Dark Beast
Dark Beast is a male comic supervillain who features in Marvel Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Origin
Hank McCoy was an alternate reality version of the Mutant Hank McCoy with this one residing on Earth-295 which was the Age of Apocalypse in the Multiverse. (X-Men: Alpha v1 #1)
He was given the task of genetically uplifting the powers of Homo Superior deemed unfit for the cause and looked to enhance their potential for growth. (X-Men: Alpha v1 #1)
For five long years, the Beast experimented on Summers as well as on himself mutating himself into a grey furred form more appropriate to his name, which he had earned due to the cruelty of his experiments. Summers finally broke free of his bonds and easily got past the Beast. The Beast warned security of the escape and ultimately Summers' own children eliminated Christopher in order to prevent a Brood infestation of the planet. (Tales from the Age of Apocalypse: Sinister Bloodlines v1 #1)
Shortly thereafter, McCoy almost stumbled upon Sinister's creation of Nate Grey, a mutant created from the DNA of Cyclops and Jean Grey that Sinister hoped to use as an ultimate weapon against Apocalypse. (X-Man v1 #-1)
Later on, Earth came to be visited by the Impossible Man who left to serve as an ambassador from planet Popup to Earth. However, he came to be captured where Apocalypse turned the creature over to the Beast for experimentation. The Beast found the Popupian's DNA extremely interesting and went overboard with his experimentation. When Blink found the Impossible Man, the Beast mocked her inability to bring herself to kill the creature to put it out of its misery. She surprised him when she summoned the strength to do so. (Blink v1 #1)
The Beast continued his ghastly experiments on mutants despite the signing of the Kelly Pact between Apocalypse and the Human High Council that was supposed to put an end to such work. When the Beast's latest experiment Fred Dukes broke free, the Summers brothers were forced to destroy it to save Hank's life. Cyclops berated Beast for continuing his experiments before being summoned away by Sinister. Sinister soon abandoned his post, leaving the Beast as the primary expert in Apocalypse's slave pens. (X-Men: Alpha v1 #1)
Earth-616
In reality, he came to be displaced to Earth-616 and was sent 20 years into its past where he arrived with amnesia. The only thing the Dark Beast could remember was science but he had forgotten everything else in this time. It was then that he operated from the shadows where he would abduct people to conduct experiments in his hidden laboratory. In this time, he came see a young Emma Frost who was looking to make her own way in the big city and looked to join the Hellfire Club. McCoy came to save her from some men looking to abduct her where he noted that she was a telepath and wanted her help to unlock his lost memories. The pair were briefly interrupted by police officer Sean Cassidy and some Hellfire Club members but Frost stopped everyone using her powers. She then wiped everyone's memory of the encounter and continued her deal with Dark Beast allowing him to remember his past. (Generation X v1 #-1)
During his observations of Bishop, he came to see that he had a counterpart in this reality forcing McCoy to make a change in his plans. (X-Men v2 #49) He then began looking into this Hank McCoy's past including all his prior relationships in order to see the differences between himself and his counterpart. Each time, he was shown to be responsible for killing these old acquittances after hearing their stories of Hank. The one exception was this world's version of his parents who he let live with his activities drawing out Earth-616's Hank McCoy. He came to ambush his counterpart and ultimately defeated him where McCoy rendered this other version unconscious whereupon he began to seal him inside a building. This was so that he could take this version of Beast's place and joined the X-Men with them being unaware that this Hank McCoy was an imposter. (X-Men Unlimited v1 #10)
He came to find his time posing as his double to be less than tranquil as he was constantly called to task to help the X-Men deal with various conflicts, as well as continuing his double's work trying to find a cure for the Legacy Virus. His first test to see if he could fool the X-Men came during an accidental lab explosion, and he successfully pulled off his impersonation to members of X-Force who responded to the blast. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #331) The Dark Beast, Gambit, and Bishop were called to investigate a subway train where the passengers were beginning to spontaneously mutate. (X-Men v2 #51) This was an experiment conducted by Mr. Sinister. Sinister captured the X-Men after they managed to cure the passengers. Sinister came close to probing Bishop's memories of the Age of the Apocalypse, the one thing that the Dark Beast feared most. However Gambit broke the trio free and they escaped before Sinister could discover the truth of this alternate reality. (X-Men v2 #52) Later, when on a mission to save Phoenix and Gambit from Bastion, the Dark Beast used the previous lab explosion as an excuse for not remembering how to operate some of the X-Men's equipment. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #333) When Gene Nation, led by Mikhail Rasputin, resurfaced and aided in establishing their own Gene Nation in Africa thanks to Storm, the Dark Beast marked this and vowed revenge against Mikhail and Storm. (Storm v1 #4) Later, when Cable's technorganic virus began to ravage out of control, he sought the Beast's aid in trying to determine what was wrong, unaware that he was giving his DNA and a sample of his virus to a most deadly opponent. (Cable v1 #33)
Around this time, the X-Men came to hear whispers of a mysterious being emerging into the world known as Onslaught. At this time, Jean Grey came to meet with the Juggernaut who had come to the X-Mansion seeking the X-Men's aid as he had come to learn the true identity of the villain. Around this point, the Dark Beast was asked to look over Wolverine, who at the time was regressing into a more feral form. However, Hank's patience with the X-Men and their constant crises had begun to grate him. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #334) With the Juggernaut sighted on the premises and Charles Xavier acting strange, Cyclops ordered the Beast and the other X-Men to seek out the Juggernaut quietly. (X-Men v2 #54) Unknown to all, Onslaught was really an extension of Charles Xavier himself, tainted by the dark side of Magneto. When Onslaught revealed himself to the X-Men he tried to get them to join his cause, but the X-Men refused. Their initially attempt to stop Onslaught ended in failure, and in the aftermath of the battle the Dark Beast revealed his true nature to Onslaught. Onslaught had already known of the Dark Beast's presence and accepted him as an ally. They teleported away to begin Onslaughts attack on the human race. The X-Men, unaware of the truth, wondered why their long time friend had betrayed them to Onslaught. (Onslaught: X-Men v1 #1)
X-Men
Whilst being transported to the Raft, he was secretly broken out of the prison truck by Wolverine's covert X-Force team who required his assistance following a marked change in Archangel's actions. Dark Beast revealed that this was the result of the death of Apocalypse causing the Death Seed within Warren Worthington III to activate to lead to his transformation as the new evolutionary caretaker of the Earth. McCoy stated that the only thing able to purge a Death Seed was a Celestial Life Seed that was only grown every thousand years but stated he had one in his laboratory situated in his home reality in the Age of Apocalypse forcing the team having to travel there to recover it. (Uncanny X-Force v1 #10)
Seeking to enact their plan, Archangel had Genocide destroy a town in Montana so that it could be used as part of their experiments. This involved enlarging the Weapon Plus laboratory known as the World with Dark Beast intending its time-alteration engine to create a bubble of accelerated time. This area was then filled with the energy of the Celestial Life Seed causing new life to emerge over millions of years whilst only a day passed in the normal world. The results of this were deemed a success and Archangel looked to enacting this process on the entire world thus creating a new Earth that he along with his followers would rule. (Uncanny X-Force v1 #15)
Dark Beast turns up alive and no longer having health problems. He was later operating a secret laboratory in New Tian during the time HYDRA had taken over America. The Secret Warriors arrived in search for an Inhuman named Leer with Dark Beast not cooperating leading to Daisy Johnson along with Karnak interrogating him for the information. He continued to profess his ignorance even when tortured by Quake and Karnak. Then a team of New Tian mutants entered the laboratory to remove the Inhumans for intruding into New Tian, and Dark Beast was taken into the mutants' custody. (Secret Warriors v2 #3)
Though seemingly dead, his head was recovered by Mister Sinister who saved McCoy's life which was fitted on a brand new mechanical body. He began to experiment in technological evolution leading to the capture of numerous of dupes of Multiple Man that were forcibly transformed into cyborgs. (Uncanny X-Men v5 #13)
House of X
Overview
Personality and attributes
He came to be known as the Butcher-Beast of Apocalypse. (X-Man v1 #50)
McCoy claimed to only believe in things he could see, taste and touch. He refused to believe in a higher power so long as there was no empirical evidence of such a being. (X-Men Unlimited v1 #10)
At one point, he came to suffer from amnesia where he had forgotten his past and even his name. The one thing that he did retain was his passion for science and grim experiments with him able to perfectly recall formulae as well as equations. (Generation X v1 #-1)
After seeing his mainstream counterpart, he claimed that he was disappointed in that version of Hank McCoy and considered himself to be the superior version. (X-Men Unlimited v1 #10)
He later began to experiment in the use of technological evolution as he believed this was the future of their race. Despite this focus on technology, he still considered himself a Mutant and wanted the world to embrace this process. (Uncanny X-Men v5 #13)
Hank McCoy similar to his mainstream counterpart was the son of Norton McCoy and Edna McCoy. (X-Men Unlimited v1 #10)
Powers and abilities
McCoy was a radical biogeneticist of incomparable skill who was always looking for interesting things to experiment on. This involved biochemical research that mostly involved in genetics, mutation and diseases. (X-Men Unlimited v1 #10)
It was shown that he could tailor make a disease that was administered through a needle on a ring. The disease infected a person causing their skin to blister and the individual felt their skin being on fire as they died horrifically with the infection being contagious. In another case, he was shown to had made a custom bomb so long as sufficient material was around him. (X-Men Unlimited v1 #10)
He was later given a cybernetic body capable of shapeshifting to produce weapons and other features in combat. (Uncanny X-Men v5 #13)
Among his creations included:
- Omega Machine :
On Earth-616, he came to have a number of followers that worked for him who were referred to as his Dark Attendants. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #335) They also came to be known as the Dark Descendants (X-Factor v1 #125)
Notes
- Dark Beast was created by Scott Lobdell and Roger Cruz where he made his first appearance in X-Men Alpha (February, 1995).
- The character was an alternate version of the original character made by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
Alternate Versions
- In Age of Apocalypse v2 (2015), a version of the Dark Beast survived on Battleworld in the area controlled by Apocalypse. This version was similar to the original as being an evil scientist that served under Mister Sinister and had his own assistant namely Doctor Nemesis. He was later killed by Doctor Nemesis who empowered himself with the abilities of numerous Mutants and had infected the realm with the plague.
In other media
Video games
- In X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, the Dark Beast was shown to be a mind controlled Beast that had been captured by Apocalypse. After attacking the X-Mansion, Beast was given to Mister Sinister who made use of drugs to brain wash Hank McCoy turning him into a villainous version of himself. He was shown to battle the X-Men alongside Mr. Sinister whereupon he was cured and showed guilt over his actions.
- In X-Men: Battle of the Atom, Dark Beast appeared as a card in the iOS video card game.
- In Marvel Future Fight, Age of Apocalypse Dark Beast appeared as an alternate uniform for Beast in the setting of the mobile video game.
Appearances
- X-Men Alpha v1: (1995)
- X-Men v2:
- X-Men Unlimited v1:
- X-Factor:
- Uncanny X-Force v1:
- Uncanny X-Men v3:
- Secret Warriors v2:
- Uncanny X-Men v5:
External Links
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