Summary

• Wolverine's trust in Beast is permanently shattered after the latter's horrific actions, and he doesn't believe Beast can be redeemed.
• Marvel has rolled back Beast's personality with a new clone who will seemingly take his place on the X-Men.
• However, Beast's crimes were a choice that exposed his incredible capacity for evil - removing those memories isn't enough to make him a hero again.

As a founding Wolverine makes it clear that whatever changes they may go through, he'll never trust them again. After 61 years, Marvel has seemingly rendered a beloved hero totally irredeemable - is there any way to actually recapture who they used to be?

In X-Force #48, Wolverine's team continue their mission to kill former leader Beast, aka the founding X-Man Hank McCoy. After Beast raids their base to steal weaponry, the genius mutant Sage proposes a shocking countermeasure: "the best way to stop Beast... is Beast." Sage reveals she has one of the clones Beast previously made of himself, and the ability to infuse it with Hank's former memories as a hero.

The move will take Hank back to his incarnation as seen in 1985's New Defenders #142. However, despite this rollback of Beast's memories and personality, Wolverine makes it clear he's no longer able to trust Hank. Wolverine states simply, "He was then who he is now." It's a dark sentiment, but one that X-Force has been repeatedly reinforcing over the last few months - and one that Marvel will struggle to reverse, no matter what happens next.

Rolling back a character's memories can work to absolve them when there's an excuse for their worst excesses. For Beast, that simply isn't true.

Wolverine Will Never Trust Beast Again

X-Men's New Beast Isn't the Same Person, But He Has the Same Flaws

Over volume 6 of X-Force - now heading for its fiftieth and final issue - Beast has undergone a dark transformation. The founding X-Men hero was tasked with acting as the mutant equivalent of the CIA, safeguarding the mutant nation of Krakoa from any and all threats. Beast took his mandate to heart, and quickly began to commit horrific abuses. When the nation of Terra Verde developed telefloronic technology that could have competed with that used by mutantkind, Beast sabotaged their efforts, plunging the country into chaos. Covering up that crime led Beast to enslave the minds of those affected, and he went on to torture fellow X-Men like Colossus, perform horrific experiments on prisoners, and ultimately form a clandestine death squad named the Weapons of X. However, he saved his worst crimes for Wolverine.

Wolverine Has Good Reason to Despise His X-Force Team Leader

Beast Turned Logan Back into a Mindless Weapon

Seeing Wolverine as the X-Men's ultimate weapon, Beast began experimenting with ways to suppress Logan's will and turn him into essentially a trained animal. After killing Wolverine, Beast resurrected him with brain damage to make him easier to manipulate, imprisoning and torturing Logan while forcing him to carry out assassinations against anti-mutant targets. Satisfied with this process, Beast cloned Wolverine multiple times, enslaving the resulting mutants, whose minds he kept damaged to make them easier to control. Beast also targeted Wolverine's allies, even kidnapping the daughter of his friend to ensure compliance.

Beast's corruption is different to every other X-Men hero who has gone evil then been redeemed...

These crimes were horrific in and of themselves, but particularly evil given Wolverine's past with Weapon X. For years, Wolverine was abused by the group, who brainwashed him and experimented on his body to turn him into a living weapon. The trauma of this experience defines Wolverine's life to this day, leaving him questioning his very humanity and prone to outbursts of 'berserker rage' in which he's unable to control his killer instincts. Beast didn't just put Wolverine through this same trauma again - he actively copied Weapon X's tactics, even naming his new death squad after the group. Wolverine was forced to kill innocents - as well as his own lethal clones - and now he wants the Beast dead.

Beast Can't Be Redeemed by a Personality Rollback

Beast’s Corruption Is Different to Every Other X-Men Hero Who Has Gone Evil Then Been Redeemed

In X-Force #48, Wolverine argues that Beast's past self is essentially the same as his present self, and Sage points out that Logan himself was a monster while under Weapon X's control. This is even truer than Sage knows - Wolverine wasn't just a killer for Weapon X, but one of their greatest 'dog handlers' - someone who recruited other innocents into the program, often by destroying their lives and twisting their minds (for example, the cyborg Super Soldier Nuke was recruited by Wolverine as a child.) However, the crucial difference is that Wolverine was brainwashed and essentially forced to carry out these actions - Beast chose his path, and he wasn't even under duress.

Many X-Men heroes have had their own villain eras - Cyclops became a mutant revolutionary and was corrupted by the Phoenix Force, while fellow X-Men founder Angel was turned into a monster by Apocalypse's experiments. However, the crucial difference is that these heroes were only partly responsible for their transformations - in each case, they made some unwise decisions that opened them up to further corruption, after which they were under someone else's control. In cases like that, rolling back a character's memories can work to absolve them because their worst excesses were a result of outside forces, not something inherent to the character. For Beast, that simply isn't true.

X-Force has clarified again and again that Beast wasn't corrupted by any outside force - his arrogance and callousness have always existed, and simply raged out of control once he was given permission to indulge them in the name of protecting mutantkind. As Domino said in X-Force #41 (Benjamin Percy and Paul Davidson):

It's been him all along. He's always been this person. He just needed the right combination of power and circumstance to bring that part of him fully to life.

Wolverine Can't Forgive Beast - But Should Fans?

Beast's Lovable Persona Was Hiding a Monster - So How Can Marvel Ever Make It Feel Real Again?

This framing of Beast's corruption makes it hard to disagree with Wolverine's claim that "he was then who he is now." If X-Force concludes as Marvel seems to intend - with the team killing the original beast and the new clone replacing him in Marvel canon - that doesn't actually give fans a heroic Beast again. All that process can do is reset Beast to a point before he had the "right combination of power and circumstance" to become a torturer, slaver, killer and traitor, but he'll still be someone who is only separated from atrocities by the right circumstances. X-Force has established Hank as possessing a capacity for evil that's comparable to the worst real-world dictators and sadists - this isn't squabbling with the Avengers over the common good or an accidental death during pitched battle, but vivisecting prisoners and kidnapping children.

X-Force's creative team may have overestimated how much of Beast's character can be reclaimed by a clone rebirth.

For many X-Men fans, that's not the Beast who existed in the franchise before X-Force vol. 6. Hank has often been the moral center of the team, and had a tendency to deeply question the worth of his actions even more than other superheroes. While conflicted over his powers and appearance, Beast was typically a source of humor, dignity, and kindness. That's not to say X-Force invented Beast's fall out of thin air - the series has reminded fans that over his 61-year history Beast has done some heartless, amoral things in the name of saving mutantkind - but that there's really no way for the 'new' Beast to present himself that would feel more heroic than who he used to be. This makes it hard to imagine what clone Beast's redemption could even look like.

Beast Has No Clear Future as an X-Men Hero

But Wolverine's Grudge Shows Marvel Isn't Ignoring the Problem

In past cases like Beast's, Marvel has retconned stories to make heroes redeemable. After House of M, Marvel revealed Scarlet Witch had been possessed by the cosmic Life Force and wasn't in control of her actions, while Daredevil's murder of Bullseye in Shadowland was rewritten as a result of demonic possession (rather than its cause, as in the original event.)

It's possible Marvel will retcon X-Force vol. 6 to excuse Beast's fall into depravity, however that would cheat the story of its many deliberate, meaningful choices. It's clear the creative team are taking the idea of Hank's corruption seriously and at face value, deriving meaning from a former hero's genuine transformation into a despicable villain. However, they may also have overestimated how much of his character can be reclaimed by a clone rebirth.

Beast's fall from grace has created a huge practical and moral quandary for the X-Men franchise going forwards. Hank's capacity and predilection for evil as established in X-Force means that rolling Beast's personality back to 1985 simply doesn't cut it in of giving him a fresh start, whether clone or original. There are two more issues of X-Force to go before the run ends, and Wolverine voicing his concerns shows that the creative team are aware that clone Beast can't simply resume his former place as a trusted hero. Hopefully, Marvel has a clear vision for the future where X-Men doesn't paper over Beast's X-Force crimes, but as the story currently stands, that feels like an impossible feat.

X-Force #48 is available now from Marvel Comics.