DARK BEAST
Real Name: Henry Philip McCoy
First Appearance: X-Men: Alpha (Vol. 1) #1, February 1995
Powers: The Dark Beast is a mutant born with abnormally large hands and feet and exceptional physical prowess. He possessed superhuman strength (roughly Class 2), agility, reflexes, dexterity, and natural acrobatic skills. He was omni-dexterous, capable of writing legibly with either hand or either foot. Upon furthering his mutation, he came to possess a significantly altered physiology. His body was covered with thick, intense blue-black/spiky gray fur, he had fangs, claws on his fingers and toes, a sloping posture, and arms slightly longer than a normal man's. His strength and agility were increased, as were his senses to a small degree, and he developed a powerful healing factor that enabled him to survive an accurate hail of gunfire. The Dark Beast also began producing a mildly intoxicating pheromone at all times, not enough to actually manipulate women against their will, but sufficient to qualify as a mild aphrodisiac.
*The Dark Beast is the Earth-295 (Age of Apocalypse) counterpart of the Earth-616's Beast. Unlike the latter, the former insisted on self-experimentation to accelerate his own mutation, knowingly subjecting himself to his bestial transformation. As such, he possesses the same enhanced powers as the Beast before his secondary mutation.
1 comment:
In X-Men Omega (Vol. 1) #1, June 1995, the AOA X-Men took their fight to Apocalypse, trying to get their hands on his shard of the M'Kraan Crystal that would allow them to travel back in time, prevent Xavier's death and thus restore the proper 616 timeline. During that issue, the Dark Beast escaped the battle by tricking Quicksilver into teleporting him right into the M'Kraan Crystal itself (fellow Apocalypse servant the Sugar Man also jumped in the crystal earlier in that issue).
They both landed 20 years in the Earth-616 past temporarily amnesiac. They both eventually found each other and had a silent partnership/protection agreement. Both men learned genetics and trained under the AOA Mr. Sinister (who's damn near identical to the 616 version) and decided to apply their skills: Sugar Man went to Genosha and gave the Mutate Bonding Process to Dr. David Moreau (the Genoshan Genegineer), who used it to enslave Genosha's mutant population and make the country prosperous. In exchange, the Sugar Man was controlling Genosha in secret for decades.
The DB used his knowledge to experiment on the underground mutant community known as the Morlocks. Now, Mr. Sinister monitors all mutants and he recognized his genetic experiments in the Morlocks. So he contacted Gambit and had him bring together a team of mutant assassins (Marauders) to go in the tunnels wipe out the Morlocks for two reasons: One- he was annoyed that someone used his genetic theories without his permission and Two- because he feared that the DB's experiments on the Morlocks would fuck up the mutant gene pool.
Sinister didn't even bother with Genosha. Though annoyed, the Mutate Bonding Process makes mutants sterile, and thus unable to contribute to the gene pool.
All that was a long way of saying that the characters of Dark Beast and the Sugar Man were used as retcons for behind the scenes events in X-history.
Post a Comment