While recent X-Men comics have been charting Beast's moral downfall as X-Force's arrogant spymaster, there was a time when Hank McCoy was the beloved heart of Marvel's mutants. Now, an animated motion poster from creator IXSynkro celebrates the character, even if he still looks fierce in the art itself.
A mutant genius whose unique physiology grants him extreme agility, Beast tragically experimented with a serum designed to cause temporary mutation, leading to permanent changes to his own genetic code. While Beast initially grew fur from the serum, his body has been in flux ever since, going from his classic look to New X-Men's feline appearance to even growing horns in the potential future of Battle of the Atom. While Beast has been an X-Man and Avenger in good standing, the last decade has seen a dramatic fall from grace, and Hank is now one of the franchise's darkest characters, justifying evil deeds to protect the new mutant nation of Krakoa.
But while there's little to celebrate about Beast as he currently appears, artist IXSynkro recalls an earlier time in Hank's history with a new motion poster shared on Reddit. Mimicking the format of a comic cover, the awesome two-tone art includes subtle animation of yellow lines streaking past Beast and a rotating X-Men symbol, giving the image added dynamism. While this isn't the Hank who some fans will remember bouncing around Avengers Mansion, trading witticisms with best bud Wonder Man, it does portray Beast as a tortured hero holding back his more animalistic impulses - something Beast certainly hasn't been interested in lately, as he's gone to extreme lengths not just to protect Krakoa, but to further its interests to the detriment (and even enslavement) of other nations.
Things began to go off the rails for Beast when - believing his old friend Scott Summers had gone to the dark side in his quest to protect mutankint - he brought the original teenage X-Men forward in time, in All-New X-Men #1 from Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen. At the time, Hank believed his latest genetic shift might kill him, and wanted to shock Cyclops into reassessing his life. In an extremely roundabout way, the plan was a success, but messing with the timestream only gave Beast the confidence to push more boundaries, leading time-traveling student Tempus to warn him of an upcoming event known as 'The Trial of Hank McCoy.' That trial has yet to come to pass - the X-Men have been pretty busy founding an island nation - but Beast's actions with the black-ops X-Force group have crossed the line into outright villainy, and the jovial genius many fans adored has become a callous manipulator.
Fan opinion is split on this version of Beast, with some applauding a years-long arc to ruination, and others hoping X-Men will reverse the changes by revealing this Hank is actually Dark Beast, an evil version of the hero from the alternate timeline known as the Age of Apocalypse. IXSynkro's motion poster celebrates Beast not as a cold-hearted decision maker, but as a hero in the field as one of the X-Men, having also shared similar art for Jean Grey's Phoenix and Scott Summers' Cyclops. As Beast's tumble into depravity continues, it's fun for X-Men fans to be reminded of the time when Hank was an unalloyed hero, especially since it acts as a reminder than he may one day be that way again.
Source: IXSynkro