X-Men #24 - The Age of Revelation Afterparty from another POV

[icon_uk]

Whilst completely acknowledging that future Doug Ramsey as Revelation did a lot of utterly horrific things (and I mean there aren't war crime classifications dreadful enough to describe many of them) I'm sort of loving that Evil Beast's reaction, after returning from the all-life-on-Earth-is-about-to-be-turned-into-planet-Doug dystopian hellscape which Revelation created is not horror, or outrage, or even numbness.


So we have it revealed, though from those following it more closely, it was apparently a poorly kept secret, that the Chairman of 3K is Hank McCoy, the original (Well, sort of, it's complicated) Beast who went full blown evil when given access to Krakoan resources.

He'd been running 3K from a synthetic body because he wanted to operate as pure mind, unencumbered with organic wants and needs, but his little daytrip to the Age of Revelation reminded him of how important it is to FEEL things, so he grew himself a new body and after a few tweaks for aesthetic reasons) transferred into it.

And he DEFINITELY has feelings, as he confronts the rest of the Board of 3K, Cassandra Nova, Wyre and Astra about his holiday







It's shame!


Here Evil Beast is, applying his sky high IQ to recruit only the finest utter bastards, the creme de la creme of mad scientists for "3K". All hand picked for ruthlessness, ambition and complete disregard for morality or decency. A fearsomely wide array of powers, resources and skillsets at their combined disposal.

And they've all been outdone by a *kid*, on his first time out as supervillain! And it's THIS kid!



Doug "Non-Threatening Mutant of the Year Gold Medallist since 1985" Ramsey.

The definitive white boy with the floofy hair who has been described by his peers as "The mutant equivalent of Bambi" and had a power so passive that it barely counted as a talent. (Yes, he's had a power upgrade, but it was hardly reality manipulation he got)



And it's not just 3K! Multiple X-Men teams, the Avengers, Apocalypse himself and every other hero *and* villain team too:

They've all been outplayed by fucking CYPHER with a bad haircut!



To rub salt into the would, Revelation not only achieved his goals within a mere few years (even smoothly course correcting when the first part of his plan failed), he did so whilst diverting blame from himself to 3K, whilst he reigned over a wide swathe of the former USA.

You can see why Hank would be more than a little embarrassed, if not outright mortified, by this complete failure.

And we can see how it's possible be impressed, if still appalled, by our boy Doug reaching his full potential, even if we'd much rather it had been in a less.. global genocide-y sort of a way.
 

Comments

[numeronone]

Not even the X-Men are beyond the reach of Mister Beast.

[icon_uk]

Hank: "That's DOCTOR Beast thank you, I DID go to University, after all. Also, low blow, I may be a monstrous fanatic, but I have some standards"

Soon...

[numeronone]

Cyclops: "It's become clear that in order to beat this version of Henry, we need to turn to the one person most likely to think like him. And clearly there's only one mutant to turn to..."

(Blue) Beast: "Scott, it means the worl--"

Cyclops: "-- so it's with a heavy heart that I welcome DARK BEAST to the X-Men."

Dark Beast: "Ah, Scott. You come to your senses at long last."

(Blue) Beast: "OH FOR THE LOVE OF -- actually, you know what? How could I not take this as a compliment? I'm going to go lock myself in an underground bunker until you all figure this out. Goodbye, Henry, hopefully forever."

Re: Soon...

[icon_uk]

Blue Beast: "Welcome the X-Men asshole, hope you don't survive the expeirence!"

Dark Beast: "I think that's the most sincere thing he's ever said to me. I'm honestly rather touched"

[shakalooloo]

I mean, there should be no shame in losing to someone that has the mutant power to make everyone do what they say. Doctor Doom weaponising the Purple Man is essentially the same principle.

[icon_uk]

In principle, true, but Revelation doesn't seem to be at anything like that level of power.

Doom used Purple Man and a psycho-prism-plot-device to ensure complete obedience over the entire planet simultnesouly.

Doug's power seems to be purely verbal, with no psionic aspect to extend his influence. As far as we know you had to literally be within earshot of him (and him be focussing on you) to make it work. I'm not even sure we saw it work over radio or any other remote comms, did we?

And it was very specific. He tells Cyclops to agree with his plan to release Fabian Cortez, but beyond that Scott still had his own mind outside of that specific decision, and was still able to spearhead the resistance.

[cainofdreaming]

Just being able to manipulate anyone is still kind of a big deal. I mean, look at Tao. He destroyed the world too (before it was cool).

[numeronone]

PM getting passed around from Kingpin to Doom like the supervillain mind control blunt.

Killgrave: "What did I ever do to deserve this?! Specifically, I mean? There's just so much to choose from..."

[mastermahan]

Hank should be ashamed. Not because being outdone by Doug is anything to be ashamed of, but because he is absolutely terrible at being a villain. The Krakoa era was a parade of Beast's stupid decisions.

His attempt to assassinate a rival to Krakoa's economic dominance ended up infecting an entire nation with parasitic plants. His dealing with that by mind controlling said entire nation just ended up getting a nation of superpowered plant hybrids righteously pissed off at Krakoa. His murdering and enslaving Wolverine just resulted in an angry, vengeful Wolverine.

Even in this issue he's being an idiot. Ur beqref gur 3X K-Zra gb zheqre Fpujnemfpuvyq, juvpu gurl qb ol orngvat uvz naq qebccvat uvz sebz n irel terng urvtug, juvyr Unax ybbxf ba. Gurl gevrq gb xvyy n tenivgl znavchyngbe jvgu snyy qnzntr. Naq nf n obahf, NbE Fpujnemfpuvyq nccneragyl arire xarj jub gur Punvezna jnf, ohg fvapr Unax erirnyrq uvzfrys orsber beqrevat Fpujnemfpuvyq xvyyrq, n fheivivat Fpujnemfpuvyq pna abj tb gb Nynfxn K-Zra naq gryy gurz jub'f yrnqvat 3X.

[thezmage]

That's always been the problem with the most recent string of evil Beast appearances: not just that he was evil but that he was stupid evil too. Like maybe if one of the millions of morally questionable choices he made "for the greater good" had actually resulted in some actual greater good, that would have been one thing, but it never seemed to happen

[mastermahan]

My theory is that Benjamin Percy was trying to keep Beast's evil actions from looking the slightest bit justifiable. He absolutely overcorrected, though, because we got "Beast does something stupidly evil and it backfires horribly" as a plot beat over and over and over and over.

[numeronone]

The Pierce Hawthorne Cycle.

[numeronone]

Also: it feels like a nice callback to "Here Comes Tomorrow" that a Beast with snow-white fur is absolutely bad news for everybody.

[cainofdreaming]

Oh, he has snow white fur. D'oh. I just thought he was there as a hologram before I went to look again.

[numeronone]

"Execute Order 616"

[scorntx]

Guessing this new brain of Beast's isn't under warranty.
(Otherwise he could return it for something more useful. Like a toaster.)


Beastie Boys? Joan Jett?
Oh, the warning signs were all there from the start!
What fools we were to not see this boy was destined to turn evil, to not foresee this totally organic character development coming when the pieces all fitted!
Never let your kids listen to classical music, people.

[icon_uk]

If only there had been some Weird Al in the mix, how different things might have been!

(I did check, and Weird Al had released 4 albums by the time this came out in 1987)

[super_fly]

Game fails to recognize game. Pity.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, you'd have thought that Evil Beast's first action would be "Right, first item on the agenda, we have GOT to try recruiting Revelation for 3K, and if I have to lose all you losers to do so, I can live with that!"

And since future Scott didn't tell Doug anything useful like "Don't try and recruit Fabian Cortez, it's not worth it" or "3K is headed up by Evil Beast" there'd be nothing to stop Beast trying.

[mastermahan]

To be fair to future Scott, no one in the AoR knew Krakoa Hank had been in charge of 3K.

Still, he could have done *something* more useful than promising to murder Doug. Why not just "Being Revelation is going to drive you insane, you need to reverse it"?