Youth Henry Philip "Hank" McCoy was born in Dundee,
Illinois, in the
United States, to Norton and Edna McCoy. His father, Norton McCoy, is employed at a local
nuclear power plant before Henry's birth and was once exposed to intense
nuclear radiation, which appears to have caused his son's mutation. Hank is born with a vast intellect, unusually long arms and legs, and unusually large hands and feet—a rare although not unique case of mutant powers manifesting before puberty. His bodily proportions are comparable to those of a gorilla, and later stories reveal his nickname in school was "
Magilla Gorilla".
With the X-Men Henry's mutation more fully manifests during adolescence, providing greater strength and agility, and although his powers allow him to briefly excel in athletics during his remaining time at school, he soon attracts the animosity of his fellow students and other non-mutant humans. After defeating the villain Conquistador with the assistance of some X-Men, Hank joins the group and begins studying at
Professor Charles Xavier's
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Henry recognizes the opportunities such an institution can offer him and accepts the invitation. He finds the school both a fountain of scientific knowledge and a place of sanctuary. There he is introduced to the X-Men, who accept him into their ranks and give him the codename Beast. Alongside workouts in the
Danger Room, under Xavier's tutelage, he studies subjects ranging from
differential equations to
Proust. With the rest of the X-Men on their first field mission, he battles
Magneto for the first time, and later Magneto's
Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. He became stressed because he had to keep a secret identity while in the X-Men team, so he briefly left the team to become a professional wrestler. While he was a professional wrestler he met
Unus the Untouchable, and helped the X-Men build a
directed-energy weapon to make Unus completely untouchable, resulting in Unus not being able to feed himself. Beast then rejoined the X-Men team.
Furry change and team trading Hank is the first to leave the X-Men. He becomes a research scientist at the
Brand Corporation, a genetics research facility. His assistant, Linda Donaldson, becomes his girlfriend. Hank isolates a "hormonal extract" allowing anyone to become a mutant for a short period of time, and uses the mutagenic serum on himself to disguise his appearance while foiling an attempt to steal his research. He waits too long to reverse the process, leaving him permanently transformed. He grows grey fur, which later turns blue, all over his body and acquires pointed ears, elongated canine teeth, claws, the ability to run on walls and ceilings like a spider, enhanced senses, an accelerated healing factor, and a feral side he struggles to control. He briefly joins the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants when
Mastermind wipes out his memory, but quickly recovers. When Beast is wounded, he is aided by
Patsy Walker, and then reunited with his old girlfriend, Vera Cantor. He fears that his furry form will repulse others, Back at Brand Laboratories, he discovers his girlfriend Linda Donaldson is an agent of the criminal
Secret Empire, and they break up. Not long after this transformation, Beast is recruited to join the
Avengers. He eventually leaves so that the team, which has a six-member limit at the time, can be filled out by new recruits. He later joins the
Defenders, stays with the team to organize as the "new" Defenders, and is one of the final surviving members at the time of its first disbandment as a result of the battle with
Moondragon and the
Dragon of the Moon. Beast and fellow surviving Defenders members
Angel and
Iceman are contacted shortly after by
Cyclops and
Marvel Girl (Jean Grey) to form a new group,
X-Factor.
X-Factor With X-Factor, Beast rejoins the original members of the X-Men, and is again reunited with Vera Cantor. Beast starts out in his furred form, but on their second mission, he is captured by
Tower. He is delivered to Carl Maddicks and used in an attempt to develop a cure for mutant abilities. Maddicks develops a serum based on McCoy's original serum, and tests it on Beast, causing him to lose his fur. Eventually X-Factor clashes with the ancient mutant
Apocalypse after Angel loses his wings in a battle and shortly after goes missing. Apocalypse turns Angel into Death, the most powerful of his four
Horsemen of Apocalypse. During the battle, Beast is touched by the Horseman Pestilence, whose touch usually causes incredible pain and viral infection. The infection interacts with the recent serum treatment of Maddicks, and instead of killing him, Hank is affected in such a way that every time he uses his superhuman strength, his intelligence decreases. Beast is inadvertently cured after being attacked by
Infectia, whose powers cause him to become feverish and begins switching back and forth between his normal and furred forms. He eventually stabilizes, keeping his furred appearance and maintaining his intelligence.
Studying the Legacy Virus One of Beast's greatest challenges emerges with
Stryfe's fatal
Legacy Virus. Hank is already despondent, as he is turning thirty and questions his life accomplishments. His frustrations are further compounded when Professor Xavier and
Moira MacTaggert did not ask for his assistance with the Legacy research, but it turns out Xavier is just giving him his privacy. Perusing their data, Hank learns the problem is more difficult than he had initially imagined. Hank has always believed that, given time, he could solve any problem; the Legacy Virus becomes his obsession. He goes as far as making an unethical decision in giving
Mister Sinister information on the virus, since he has more resources and fewer morals to inhibit him. A turning point comes when
Dark Beast, an alternate universe version of Beast, finishes some of the formula, occasionally prying more information from Hank whom he imprisoned and replaces for a while. The most critical step toward a solution (other than when Beast individually finds the cure without acknowledgement) comes when MacTaggert discovers
Mystique's irresponsible manipulation of virus strains. The cure is incomplete and it takes Beast to design the final cure. Based on Moira's notes, Beast concocts the anti-virus to much elation, but when it is revealed that its use requires a mutant to die,
Colossus chooses to sacrifice his life to release the remedy. After mourning the loss of a teammate, Hank briefly leaves the school with
Storm and her
X-Treme X-Men team in search of
Destiny's diaries. After an attack by
Vargas that leaves
Psylocke dead, Beast is gravely injured and returns to the institute.
Enhanced feline form As the world experiences a mutant
baby boom, much of the mutant community seemingly begins experiencing "
secondary mutations", often taking the form of additional or enhanced abilities. In the aftermath of Vargas' attack, Beast's secondary mutation is "jumpstarted" due to the powers of teammate
Sage. The further mutation causes Beast to develop a more feline physique, to which he initially has some trouble adapting. A psychic attack by
Cassandra Nova leaves Beast humiliated, badly beaten, and haunted by the possibility that his new form is simply a step in a continuous state of
devolution. Additionally, the alteration in form causes his long-time girlfriend,
Trish Tilby, to break up with him after being accused of
bestiality.
Astonishing X-Men When news of a "cure" that would reverse mutations suddenly arises, Beast finds himself seriously considering taking it so he can once again appear human. Hank eventually decides against it after vigorous "urging" by fellow team member
Wolverine, as it would send out a negative message to other mutants if an X-Man were to take the cure. After learning that the cure was developed by fellow geneticist
Kavita Rao through experimentation on mutant corpses—as well as on the revived X-Man Colossus—Beast helps take down Rao's operation. When the villainous
Hellfire Club attacks the X-Men, Cassandra Nova telepathically strips away Beast's higher human consciousness, leaving him with only his animal instincts. After he hunts Wolverine around campus (and even eats his leg), a student named
Blindfold faces him down with a device he and Xavier had built in case his consciousness was ever lost. The device is a high-powered sensory stimulant in the form of a ball of string, which Beast had alluded to as being his greatest fear. Once restored, he is quick to put on a suit and tie and help Wolverine with a hyper-magnetic device. He, along with his teammates, are taken from the Mansion by the government agency
S.W.O.R.D. and airlifted to the alien Breakworld.
Civil War When a
Civil War breaks out among Marvel's superheroes, Beast, along with the other X-Men, assumes a neutral stance. Beast was not a particular fan of the policy and secretly violates his stance by providing
Spider-Man with a holographic disguise to enable him to continue teaching at Midtown High after his secret identity has been exposed. Despite his personal feelings about the
Superhuman Registration Act, Beast enlists his services to the Initiative program after the war's end, to assist in the training of the next generation of superheroes.
Endangered Species The X-Men and various other mutants attend the funeral of a young mutant boy named Matt Landru who has been killed in a road traffic accident and muse on what this means for mutant-kind. Beast plans to find a way to reverse
M-Day. Despite the 'aid' of his other self (the
Dark Beast), along with exploring such diverse avenues of investigation as analysis of alternate timelines or an attempt to track down the
Scarlet Witch, he is unsuccessful in his research, but the final part shows him holding a child wearing a three-eyed smiley face shirt saying "Evolution" on it as a promotion of the
Messiah Complex.
Messiah CompleX Beast is shown helping Professor X repair
Cerebro when the X-Men are tracking down the child with the X-Gene. Beast is later seen at the Mansion when it is attacked by the
Sentinels, who have been taken over by an unknown person. When Iceman arrives at the school with the New X-Men, Beast works with
Prodigy and is able to stabilize the mortally wounded
Hellion, as well as the other New X-Men and X-Men injured in their battles with the
Purifiers and the
Marauders, respectively. He is later present during the battle on
Muir Island and is among the first to reach Professor Xavier after he is accidentally shot by
Bishop. Xavier's body soon disappears. In the aftermath, Cyclops has sent Beast to search for Professor Xavier, whose status is unknown by the X-Men. Beast is also seen closing down the ruins of the X-Mansion and taking
Martha Johansson with him.
Move to San Francisco Beast is seen as part of the team setting up a new X-Men headquarters in San Francisco, California. He is working closely with Cyclops,
Emma Frost, and the rookie X-Man,
Armor. He is also still seeing
Abigail Brand, who requests that he take a weekend off from the X-Men so that she can 'tamper with him extensively'. To save mutantkind from the effects of M-Day, Beast and Angel gather
Madison Jeffries, Yuriko Takiguchi, and
Doctor Nemesis. The group returns to Graymalkin Industries to meet their final member Dr.
Kavita Rao (who was formerly trying to cure mutation).
Utopia After being captured, Beast became a test subject for the Omega Machine (designed by Dark Beast to eradicate mutant powers and place them in
Weapon Omega) while being held prisoner on
Alcatraz Island by
Norman Osborn, along with Professor X. Beast is shown getting weaker and mentions losing his claws while hooked up to the machine. Beast was rescued by the X-Men, and later recuperated from his injuries. Later, he spoke at the funeral of Yuriko Takiguchi when Magneto had arrived. Beast seemed increasingly disillusioned with Cyclops' leadership and methods, such as allowing Magneto to become a member to his time under torture under the Dark Beast. This resulted in Beast leaving the X-Men.
S.W.O.R.D. After leaving the X-Men, Beast opted to join his current girlfriend Agent Abigail Brand as a member of
S.W.O.R.D. However, shortly after joining her in space, Brand's co-commander,
Henry Peter Gyrich (hired by Norman Osborn) begins to round-up the aliens residing on Earth, in a xenophobic attempt at avoiding another Secret Invasion. As a result of Henry's plan, he has even made moves against Brand, resulting in her, Beast, and
Lockheed becoming fugitives from S.W.O.R.D. and attempting to overthrow Gyrich.
Second Coming Beast later returns in an issue of
Uncanny X-Men to attend the funeral of his friend and teammate, Kurt Wagner (
Nightcrawler) where he confronts Scott Summers and blames Kurt's death on Scott's increasingly militant and extremist attitude to protecting the mutant species at all costs (even at the cost of sacrificing his friends to do so). Despite his issues with Cyclops, Beast remains on Utopia to help deal with the attacks being made by
Bastion. Following Bastion's defeat at the hands of
Hope Summers, Henry again departs Utopia.
Secret Avengers Hank appears as part of Steve Rogers'
Secret Avengers team. He goes with the covert ops squad on their mission to Mars, and assisted the team in helping
Shang-Chi. He also played a crucial part in the capture, interrogation, and "un-brainwashing" of
John Steele.
Schism and AvX After the separation of the X-Men into two teams, Beast is in the team that goes with
Wolverine to open The Jean Grey School for Higher Learning in Westchester County, New York. During the
Avengers vs. X-Men mini-series, Beast sides with the Avengers to investigate and stop the
Phoenix Force's return to Earth. Hank joins the team of Avengers sent to halt the Phoenix Force's return to Earth, but later temporarily resigns from the Avengers in protest against their efforts to stop the 'Phoenix Five'—the five X-Men who have received the power of the Phoenix Force—as their actions appear to initially be benevolent. He returns to aid the Avengers and the X-Men when Cyclops and Emma Frost begin to be corrupted by the Phoenix's power.
Accelerated mutation and time travel In the aftermath of the Phoenix War, Cyclops now actively strikes out at government organizations and holds mutants prisoner, with the X-Men unwilling to actively fight him as they fear the subsequent mutant civil war that might result. Beast, who is apparently dying due to side-effects of his secondary artificially-accelerated mutation, stumbles upon a solution after a chance comment from Iceman to the effect that the Cyclops they knew when they were young would not tolerate his present self's actions. Beast travels back in time to the early days of the Xavier Institute to bring the original five X-Men from that period into the future, hoping that Scott's past self will be able to convince his present self to stand down. Beast lapses into a coma shortly after bringing the team into the present, and Jean's telepathy, which is artificially accelerated by the trauma of her trip to the future and witnessing what Scott has become, manages to connect the minds of the two Hanks. This allows the younger Hank to spot a mistake in his future self's calculations and stabilize his physiology by reverting to a blue-furred ape-like state again where this form is bald and has no head hair aside from the blue fur covering his whole body. The young X-Men decide to stay in the present and become the
All-New X-Men, except for Angel, who joins Cyclops' Uncanny X-Men.
Death of X and working with Inhumans After Cyclops goes to Muir Island and discovers that all of the mutants died painful deaths, he calls Beast to do a diagnosis and Beast discovers that somehow that the Terrigen cloud, the substance that gives
Inhumans their powers, has become toxic towards mutants after mixing with the atmosphere changed its structure. Hoping to bridge Inhuman and Mutant relations in light of this new conflict, Beast works with the Inhumans to find a way to make the Terrigen cloud safe for mutants while making sure it remains suitable for Inhuman powers. He becomes a trusted ally to the Inhumans and joins their counsel.
Inhumans vs X-Men When the present Beast realizes that he cannot find a cure for the
Terrigen cloud, he visits the rest of the mutants and advises them that the best course of action is for all mutants to leave Earth, but his teammates object and imprison him before he can warn the Inhumans that war is coming. However, after learning what the cloud will do to mutants, Medusa activates a generator to destroy the Terrigen cloud, and Beast and his remaining teammates make up, all regretting what their lives have come to ever since discovering that the Terrigen could kill them.
Going rogue and sacrifice Beast's determination to protect
Krakoa led to him committing increasingly ambiguous actions, culminating in him creating multiple clones of himself and Wolverine in violation of Krakoan protocols, using the clones of himself as a "think tank" while reducing the clones of Logan to a more feral state that allowed him to essentially use them as attack dogs. When the "prime" Logan broke free of Hank's influence and forced him on the run after killing most of the surplus Beast clones. Wolverine and X-Force discovered that Beast had deleted most of his back-ups from Cerebro so that they could not track him. They were able to compromise by using the
latest available back-up, but this version of Hank was dated back to his initial time with the Avengers and thus had no memory of his later actions. Joining forces with Wonder Man, the young Beast was able to track down his future self, with the older Beast sacrificing himself to save Wonder Man from a weapon he had created.
Return as the Chairman At the end of the "
Age of Revelation" storyline, it is revealed that the original Beast survived and became the chairman of
3K, an organization intending to give mutant abilities to humans. Beast was inadvertently brought into the possible future instead of his clone, gaining knowledge of the X-Virus created by
Revelation. Beast and Cyclops are returned to the present day shortly after failing to stop Revelation from assimilating Earth and becoming a living planet. After returning to the present day, Beast plans to recreate the X-Virus and use it to his advantage. ==Powers and abilities==