Beast has already been through several very different lives by the point I'm at in X-Men. Hank McCoy was there at the beginning, and going back to that original version makes th…

Beast has already been through several very different lives by the point I'm at in X-Men. Hank McCoy was there at the beginning, and going back to that original version makes the changes easier to appreciate. He wasn't always the blue, furry scientist. Originally, his appearance was much closer to an ordinary person's, with those oversized hands and feet, tremendous strength, and the agility to move around in ways most people couldn't. His intelligence was part of him before the fur, too. That matters because the visual joke of a character named Beast speaking like an academic can overshadow how much actual thinking goes into what he does. He's a scientist who can physically get into the middle of a fight, then step back and work out why the team's usual approach isn't working. The early fight with Unus is a good example. Hank works out a way to increase Unus's defensive power until it becomes a problem for Unus himself. The solution depends on understanding the ability, rather than just hitting the force field harder. There is already frustration underneath all of that, though. Hank briefly quits because he's tired of protecting people who hate mutants. Being articulate and intelligent doesn't make that rejection easier to accept. It gives him plenty of reasons to question what he's doing with his life.