medical doctor, or modern day super genius ultra mechanic Hank being incapable of putting a motorcycle back together for the sake of a joke. It's not even the egregious things, like Uncanny X-Men #600 and All-New X-Men #25 being a double header of literally everyone in the universe kicking Beast in the shins because Bendis wanted to write teenage Jean Grey as just the worst. It's just a fundamental misunderstanding of the character.

"Somewhere along the way you convinced yourself that your brilliance allows you the right to do whatever you want whenever you want to do it."

I'm sorry, fucking what?

If you're this far deep in this thesis - and it is a thesis, and I don't apologize for that - do you think this is the same character? This man who is obsessed with consequences, obsessed with guilt, obsessed with being perfect, obsessed with controlling himself, obsessed with morality . . . is convinced that he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants to do it? He learned this lesson 40 years ago! Beast is not like this!

Now, Bendis' Beast might be like this. But I have to ask you, reader, who presumably frequents comic book boards, or Reddit, or Tumblr tags, or Twitter . . . is Bendis the guy you go to for thoughtful, evocative, well considered characterisation? Is he on the level of Mark Waid, or Al Ewing, or Jonathan Hickman, or Grant Morrison, or Louise Simonson, or Marjorie Liu, or Rainbow Rowell, or Kelly Sue DeConnick? Is he known for respecting what came before and creating a throughline of character and continuity?

No, he fuckin' aint.

He's known for Bendis-speak. He's known for ignoring continuity. He's known for big shake-ups of established status quos that often leave characters in the doghouse for decades. Yeah, he can write some good comics, but I just - why is this man's characterisation of Beast considered the definitive one? Is the voice that shouts the loudest really the most articulate? Go ask a fan of the Scarlet Witch, or X-23, or Jon Kent, or GOTG fans about his entire run on that comic.

Beast wrecks here, and he never recovers. He loses his entire character development track about his mutation because it got changed. He loses his entire dynamic with Abigail. Everything good about 00s Beast is just gone, and there's nothing left to replace it but failure. Not really. Every now and then, someone tried to steer him back on the right path, get back to a more thoughtful, less dipshit Hank McCoy. A+X #12 by Christos Gage, and Uncanny Avengers by Jim Zub, both try the same trick, 4 years apart, having Hank reunite with his best friend Simon Williams and drink, and reflect on what's happened.

Each time, there's another crossover event that Hank has to answer for, because now Beast is the designated load. It happened in All-New X-Men, it happened in Black Vortex, it happened in IvX. It was just easy. He was never a guy with a massive fanbase, and all the casual fans filtered away as domino after domino falls. Every time, HOW DID I BECOME THIS?

Iunno. No-one seems to give enough of a fuck to answer the question. The real answer is that the writers need plot to happen, and, well.

Who cares if Beast is ruined? Well, I think Matthew Rosenberg cared a fair bit. I think Max Bemis cared quite a lot. I care, probably too much.

There are tons of little fun appearances here and there, mostly scattered across other books, that are more reminiscent of the Hank that used to be. Mariko Tamaki, in her last X-23 run, used him really nicely, having him take pictures of Laura and Gabby bonding, helping Laura run down immoral scientists (HA!), being a big man with a bigger bow tie. Being "the nerd I trust, so I like having him around," says Laura.

Hmm.

Well.

I have two points left to make. One? It is a stone cold, actual fact that we go from warm, intelligent, thoughtful, loved Beast, to Percy's narcissistic, cold, and genocidal war criminal in the space of maybe ten issues. The change was not gradual, it was abrupt. Read almost any comic prior to Krakoa featuring Beast in it, and he does not sound or act the same. Read the dialogue for X-Force #1 through 9, and tell me you can really tell that that's Beast.

Tell me that's the Hank McCoy that loves his human parents.

There's a reason everyone was speculating for the longest time that it was Dark Beast, or something else was afoot, because he sounds wrong. There's no jokes, no warmth, no charm, no energy. He's a slow, lifeless cadaver of a character, plodding along his course to become a Bond villain.

Two? There was a story to be told here. Hank has definitely toed the line a good few times before. Crossed it less times, but he did. Each time, it cost him. Each time, it hurt him. Each time, it left a scar upon his soul. Each time, maybe it got a little easier, but I don't genuinely think that's the case. I think that Hank McCoy is the kind of guy for whom it never gets easier to hurt people. The building blocks were there for a story where that man has to keep doing it, again and again, cutting away pieces of himself, because it's what Krakoa needs.

But that story would require sympathy, and I don't think that Ben Percy, "People who think that Beast is loveable have only read a small selection of comics," really has any sympathy for Beast. I think he finds him annoying. I think he finds him contemptible, and up himself. I think that Ben Percy believes that Beast is cold-hearted, cruel, endlessly self-justifying, unfunny, shortsighted, and overall, a bastard. I don't believe that was ever the case.

It makes me sad that the fandom believes that was ever the case.

His character was assassinated. It was assassinated back in 2013, and it's been being assassinated every month since 2019. The version of Beast that existed from 1981 to 2012 will be gone, dead - literally killed - when the classic version of him comes back at the end of X-Force. I liked the 1981-2012 version a lot. The version from 2012 to 2018, I liked a lot less. The version from 2019 onwards?

Don't go off vibes. Read the panels. Tell me what you think. Is that the same character?

Now we come to the end of my thesis. I feel like I've covered most of the main points here, but TL;DR?

Ben Percy's Beast doesn't work as a continuation of Hank's character, because his version of the character is an idiot. He is cruel, unfunny, lacking in any humanity, inherently evil, moustache twirling, disrespectful. He is without nuance. He is Mister Sinister in a blue fur coat without any of the camp.

The fact that people will go on Twitter or Reddit and say that they prefer this Beast over the old one makes me want to fucking spit because fuck you. Fuck you that you think that this travesty, this half-formed mish mash of Bond villain tropes and fat shaming stereotypes, is in any way better than what we had. Grow up. Read better comics. I hope to god you mature, because fuck, man.

Ben Percy's Beast doesn't work as a villain, either, because he's simultaneously incompetent, and yet constantly given karma houdinis that have no basis in his ability, only in the plot. Any semblance of grounding in the idea of 'necessary evils' is so fucking amateurish and put to paper with no real belief in it. Percy just thinks Beast is an asshole, it's as simple as that.

And you know what makes me feel vindicated? You know what makes me laugh?

Marvel really don't give a fuck about this version of Beast. They really just do not care and I get the distinct impression people can't wait for it to roll back. Don't believe me?

How come Nightcrawler is apparently gossiping with Hank in issues of She-Hulk that take place in the Krakoan era?

How come Hank is still appearing in Avengers and X-Men variant covers as his traditional, heroic self?

How come Marvel Age #1000, a self-styled "CELEBRATION OF THE MARVEL AGE OF COMICS," had an X-Men story that was about the O5 - and yet, really, it was about Jean and Scott falling in love, with Hank on the sidelines, gently nudging Jean in the right direction?

How come no-one appears to give a fuck that Beast, one of the pillars of the superhero community, killed a small country?

In-universe, there is no explanation. This is 'Blade begging Captain America and the Avengers to help kill all the vampires' level of disconnect. It makes everyone involved look like a goddamn psychopath.

Out of universe, it's because no-one is interested in this story. If writers other than Ben Percy wanted a villainous Hank McCoy, they would just use Dark Beast, because he's substantially more entertaining and charismatic and enjoyable as a villain than Percy's edgelord Beast.

Ben Percy is 44 years old, allegedly. I wouldn't know that, judging by the level of maturity with which he handles his villains. If he intended to write a mutant Henry Kissinger, then he failed, because Kissinger was pure evil, but he also, you know, made sense.

Percy's Beast is trash.

I write him on this blog with substantially more care and thought put into his character than Ben Percy ever could. Because even though I'm not the one getting paid to do so, I'm the one putting in the work to make it make emotional sense. There's a story there. There's a compelling character there. If only Ben would have put the fucking work in.

Thank you for your question. :)

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positivelybeastly · 1 month

Text

X-Force #50

All right, well, we finally did it, gang. We hit the big 5-0, and it's all done. And guess what?

It's all up hill from here! Wednesday spoilers below the cut, and . . . quite a lot of rambling? If I'm honest?

So, we open up on X-Force trying to kill good Hank and Simon, because they are dumb, despite Kid Omega and Sage asserting their genius. They blow up their little gay boat of love, and our intrepid heroes get pitched into the drink.

So . . . this is . . .

Why is Simon wearing a rebreather/oxygen tank?

Dear reader, I implore you to open this link, and scroll down to Simon Williams' powers and abilities.

Immortality: Williams is functionally immortal. Because of the ionic energy that empowers him, he no longer ages and is immune to disease and infection. This same energy sustains Williams' physical vitality far more efficiently than the biochemical process that sustain ordinary human life.

Self-Sustenance As a result of his transformation he no longer requires food, sleep, water or oxygen to survive. Simon is now a fully energized entity who can sustain himself indefinitely without nourishment, easily able to live outside habitable planet orbit.

Benjamin Percy, writer; Drew Baumgartner, Assistant Editor; Mark Basso, Editor; Jordan D. White, Senior Editor.

All four of these men are incapable of Googling basic facts about a character that Marvel has owned and been using since the 1960s. Basic facts that are available if you do so much as a basic skim of the man's Wiki page.

So, why is Simon wearing a rebreather/oxygen tank? So that evil Beast can destroy it and send Simon up to the surface, and good Beast and evil Beast can talk uninterrupted. That's the only actual reason. This is laziness from both an editorial and a writing standpoint, since you could have easily just had evil Beast use some kind of gadget to achieve the same effect, but don't worry! This won't be the most egregious lack of attention to detail this issue!

Yaaaaaay . . .

"My Beast," huh, Simon?

Gay.

Also, this scene makes X-Force look fucking pathetic, because Simon could literally wipe the floor with every one of them and not break a sweat. Simon 'my fists are LITERALLY as strong as Thor's hammer' Williams has nothing to fear from fucking Omega Red. His pacifism is the only thing keeping you from looking even stupider than you already do.

Orchis attacks to give the rest of X-Force something to do. I don't care.

But we do get this funny fuckin' shit.

Tie him up?

Logan, did you forget the last time you fought Simon? Or the time before that?

Anyway, the Beasts talk. It's not a particularly interesting conversation, for the most part.

God, this plan is just so fucking stupid.

But.

There is one moment that actually kinda works.

It's really funny to me that two of the worst Beast writers of all time, Brian Michael Bendis and Benjamin Percy, both managed to grok this essential fact - Hank McCoy loved being this version of Hank McCoy.

He was happy.

He was comfortable.

He was loved.

Feline Hank, as much as I love him, as much as he's my favourite iteration of the character, was never happy in his skin. How could he be? It wasn't something he chose, it was forced upon him. To save his life.

Well, what if he didn't want to be saved? What if he felt his life was so miserable that he might've thought, perhaps I should just let it all end?

He had moments, sure. But he never really escaped this feeling. This fear, this anxiety, this trauma, this pain. He carried it with him for the rest of his life. Just constant trauma, death, misery, regret, mistakes, chances not taken, failures.

But he would never be the same again. It's funny. He's the version I love most, but he's the version of Hank who could never love himself.

Which . . . is partly why it bugs me when people say Hank has internalised mutantphobia. Like, he kinda does, but I honestly don't really feel like it's quite that simple. He's comfortable in his simian form, he loves it, he only very occasionally angsts about it, he is happy. It's when he turns feline that he hates his mutant 'gift,' because now he has to worry about what might come next.

This is not the same as, I hate my mutant powers because they make my life inconvenient, because it means people hate and fear me. He can deal with that. He's been dealing with that since he was seventeen and nearly beaten to death by an angry mob for saving a child.

This is, I hate my mutant powers because they are turning me into something less than human or mutant. Because I am a danger. Because I am in danger.

And his fears are validated. He nearly kills Blindfold and Armour. He eats Logan's leg, tastes human flesh. He spends the last seven issues of Whedon's Astonishing X-Men with the taste of human skin and meat on his lips. How the fuck is he meant to be happy like this?

Anyway, back to X-Force. The two Beasts fight. Orchis shit happens.

Fuck off, Logan. Stop acting like you're at all relevant to proceedings.

Gay.

"X-Force ain't the ones you root for. But we get the dirty jobs done."

You didn't fucking do anything.

Hank and Simon could have fixed this entire mess without you. The only reason you were fighting a Sentinel was because you drew it to your location with your jet, firing at a gay little blue man and his fruity ionic boyfriend! You didn't contribute anything!

And then, as if to cap it all off . . .

What a self-aggrandising load of wank.

Hey, what was Colossus' plot arc through this series?

He spent 5 years being mind controlled and killed his girlfriend.

What was Domino's plot arc through this series?

Well, she got hurt a lot. There was that one time she got skinned. That was fun.

What was Laura Kinney's plot arc through this series?

There were entire issues where she didn't speak a fucking word.

You had.

50.

ISSUES.

And this is the best you could come up with?

"The plan was always for the war without to lead to the war within these two characters."

Is that why Wonder Man was more important to the climax of your book than Logan?

Go step on a fucking Lego, Ben.

This was allegedly a run all about black ops wetwork, the sacrifice of your soul to the harsh work that protecting your country requires, the inexorable slide towards moral degradation that comes from compromise.

It ended with a blue man in a stupid plant suit sacrificing himself to save a D-list actor from a bomb that would have crushed Mars into a pocket dimension, all so that his clone can go and become roommates with said D-list actor.

Ben Percy, of all the writers the X-office has welcomed into its midst, you were certainly one of them.

I just . . . this was what was worth jettisoning 40 years of Hank McCoy's personal history for? This cockamamie bullshit? This excuse for you to whip your dick out and pretend you're Larry Hama, when you can barely measure up to Chuck Austen?

Also, Jonathan Hickman, you're kind of on my shitlist for this, too. You may write a halfway decent comic book every now and then - and make no mistake, they're mostly halfway decent, I think he scrapes greatness with his ideas, but his execution is. Dry.

But that's better than his eye for talent, clearly.

I hate being negative. I feel guilty every time. I don't enjoy it. I hate to dwell. I hate to spiral. I hate to obsess over things.

But X-Force is just . . .

X-Force was, just shit. I will go to my grave telling anyone who'll listen that it's not worth reading.

"It'll read better in trades!" No, it won't.

"It has such a good team!" If you burn a pie made of good ingredients, you still have a burnt pie to eat.

"The art is so good!" And if you put sprinkles in a toilet bowl, it's still a toilet. It just looks prettier now.

Oh, and just in case anyone from Marvel ever reads this - they won't, they only hang around on Twitter so people can jerk off about the panels they write explicitly to be shared by the X-stans - I've pirated every comic I've read in the last 10 years. Every issue of X-Force? Pirated. All these caps? Pirated. Every time someone asks me where to read comics, what to read? Pirate links.

I didn't pay a dime for this series. I still feel like I got ripped off.

I almost can't believe it's over . . . what am I going to do with my life now that I don't have X-Force to complain about?

Oh, yeah. I can just read good comics. Nearly forgot about that.

But hey. That leads me to . . . I don't know, I guess, the end of an era.

Because Hank didn't get his memories back. Maybe he will in the future, but I don't have faith that there's anyone at Marvel that feels this strongly about Beast, so I doubt it. I need to write this down, anyway, for the catharsis. It'll help me say goodbye.

Rest in peace, Hank McCoy, 1985-2018.

You were the Beast I fell in love with. You were the man who taught me to be gentle when the world was unkind. You were the man who taught me that sometimes you don't have to love the body you're in, you just have to want to keep on going, because it can get better. There's always that chance. You were the man who led me to my boyfriend of 12 years, who I love more dearly than anything else on the planet. You were my friend when I didn't have many, and you've helped me make a lot of friends I quite appreciate. People I'm proud to know.

You're gone now. A lot of people aren't going to mourn you. They don't appreciate what was lost. But that's okay. I'll tell anyone who'll listen how brilliant you were. I'll try not to hold it against the version of you I'm left with, that he isn't you. He was you once. He could be like you again. Maybe better. I'd like that. I hope that's the case.

I'll keep writing you. I honestly don't think I could ever stop.

I'll try my best not to be sad that you're gone.

I'll try my best to instead be simply glad that you happened.

I'll give the past its due.

Which is all you can do, in the end, for the dead and for the past.

Well.

That, and live.

#outofmuffins #hank mccoy #wednesday spoilers #blood tw

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