Posted in: Avengers, Comics, Marvel Comics, X-Men | Tagged: Beast, fall of x, hank mccoy, marvel, x-men

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Hank McCoy? A Beastly Solution?

Hank McCoy, the Beast, is an original member of the X-Men, former member of Avengers and Defenders, and the resident mad scientist of Krakoa.

Hank McCoy, the Beast, is an original member of Marvel's X-Men, former member of Avengers and Defenders, and of late the resident mad scientist of Krakoa. Bleeding Cool has followed his descent into said madness, doing the supposedly necessary things that no one else will to ensure the survival of the X-Men and Krakoa, but we have our doubts.

Even before Krakoa, in Brian Bendis' All-New X-Men, Hank McCoy decided to completely disrupt the time-stream by dragging the original five X-Men younger selves to the present day, all to stop a make-believe mutant genocide he claimed Scott Summers would be responsible for. This of course is an outright lie to convince them to come with him, abducting teenagers on false pretences, which would even cause the Watcher to be disgusted.

In Inhumans vs. X-Men,  when Hank McCoy learns the dire fact that the Mists were impregnating the entire atmosphere of the planet and would leave Earth uninhabitable to mutants, instead of standing up to fight or sharing his findings with the Inhumans who he has been working with for months…

…he decides that it means all mutants should run away.

Which leads to a big fight for eight months. The war between mutants and Inhumans ends, as does the threat of the Terrigen Mists when Queen Medusa is actually told that the point of no return is fast approaching, and she destroys the Mists herself, rather than see an entire group of people suffer and die for it.

If Hank McCoy had only told Medusa, the whole war could have been avoided. And in Secret Empire, does a deal with the Nazi Hydra and the Nazi Captain America to keep a mutant nation in West California, in return for propping up the fascist government of the USA.

But during the Krakoan Era, Hank McCoy has gotten way worse. He has been launching hit squads, killing world leaders, creating genetic methods of warfare, with his mistakes getting out of hand and having to be dealt with, with any dead dismissed.

Hank McCoy has pushed for interning any Russian mutants on Krakoa, in public, aiming to create fear and paranoia amongst Krakoans.

Hank McCoy is consistently lying, deceiving and trying not to get caught. So naturally, he might as well be opposed to mutant immigration to Krakoa.

Then opened a space prison outside of the jurisdiction of Krakoa, Earth or Arakko. Killing them, torturing them, experimenting on them. Mister Sinister has a version of the Dark Beast imprisoned in his labs, but the 616 Beast seems far worse.

And then commit cold-blooded murder. And who are the subjects of his work? Some of them are indeed villainous types, murderers, mercenaries and the like who have no value for the lives of others. But not all.

Some are just aliens who the Beast happened across out in Deep Space, or petty criminals. One of them just got in the way. So when he gets challenged on his work…

…being called a fascist seems entirely appropriate. We prefer Space Nazi, but whatever gets the job done.

And he's quite happy to turn his prisoners into an instant defense mechanism when it all goes pear-shaped as well. Talk about biological weapons of mass destruction. Now, during all of this, some have thought that maybe, just maybe, the Beast was actually the Dark Beast from Age Of Apocalypse, hiding out on Krakoa. And this might be your get-out. Well, in Immortal X-Men that possibility is dismissed…

As it emerges that Mister Sinister has the Dark Beast all to himself. And acknowledges that the original Hank McCoy is even worse… and in the Sins Of Sinister, we saw where that led, a thousand years hence.

Mister Sinister was all about doing what was ultimately necessary to survive, even if that in the end entailed killing a trillion mutants. Recently Beast has stepped up his justifications as well.

Because Hank McCoy is also just trying to save everyone, like Nathaniel Essex was. Is. Will be. And he's using clones of himself as well now.

Because when even Deadpool is calling you out for being a fascist then maybe, just maybe it's time to reconsider.

So the question is this. How do you save The Beast? Absolutely destroyed as an amoral activist, mass murdering genocidal figure in Marvel Comics, a mutant Goebbels, how could he possibly be redeemed in the mind of the Marvel masses? Well, they may have hidden one possibility. As Wolverine tried to find out what the Beast had been doing on Krakoa…

Using the Cerebro memory back-ups of the Beast to try and access that memory and see for himself.

But they are not available. They've all been erased. Well, almost all of them.

The memories of his time when he joined the Avengers remain intact. Which means the Beast could be revived using those files and those files alone. We could get this Beast back…

Might he be able to take down the current Beast? Or at least replace him? That is how you solve a problem like Hank McCoy…

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