I assumed, when I bought the first issue of X-Men at the age of 9, that the Beast would be another example of Marvel’s already established Thing/Hulk type — a bulky, brutish, super-strong guy with a blunt, forceful name.
However, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby — wary of repeating themselves — developed a distinctive personality for Hank McCoy over the title’s first three issues.
With Marvel Comics growing fast, the Beast proved to be a good example of their characterization on the run.
According to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Hank McCoy can lift 2,000 pounds and leap 14 feet into the air in a standing high jump or 22 feet across the ground in a standing broad jump. He can run on all fours at 40 miles per hour and jump off a three-story building without being harmed.
But from the outset, unlike the Thing and the Hulk, it wasn’t the young mutant’s super-strength that was emphasized, but his super-agility.
On the second page of the first issue of X-Men, a squabble between the Beast and Iceman sounds exactly like one between their counterparts, the Thing and the Human Torch, over in The Fantastic Four.
“Leggo my arm, you blasted walking icicle!” the Beast says. “You want me to freeze to death?”
And when Iceman calls him a softie, McCoy snarls, “Softies, are we?? Just wait’ll my arm thaws out! I’ll make you eat those words, little fella!”
A few pages later, when new student Jean Grey arrives, the Beast “paws” her, planting an unwanted kiss on her cheek and saying, “Let me be the first to welcome you to the X-Men, beautiful! MmmMM!”
For his trouble, Marvel Girl propels him high into the air with her telekinesis, spinning him like a pinwheel.
“For the luvva pete!” McCoy says.
Lee and Kirby had not yet worked out the Beast’s personality. But by the third issue, they had hit on the solution.
Play against type. Make the brute an intellectual. Expand his physical agility to include mental agility.
This time, the Beast’s dust-up with Iceman has a distinctly different tone. “Little man, did anyone ever tell you that you are a feather-brained fathead?” he says. “If it weren’t for the fact that I abhor violence…”
Underlining the change in characterization, the Angel immediately describes McCoy as a “muscle-bound bookworm.”
A few pages later, we spot McCoy clad in pajama bottoms, reading an advanced calculus book he is holding with his big toe.
“Angel, although your colloquialisms are extremely colorful, they are completely unnecessary,” he says. “I will be fully garbed and ready before you shut my door.”
Despite his feral features, the Beast would now be eloquent and verbose, and thereby become a distinctive and memorable character in the readers’ minds.
The overuse of “big words” can bespeak a certain social insecurity, and I think even as kids, we sensed that. And that made Hank McCoy immediately more likable.
Although we could never share Marvel heroes’ superpowers, we might very well share their vulnerabilities (which didn’t include kryptonite, fire, or the color yellow). That was part of the genius of Marvel’s fresh approach to comics.
“The third X-Men issue is … notable for its development of some of the heroes’ personalities,” wrote Peter Sanderson. “The Beast begins using his once characteristic polysyllabic vocabulary and first displays his intellectual interests. Cyclops is shown worrying about the dangers his uncontrollable eye beams pose.”
“The X-Men might also have a root in the pulps,” Sanderson noted. “The Beast is reminiscent of Doc Savage’s aide Monk in his apelike physique, and of his other aide Johnny (as well as Newsboy Legionnaire Big Words) in his vocabulary.”
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