X-Force #48 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #48
“Game Recognizes Game”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colour artist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1: Beast in a forest, leaping towards someone who’s looking at him through the scope of a sniper rifle. Quite a loose interpretation of the actual story.
The first half of this issue is pretty much self explanatory, by the way.
PAGES 2-4. The Beast breaks into the Greenhouse.
X-Force set up their new Greenhouse base last issue, and Beast showed up at the end of the issue with his gun. From the look of it, whatever it is that he fires at Omega Red is meant to incapacitate.
That’s Aurora and Northstar on page 4, who also arrived here last issue.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits. We’re expressly told that this comes before the current Wolverine storyline, and also before Fall of the House of X and Rise of the Powers of X – all of which was clear from the last issue of Wolverine anyway, but there’s no harm in making it clear in this book too.
PAGES 6-8. Beast steals a suit of Krakoan battle armour and escapes.
“I’m dreaming about a nice stiff drink.” Sage’s alcoholism was a subplot in earlier issues.
PAGES 9-10. Sage reveals her Beast clone.
We’ve seen Sage’s No-Place Tumour before. In issue #44, she was using it to store a ring created by Mikhail Rasputin. According to her, the Tumour serves as a “quiet room” and “deaden[s] most electric and telepathic transmissions”, so it’s a good safe place to hide things.
“When we salvaged the wreckage of his HQ…” Beast’s mobile base, crewed by clones of himself, was destroyed by X-Force in Wolverine #35. In the epilogue to that issue, Sage told Wolverine: “We destroyed the mobile base along with its arsenal, resurrection technology and most of the clones. Most of them. Three Wolverines remain missing. Along with, most frustrating of all, Beast Prime. And the Cerebro Sword.”
With hindsight, that’s very cleverly worded (or reinterpreted, if it wasn’t the original plan). She said outright that some of the clones had survived. She strongly implied that she meant just the three missing Wolverine clones, but she didn’t actually say so. It’s highly misleading but it’s technically accurate.
PAGES 11-12. Sage argues for activating their own Beast.
We established in Wolverine #31 that Beast is able not just to clone himself but to restore them from backups of his mind with apparent full personality. Quite how that fits with Krakoan resurrection being a special thing is, shall we say, unclear, but to be fair it’s not that far out of line for Marvel Universe technology generally. For the most part you can argue that the clones are just that – clones – but Beast did seemingly resurrect himself after being killed by Wolverine at the end of Wolverine #30. Perhaps there are some shenanigans there involving the Five contributing at an earlier stage.
At any rate… the Beast we have here is a duplicate, because the “real” Beast is still out there somewhere. Or, if you prefer, he’s just as real as the real Beast, who has himself been restored from back-up. We’ll see where they go with it, but if this is the back door to rehabilitate Beast, then “he’s a copy who has to live with the knowledge of what the original did” might be a more satisfying way of doing that.
“That strategy has repeatedly failed.” Sage is presumably referring to Wolverine’s pursuit of Beast in Wolverine #31-35, although Wolverine didn’t do that badly.
MGH. Mutant Growth Hormone, a drug derived from mutant biochemistry which sometimes gives people temporary powers, depending on who’s writing. I’m not sure what it’s got to do with Beast. It was previously cited as something Beast had done wrong back in issue #39, though.
The Legacy Virus. This was on the issue #39 list too, and again, I don’t really understand why. Beast came up with a cure for the Legacy Virus which (for contrived plot reasons) required someone to die to activate it. That was the best he could manage. It’s silly, but why is that his fault?
Threnody. Also on the issue #39 list. In X-Men vol 2 #27, Beast leaves Threnody in the care of Mr Sinister because he might be able to use her to cure the Legacy Virus, and therefore it serves the greater good. This is a legitimate early example of Beast’s current “ends justify the means” persona.
“His alignment with the Inhumans.” Another one from issue #39, and another bad example. During the period when the Terrigen Mist was poisoning mutants, in Uncanny Inhumans #1, Beast went to work with the Inhumans to try and find a cure, and with Storm’s agreement. He did warn the Inhumans that the X-Men were planning to attack them, in Inhumans vs X-Men.
“The Illuminati.” Beast became a member of the Illuminati when he inherited the Infinity Gem and some files on the Illuminati group from Professor X (who was dead at the time) in New Avengers vol 3 #2. This was during the period when the Illuminati were trying to build weapons to destroy other worlds in order to save their own.
“The genocide in Terra Verde.” This is the storyline from two years ago where Beast uses telefloronics to take over the entire nation of Terra Verde, something that was stopped at the first Hellfire Gala, and which we’re supposed to believe the entire country agreed to keep quiet about. “Genocide” is pushing it a bit but it’s certainly some sort of crime against humanity.
“The telefloronic space prison.” Issues #34-35. It was a secret prison where Beast was experimenting on the inmates.
“The poisoning of Jeff Bannister’s daughter.” Wolverine #30.
“The assassination – and rebirth – of Wolverine.” Wolverine #26-27. Beast uses it as an opportunity to shut down Wolverine’s mind for a time and turn him into a weapon.
PAGES 13-14. X-Force wake their Beast clone.
“When Beast went rogue, he wiped all of his files in the Cerebro cradles. Except one.” Wolverine #31. According to Sage in that issue, “All resurrection backups of Beast since the founding of Krakoa are gone, along with a good deal of what precedes them. Curiously, Beast did leave all files from the time period in which he joined the Avengers untouched. He must not have viewed anything about that version of himself as important or compromising.”
Technically Sage contradicts that here, saying that only one of Beast’s back-ups remains. She also assumed in the earlier issue that Beast had left those files deliberately, while this time she acknowledges the possibility that it was an oversight.
The New Defenders was a version of the Defenders that Beast organised as a more formal team than previous incarnations. The team also included Angel and Iceman. The book was renamed New Defenders on the cover with issue #125, apparently changed name officially with issue #140, and was cancelled with issue #152, when it was basically replaced by X-Factor.
“I remember he was committed to mutant rights. I remember, too, that he seemed happy.” This is footnoted to “Circa New Defenders #142″, which is 1985. It’s an interesting choice, since it’s a middle issue. It’s a story by Peter Gillis and Don Perlin in which Beast visits a college campus and does some campaigning for mutant rights. Student Adrian Castorp accuses him of being “a mutant Stepin’ Fetchit, a clown, when the world needs an advocate, a defender of mutant rights”. Castorp is a mutant with completely useless powers – he can see in infra-red, he has six fingers on each hand, and he has a degenerative nerve condition which kills him at the end of the issue. The story ends with a suitably chastened Beast giving a more serious talk in which he publicly backs a grass roots mutant rights campaign group called MONSTER – Mutants Only Need Sensitivity, Tolerance and Equal Rights.
It’s possible that Percy has singled out this story as a turning point where Beast experiences a political radicalisation that sets him on the wrong course – after all, practically the next thing he does is to join the dodgy mutant-hunting first incarnation of X-Factor. (A much better “what the hell was he thinking” example than some of the ones actually given in this story – but then Scott and Jean were involved too, and Jean’s a saint, so we can’t go there.)
“He was then who he is now.” Sage naturally points out to Wolverine that his whole character arc is about the possibility of redemption.
“I killed Beast before. And he’d booby trapped his body to attack everything in its kill zone.” Wolverine #30-31.
PAGES 15-17. Beast II tries to escape and gets talked down.
Sage’s pitch to Beast – that he’s been de facto brought forward in time to deal with his corrupted older self – is a direct echo of Beast bringing the Silver Age X-Men to the present day in Brian Bendis’s All-New X-Men.
Beast’s body has changed significantly since 1985, so the poor guy should also be a bit disoriented over that.
“Oh my stars and garters” was Beast’s catchphrase back when he was a cheerful character.
PAGES 18-21. Beast II escapes and learns what his future self has done.
The idea seems to be that Beast’s clones, as potential future host bodies for himself, already had access to the Krakoan tech built in. It seems remarkable that Sage didn’t think to cancel Beast’s access, but her competence fluctuates pretty wildly depending on plot requirements, something we can chalk up to her being stressed (and/or, in earlier issues, drunk).
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was an American novelist, probably best known in the UK for The Scarlet Letter. The quote here comes from his diary, published as Passages from the American Notebooks, rather than one of his novels.
PAGE 22. Trailers. The Krakoan reads BEAST HUNT.
Beast was practically the only X-Man acting like a sane person in that Inhumans vs X-Men story, not sure why they’re holding that against him. Or his work with the Illuminati, since he was hardly an enthusiastic supporter of the “destroying worlds to stop incursions” idea, but had to go along because there was no other option that the finest minds on Earth could come up with.
Interested to take a view from others on this board – has this series moved Sage on as a character? I feel like Claremont -Sage would have solved all this in an issue or three. This iteration is much more all over the shop. You’d think there’d be more plot beats or wider X-Men interactions for her over 49 issues – longest she has featured?
You’d think they woukd throw in the whole “mutant cure from Beast’s files” from Rosenberg’s run immediately before Krakoa to his list of crimes. It’s less tenuous than sone of the other stuff.
We haven’t known before now when, exactly, Xavier started doing backups of mutant minds with Forge helping him out; if there’s a Cerebro backup of Beast from circa New Defenders #142, that means he was preserving backups sometime around Uncanny X-Men #192, i.e. before he went off into space!
@Douglas: I figure Xavier started doing back-ups once he got his hands on Shi’Ar tech, including those logic diamonds that can absorb/duplicate/store personalities I figure that would be circa Uncanny X-Men 108. It was definitely after Thunderbird ‘s death, at any rate.
I liked this issue, but I have to assume Sage and co. let Beast 2 escape so he could hunt down the original. Otherwise, not a good look for the X-team focused on security.
Can we just be happy that we’ve got a HEROIC Beast again? Who HASN’T missed him saying “Oh my stars and garters”?
Beast reverse-engineered the Legacy Virus to work on Skrulls, which Cyclops used to blackmail the Skrull fleet attacking San Francisco during Secret Invasion. They blew themselves up instead.
Tldr Hank helped Scott use the LV to commit what would be a war crime if aliens weren’t on a ‘it’s okay to kill them’ list alongside vampires and intelligent machines that every supposedly moral Marvel hero has.
And anyway Sage is going through her list chronologically so that’s not what Percy had in mind.
Mike-When did Xavier meet Forge? We know that Xavier needed Forge to upgrade the Cerebro helmet so he could start making back-ups.
We know it was also before Harry Leland. I was thinking Douglas’ estimate would seem more accurate.
*before Leland died.
Re: MGH- it’s been said to have been developed (or improved) from a drug Beast designed without his knowledge. How this is his fault is beyond me.
It’s odd that we don’t get to see any interactions between Beast and Peter and Logan,since they’re the two Beast would remember.
It’s also odd that Beast seems to have no problem with Black Tom, since Black Tom was a villain circa Defenders 142. Admittedly, Hank hadn’t met Tom in person at that point, so it’s possible he just didn’t know who Tom was.
Re: the backups- they were used to bring back the STRIKE agents Slaymaster killed, so they’d have to be online before Slaymaster killed them.
The first time Xavier and Forge met on panel was Uncanny X-Men 277 but Hickman says we’re supposed to assume they met off panel before Xavier went off into space.
The strangest part of Sage’s speech was how she didn’t mention his time shenanigans with the original X-Men during Bendis’ run which specifically led to “The Trial of Beast” story. All of the books were about the O5’s return and Beast’s actions for years and not a mention.
@ Douglas We’ve debated when the backups start a number of times in these comment threads, but it has to be post Uncanny #150 since one of the backups is on Island M which is at the bottom of the sea before then. This also accounts for Thunderbird being before the backup period, and Xavier having access to the Shi’ar tech. Forge also namechecks Beast as “the good doctor” so it’s a) after Beast’s identity goes public, and b) after Beast has a doctorate, so he’s in or post-Avengers.
The scene also has Xavier in his wheelchair so it needs to happen shortly post-#150 or quickly thereafter, after which he’s walking in short order, and then goes off to space for years.
For me, it makes the most character sense post-150, after Jean dying, learning about Days of Future Past and then Kitty nearly dying all in short order. Strong motivation for Xavier to want to cheat death, and before the issue of when he was replaced by a Brood comes into play.
Hickman’s retconning Xavier and Forge years early does contradict a line in Uncanny #275 (Forge: “So that’s the legendary Charles Xavier”, implying that this is their first encounter.) Pretty minor retcon – Forge not letting on to their ultra-secret project around the rest of the team and the Starjammers.
I have just realized that this Beast 2 presumably has not lived through the 2018/2019 “Extermination” event and therefore does not have the memories of the time the first team of X-Men spent in their future (late 2012-early 2019).
For that matter, he does not remember fetching that team from the past back in “All-New X-Men #1” (2012) either.
In practical terms, that ought to have removed all memory of his knowledge of magic and made him a bit awkward when around many people, notably Warren, Bobby, Jean and Scott. Lots of people will know him better than he remembers now.
@Chris V: Harry Leland doesn’t come back until Marauders #26, by which point the Waiting Room is already up and running!
@Douglas- but Michael Nowlan was mentioned to be alive in an early issue of SWORD. And Tommy was shown to be alive in Hellions 1. Both of these people died while Xavier was in space. Plus, as mentioned. there’s the STRIKE agents, who did before Xavier went into space. And Destiny died while Xavier was in space- the entire plot about whether or not to bring her back would have been pointless if there were no backups of her.
Using the Legacy Virus cure as an example of Hank’s ruthlessness irks me because the story showed the exact opposite. Beast finds a Legacy Virus cure that will only work if it kills one mutant – and he deems it a failure. Hank shelves the cure because killing one person to stop a deadly plague is too high a price. That’s about as far from the ends justifying the means as you can get.
@MasterMahan: I agree, and including the Legacy cure on the list of Hank’s sins made me wonder if Percy wasn’t confusing it with his attempt to Hank’s attempts to undo the Decimation. His goal was laudable, but he sought out the help of dangerous super-scientists like Mr. Sinister and Dark Beast. Hank demonstrated a willingness to compromise his ethics that could be seen as a step on his path to villainy.
@MasterMahan: I agree, and including the Legacy cure on the list of Hank’s sins made me wonder if Percy wasn’t confusing it with Hank’s attempts to undo the Decimation. His goal was laudable, but he sought out the help of dangerous super-scientists like Mr. Sinister and Dark Beast. Hank demonstrated a willingness to compromise his ethics that could be seen as a step on his path to villainy.
Apologies for the double (now triple) post, thought I caught the “…attempts…” mistake in the first sentence before it posted.
The thing about the #39 list is it not only comes off as defensive of the direction Percy took the character, it also actually really clarified why the heel turn doesn’t land for me. Every cited example (at least the ones that really are dodgy) represent a time he was at a personal low point. He doesn’t let Sinister take Threnody as a calculated move, he does it in despair that he can’t figure out something Sinister maybe can. A’villain phase’ for the character could make sense, but Percy’s ‘bloated with hubris’ take doesn’t.
One reason for picking that particular point in the New Defenders could be that in retrospect, it’s where Beast starts getting drawn back into the mutant side of things from being an Avenger/Defenders character — getting ideologically involved here, and on an X-team about 10 months later.
Beast feels like he’s become kind of a sin-eater for the rest of X-Force and Krakoa. They blame him for all their wicked deeds to cleanse themselves of guilt.
I had not thought of Adrian Castorp probably since NEW DEFENDERS #142 originally came out, but now that you’ve reminded me: I like that characters in the issue (as well as readers) assumed Adrian was somehow tied in to the Six-Fingered Hand, the demon cabal who were the villains of one of the major DEFENDERS storylines by J.M. DeMatteis four years earlier. More evidence that “generative AI” is literally demonic, I guess.
I haven’t read this, but they’re going to merge the two Hanks’ minds together at some point, right? Like Jean getting all of Phoenix’s memories from its time impersonating her and/or the Talon/X-23 mind-smoosh that’s most likely going to happen soon. Otherwise, as Luis points out above, Hank’s continuity gets complicated pretty quickly.
If this is supposed to make Beast a viable hero again, he can’t have War Crime Beast’s memories.
I mean, he can, but it would be stupid. As far as the Krakoan rules go – Brand New Beast is innocent, but give him War Crime Beast’s memories and he’ll basically become him.
Eh, Jean has Phoenix’s memories and she’s not out genociding broccoli people all the time.
If they don’t mind-smoosh the Hanks before Krakoa is over, then another writer will later. I think it’s a comic book rule.
My money is still on Talon dying for good.
But merging of memories did happen when the Avengers returned from the bad idea that was the Heroes Reborn-verse. IIRC same for the FF. It took a while for that to be confirmed and in practice it has been almost entirely ignored since, but it did happen.
Sure, those things get ignored all the time – the O5 never bring up the time they spent in the present (Iceman being the exception, and Cyclops on those three occasions he guest-starred in the Champions). And I was so hoping for a very awkward meeting of Warren and Laura.
But in this case – if it’s Beast from 1985, then that’s less than half his publication history. If the point Beast gradually became evil in the past 30 years, dumping these memories on 1985 Beast will simply make him evil again, no?
I mean, sure, Percy can write ‘no it didn’t’ and that will be that. But there was no outside force, no corruption, no mind control. Just Beast making deals with devils year after year, letting the ends justify worse and worse means, until he became one of the devils. (At least that’s how Percy presents it.) Unless there’s a lot of handwaving, when you dump that experience on 1985, he becomes War Crime Beast because it’s those experiences that created War Crime Beast.
I think Beast 2 reading about Beast 1’s recent history in the final pages of this issue is enough. He learns about the path he’s capable of taking, and it serves as a reminder that he could become evil if he goes down said path. I don’t think merging the two Beasts serves any useful purpose.
Making Beast evil was stupid. “It was all a dream” endings are lazy, especially after years of storytelling.
I don’t think knowing you did (are going to do? were going to do?) a bunch of bad stuff makes you do more bad stuff. In fact, it might do the opposite and have a sobering effect — now you know you’re capable of doing bad stuff, so you’ve got to avoid doing it.
The point is: it’s difficult to see the slippery slope you’re going down while you’re on it. It’s too gradual. But if you see the entire slope at once, you can make some decisions about getting on it in the first place.
They might try to keep NuHank’s mind pure for a while, but if/when another writer wants to use his magical abilities or pit him in a rematch against Cassandra Nova or whatever, they’re going to find a way to explain how he remembers all this stuff.
It doesn’t really matter in the long run, I guess. I just think it’s an untenable situation, like when Warren was left an amnesiac after the Dark Angel Saga in Uncanny X-Force. “Doesn’t remember anything” is a boring/annoying character trait to write to.
“Jean has Phoenix’s memories and she’s not out genociding broccoli people all the time.”
That YOU know
Phoenix has become quite the crutch. It is the universal recipe that fits all plot conveniences, definitely including directly clashing ones.
Starting a new X-book with Jean as team leader? Have her state that being the host of the Phoenix Force for years was actually hindering her full potential to make her appear badass.
Need a quasi-mystical environment that can be conveniently shaped for the needs of any given storyline without being too accessible? Call it the White Hot Room and arbitrarily decide than selectively forget that it is somehow only accessible for Phoenix hosts and, oh, also the one sole quarry for a new plot-breaker miracle substance.
Want to emphasize Echo and make her a prominent Avenger? Make her Phoenix’s host. Starting a new volume with more traditional members? Make it so that somehow the Phoenix Force can now be depleted through overuse.
Want to deal with undesired deaths left from Fall of X? Invoke Phoenix to make that so, either at no cost whatsoever or as a final gesture (before the next appearance, that is).
Need some reason for the Enigma Dominion to be clearly superior and more important than however many other Dominions apparently exist somewhere? Make it so that it taps into Phoenix, problem mystically solved.
It is quite the mess. Phoenix has become quite the parallel for god, in that one size fits all directions and conceptions.
[…] #48. (Annotations here.) The Beast storyline kicks up a gear, and not in the way I expected. When they mentioned that Beast […]
I’ve said before that Phoenix should be mothballed due to years of overexposure and/or bad stories. Between the a Phoenix Five and whatever Aaron did in Avengers, just how many people have had the Force in recent years? More than a dozen?
Do we count being Phoenix-powered for the purposes of taking part in the Phoenix Tournament to elect the next Phoenix host (which, as far as I understand, the Tournament didn’t do and Phoenix picked Echo just because)?
Because in that case, I don’t know.
I was hoping they would bring back classic Beast in a clone body resembling his design from that era. I hate his current look…
Also really strange that they left out bringing the O5 into the present from All-New X-Men as one of his sins. There was this whole intervention in Uncanny #600 with the Watcher and everything. It was a perfect parallel to his old self coming to terms with his present day terrorist persona, which was what he was trying to do with Cyclops back then. Just a weird missed opportunity.
My guess is it’s too much of a sci-fi concept for Percy’s tastes. He seems to enjoy grim and gritty stuff.
Has it ever been established why the Phoenix has recently become so obsessed with Earth or why it needs a host at all given that nobody seems able to handle it except Rachel Summers? Why not a Phoenix-Skrull? Or why not just go wander the universe for a few millennia?
The placement of this clone’s memories circa Defenders #142 is perhaps due to the circunstance that this is the closest Beast ever came of taking the role of a open militant for mutant rights. There were some scenes in X-Factor and arguably a speech balloon or two when he faced Nefaria alongside the Avengers, but it just isn’t a side of him that was emphasized on panel.
That may be a hint of an intention of make it so.