With his healing factor, adamantium skeleton, and general toughness, Wolverine is known for being one of the strongest X-Men heroes in Marvel Comics–though one surprise mutant proves to be much more durable after walking away from an attack that even Wolverine’s adamantium couldn’t withstand, and that his healing factor couldn’t recover from.
Within the alternate timeline of the Age of Apocalypse, Wolverine lost his hand while fighting Cyclops after rescuing Jean Grey from Apocalypse’s breeding pens. In this reality, Cyclops is a high-ranking henchman of Apocalypse while Wolverine and Jean Grey are mutant freedom-fighters working to take Apocalypse down. In this particular conflict, Wolverine sliced out one of Cyclops’ eyes in the same fight where Wolverine had his hand blasted off by Cyclops’ interdimensional optic beams–including the adamantium that coated the bones of that hand. While Wolverine has recovered from debilitating injuries in the past, his healing factor couldn’t handle this one as Cyclops’ energy blast was simply too much for him–which makes the fact that another X-Man survived this same blast to the chest that much more impressive.
Beast is Stronger than Wolverine’s Adamantium, & Cyclops Proves It
In Factor X #3 by John Francis Moore, Steve Epting, and Terry Dodson, readers are thrown into the alternate reality of the Age of Apocalypse through the perspective of one of Apocalypse’s henchmen, Cyclops. While Cyclops has been a villain this entire storyline, this and the previous issue of Factor X have established that he’s actually a reformed mutant who secretly hates what Apocalypse has done to the world and is doing what he can to help the mutants Apocalypse has sentenced to death. Unfortunately, this is the issue where he is discovered by the true followers of Apocalypse–his brother, Havok, and his partner-in-villainy, Beast. Cyclops was exposed as the traitorous hero that he was while helping Jean Grey (who had snuck back into this facility) free other mutants that were being kept there by Apocalypse. After he was captured, Jean used her telekinetic powers to remove his visor, thus unleashing the full might of his optic beam–and he was looking directly at Beast when it happened.
Beast took the full force of Cyclops’ laser vision right to the chest, and he was able to make a full recovery not long after. This is an insane display of strength on Beast’s part as it implies his body can withstand more abuse than the adamantium in Wolverine’s skeleton. When Cyclops blasted Wolverine’s hand, every trace of the appendage was obliterated–and given this was the same fight where Wolverine took Cyclops’ eye, one can assume Cyclops’ visor was knocked off at that point in the battle. So, in both instances, Cyclops’ powers weren’t held back by his visor, and he was producing the same level of energy during those separate conflicts–one where Wolverine’s hand and adamantium skeleton were vaporized, and the other where Beast walked away perfectly fine.
By all accounts, Beast should have been decimated by this blast, or at least gotten a sizable hole through his chest if the full might of Cyclops’ power can do what it did to Wolverine. However, as unlikely as it may seem on the surface, that wasn’t what happened–proving that a surprise founding X-Men member is shockingly more durable than Wolverine.