Day two of my X-Men theme week. And
today’s profile centers on Hank McCoy, the brilliant blue Beast. Hank is one of
the oldest characters in comics to do the whole “don’t judge a book by its
cover” thing. You know, he looks like some sort of blue monster, but is in fact
so crazy smart he has given notes to Tony Stark and Reed Richards.
Interestingly, though, his appearance wasn’t quite so…jarring. But I’m getting
ahead of myself. Let’s get to it, Beast!
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| Only thing dangerous about original beast is that he can strangle people with one hand. |
Henry “Hank” McCoy was born in
Dundee, Illinois. (Side note, way to represent the Midwest, Hank.) His father Norton was an employee at a nuclear power plant
and was exposed to high levels of radiation for several years before the birth of
his son. Which kind of explains why Hank looks the way he does. No, he wasn’t
always blue and furry, but his body was always oddly proportioned. His limbs
were a little too long, and his hands and feet were a little too big. He was
also crazy smart, like the kind of genius that only appears in comics. But I’ll
get to that later. His unusual body and high intellect didn’t earn him a lot of
friends in school. His nickname in school was Magilla Gorilla. A name that is
about as cruel as it is accurate.
Like most mutants, Hank’s mutation
didn’t fully manifest until puberty. As if growing up isn’t complicated enough
without adding in super strength and simian like agility. His increased strength
and speed did allow him to be a high school football star for a little while,
as well as smartest kid in Illinois public school history, until his fellow
students and local mutant haters started targeting him with hate crimes. A
young man is born naturally bigger and stronger than most is hailed as a hero
on the football field, but the oddly proportioned nerd starts doing well in
school, and people start throwing rocks and calling ya a freak. People suck. It’s
around this time that Charles Xavier arrives at the McCoy home and offers Hank
a place at his school. Hank leaps t the chance to be at attending a prestigious,
legitimate private school, and also be among “different” kids like himself. He’s
accepted as an X-Men, and given the codename Beast.
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| Fun fact, he was originally supposed to be black haired, but tech limits at the time made him blue. |
Hank excels in both the X-mansions
advanced training simulator the Danger Room, and academically under Xavier’s
watchful eye. Basically, if you can study it, Hank was damn good at it. Be it
advanced mathematics, chemistry, physics, or classical literature. He and the
team’s first mission against Magneto went really well, as did their following
missions, but Hank became stressed overtime due to the need to keep a secret
identity. He took a brief sabbatical, and became a pro wrestler. He helped
another mutant pro wrestler (what a coincidence) named Unus the Untouchable
enhance his own powers before rejoining the X-Men.
While it was fun being an X-Man,
Hank left the team just after turning twenty. Something about not being one of “the
strangest teens of all,” was his reasoning. He joined the Brand Corporation, a
genetic research facility. He does well at the company, and even starts dating
a lab assistant named Linda Donaldson. Hank is able to isolate a hormonal
extract that somehow enhances mutations, allowing even normal humans to gain
superpowers for a short time. He takes the formula himself when several armed
goons try to take his research. He didn’t need to, his powers gave him an edge
from the get go, but he worried that his build was a little too conspicuous now
that he was a well-known scientist. The formula enhanced his mutation, causing
him to grow long grey fur (which later turned blue), sharpened his teeth, made
his hands and feet grow sharp claws, enhanced his senses, and even gave him a
mild accelerated healing factor. He easily trounces the would-be thieves, but
reveals in his new super bestial powers for too long. He misses the deadline to
take the formula that would have reversed the process. He was a Beast, permanently.
He also finds out that Linda worked for a criminal empire, so breaking up with
her was rather easy.
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| How does one blush, when one is covered in blue hair? |
After this, he becomes a dual
member of the Avengers, and the X-Men. He is also a member of the Defenders,
think an Avengers team that deals with the really weird stuff like demonic
invasions. And he even rejoins his old X-Men team as a part of X-Factor. I
think Hank is trying to make up for being the kid last picked for baseball or
football by being on as many teams as possible. He’s also become a vocal
political activist for Mutant Rights, as well as a respected scientist. He
created a cure for the Legacy Virus, an infection that originally targeted
Mutants that later became a plague on all Mankind. He keeps his powers after
M-Day, but doesn’t stay long with the X-Men after, feeling that Cyclops’
increasingly militant agendas to protect Mutants are too extreme for his taste.
He sides with the Avengers during the Avengers vs. X-Men miniseries, feeling
that the risk of the Phoenix Force’s return greatly outweighed the benefits.
After Cyclops is arrested, breaks
out of prison, and starts attacking the US government to get his hands on the
Mutants popping up after the Phoenix’s destruction, Hank decides to do
something about it. After a talk with Iceman, Hank realizes that the best
solution would be to bring the original X-Men team forward in time. He hoped
conversing with his more idealistic younger self would help Scott get back on
the proper path. This is a rather desperate gambit, given how time travel
usually screws things up more, but it’s revealed that this is Beast’s only
option because he is in fact dying. Apparently the Phoenix’s return also
affected his mutation, and the physical changes are killing him. Young Hank
figures out how to stabilize current Hank, thus saving his life. Hank remains
at Wolverine’s Jean Grey School for Gifted Youngsters as a teacher while his
younger self gets into a bunch of hijinks. But that’s this whole separate thing.
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| How do you stop a rampaging Beast? Recite Shakespeare at him. Of course, it's so obvious. |
Originally, Hank’s Mutation essentially
combined the human body with our more simian relatives. The result is a
powerfully built human being with long limbs, a lot of muscle, and incredible
physical abilities. He’s super strong, fast, agile, and dexterous. He’s as
gifted with his feet as he is with his hands. After taking his mutation
enhancing formula, he shifted to an even more bestial appearance. His more animal
form has shifted slightly over the years from a sort of trollish look to that
of a mountain lion. Right now he’s back to the big blue troll look.
Hank is also immensely intelligent,
having PhD’s in Biophysics and Genetics, fluent in about ten languages, and is
a gifted student of literature, philosophy, psychology, art, history, art
history, anthropology, linguistics and music. Like I mentioned above, if you
can study it, Hank McCoy is excellent at it. Oh, and he’s also an electronics
expert and makes regular upgrades to Cerebro and the Danger Room. Maybe the
phrase Renaissance man should be updated to a “Real McCoy.”
Beast has appeared in a number of
X-Men related franchises. For some reason they don’t ever really seem to go
into his Avenger’s days. Go figure.
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| Monkey feet don't seem so bad now, do they, Dr. McCoy? |
Beast was a major character in X-Men: The Animated Series. He spends
pretty much the entire first season in prison, having been arrested when the
X-Men attacked a Sentinel facility. This was mostly for political reasons,
Magneto tried to break him out in the third episode. He’s eventually freed and
returns to the X-Men. I’d say his most important episode is number 23, “Beauty
and the Beast.” In it, Hank falls in love with a blind patient named Carly. She
is also quiet taken with Beast, despite the hairy hands. Her father is a bigot
that detests Mutant’s even though one is trying rather desperately to help his
daughter. Carly is later kidnapped by the anti-Mutant group The Friends of Humanity.
Beast kind of loses it, berates Carly’s father for hating Mutant’s when the
So-called FoH are the ones that kidnapped Carly, and would have taken on the
entire hate group alone, had the other X-Men not stepped in. Wolverine saves
the day by revealing FoH Leader Graydon Creed is the son of a Mutant. Despite
Beast’s feelings for Carly, and her father realizing what a short sighted prick
he’d been, Beast ends the relationship out of fear for Carly’s safety. Good guy
Beast.
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| You'd think all that hair would make wearing a suit impossible. |
Hank McCoy is introduced in the
second season of X-Men: Evolution as
the Chemistry and PE teacher at Bayville High, the school that the teen X-Men attend
for some reason. In the episode “The Beast of Bayville” it’s explained that
years ago Xavier approached Hank to be one of the first Mutants at his school,
but this version of Hank rejected the offer. He kept ‘the beast’ at bay first
with strict mental discipline and then a serum he’d developed. But, ‘the beast’
grew stronger with time. Eventually his repressed mutation fully manifests in
his blue ape form and he goes on a rampage. He’s calmed by X-man Spyke reciting
his favorite Shakespeare monologue. Afterwards he stays on at the X-mansion as
the new Mutant instructor, being that it’s the one place he can still teach and
not be ridiculed or hated for his appearance. He has a very funny episode where
on a field trip with some of the X-Men in the Redwood Forest, he gets captured
by Bigfoot enthusiast. It’s about as hilarious as an episode can get.
He is finally introduced in the
X-men movies in X-Men: The Last Stand, portrayed
by Kelsey Grammer. In this universe he’s a former X-Man that now is on the
President’s Cabinet as the Secretary of Mutant Affairs. He rejoins the X-Men
when he learns that the Mutant “cure” is being used as a weapon against
Mutants, but still helps defend the source of the Cure (the Mutant Leech) from
Magneto’s forces. He ultimately wins the day, Wolverine first distracts Magneto
before Beast launches at him and sticks the Master of Magnetism with three Cure
darts, stripping him of his powers.
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| God, their sinks must always be clogged. |
A young Beast, and the only actual
original X-man, is portrayed by Nicholas Hoult in X-Men: First Class and Days
of Future Past. I don’t hate this Beast but they do a lot of weird stuff
with him that I don’t really agree with. This version is a scientist working
for the CIA who embraces the “don’t ask don’t tell policy,” until Xavier accidentally outs him. This Hank’s Mutation is shown to be unusually simian feet
(something that his comic book version has never had). He and Mystique have a
weird sort of bonding/romance centered on their physical differences. They have
a falling out, though, when Beast thinks he’s figured out how to use Mystique’s
blood to alter their powers. The idea was that his formula would alter their physical
appearance and reset them as normal. They’d keep their powers, just getting a
new look. Instead, his formula enhances the original Mutation, giving him his
beasty look. The entire experience is more than a little weird. Don’t get me
wrong, Mr. Hoult did a fine job, it’s just the whole bit about the ape-like
feet felt really forced. Like the writers were going out of their way to make a
relatively “normal” Mutant extra-Mutanty so he could have a quick romance with
Mystique.
In DoFP, Hank is revealed to be the only Mutant still at Xavier’s
mansion. He’s basically Charles’ nanny/bodyguard. In the time between the
movies, Hank has apparently perfected his original formula, allowing him to
return to his human form so long as he remains calm. Apparently adrenalin cause
him to revert to his Beast Mode. They give some well thought out lie about how he's using it to blend in, when we all know it's just an excuse for Nicholas Hoult to not be in what I assume is a very hot costume/make-up for the films run. The formula also let’s Xavier walk again for…reasons.
Poorly explained ones at that. Beast helps out to stop Mystique from killing Bolivard Trask, and later when
Magneto hijacks the Sentinels. After Wolverine returns to the future, he’s
greeted by the “current” Beast, an uncredited Kelsey Grammer.
Beast is a great X-Man. His duality,
the animalistic appearance combined with rare super intellect, while having been
done before has never been done better. Much like fellow Mutant Nightcrawler,
Beast should have every reason to reject and hate humans in the way they have
rejected and hated him due to his monstrous appearance. Instead, he’s a staunch
advocate for peace between the two groups. And, unlike other geniuses like Tony
Stark, Beast never rubs his genius in other people’s faces. Sure, when he knows
something he’ll inform you. And he’ll occasionally quote Shakespeare, but
overall he’s a reserved sort of genius. He’s the Brilliant Brute, the Beast.
Next time, Angel and his rather tragic tale.
https://forums.marvelheroes.com/discussion/82399/feedback-beast/p12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_%28comics%29
http://comicsalliance.com/x-men-episode-guide-2x10-beauty-and-the-beast-marvel/
http://x-menevolution.wikia.com/wiki/File:Beast_of_Bayville.png
http://xmenmovies.wikia.com/wiki/File:Beast1-XMFC.png
http://xmenmovies.wikia.com/wiki/File:2006_x_men_3_034.jpg
https://www.tumblr.com/search/wolverine%20classic
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