You want to know how comic book fans are wired? Here’s how: when you’re reading a storyline like Age of Revelation, which has been running through Marvel’s X-Men line for the past three months, a lot of the focus is on “what does this matter going forward” not what is happening currently in the comics. No shade there, I’m right with you all. And now we know what the trip X years into the future has left behind for the X-Men’s present, thanks to X-Men: Age of Revelation Finale #1… Spoilers past this point, but in a twist, an evil version of Beast from X-Force is back, and he’s ready to ruin the world.
This is all actually pretty complicated, but I’m going to try and boil down this potentially confusing twist as simply as possible. During the previous “Krakoa Era” of X-Men comics, Beast, aka Henry McCoy, became more and more militant and proactive in what he saw as protection of the Mutant species. A lot of this played out in the X-Force title, where it was eventually revealed Beast not only made multiple clones of himself and Wolverine, but every time he died he would resurrect himself, going more and more rogue. Basically, this Beast thought might made right, and had no ethical lines.
In order to stop him, X-Force took the weird step of cloning their own Beast, but with a backup of memories that stopped around his “oh my stars and garters” era, when he was hanging out with Wonder Man. Bad Beast’s final plan was to use a [Soundgarden voice] Black Hole gun underwater to suck Arakko (the sister island to Krakoa) into a pocket dimension for safe-keeping. Maybe destroying it in the process? Who knows? Good Beast tried to stop him, but it was only when Wonder Man decided to sacrifice himself to disable the gun that Bad Beast relented, pushing Wonder Man out of the way with the gun exploding and seemingly killing Bad Beast instead.
Got it so far? Okay, so this Good Beast has continued to be the Beast in the Marvel Universe since then, working with Cyclops’ X-Men and dealing with everyone’s general distrust of him… Even if they know he’s not Bad Beast, they also know eventually he could turn into Bad Beast. Meanwhile, the X-Men team has been plagued by some new villains called 3K, whose goal is to bring about a new world of mutant superiority. We’ve discovered several of their member’s identities so far: Cassandra Nova, Professor X’s evil twin sister (sort of); Wyre, a genetically engineered assassin who has wires sticking out of him; Astra, a mysterious villain with the ability of teleportation; and Joseph, the clone of Magneto.
There’s one more member, The Chairman, who with his helmet head and tightly muscled, skinny body looks a lot like Professor X did during the Krakoa years. He’s not Professor X, though, we discover who The Chairman is at the end of Age of Revelation Finale #1… It’s the Bad Beast.
Huh? What? Okay, even more explanation. In Age of Revelation, the rebel X-Men from 10 years in the future switched the consciousnesses of Beast and Cyclops, sending their Beast and Cyclops back in time, while bringing the current continuity Cyclops and Beast forward in time. There have been some twists and turns there, but “our” Cyclops decided to help the X-Men take down Doug Ramsey, aka Revelation, the heir of Apocalypse who accidentally wrecked the world by releasing something called the X-Virus, which was created by 3K. I said I was going to make this simple, right? Sorry about that.
Anywho, the X-Men failed and Doug took over the entire planet, becoming Revelation the Living Planet. Meanwhile, at the last second Cyclops and Beast were switched back to their correct time periods, with Cyclops waking up imprisoned. Good Beast tells him over a loudspeaker that as soon as the Cyclops switched, he went nuts and tried to kill Doug Ramsey without explanation, so they’ve been keeping him locked up. However, Beast never switched… Or at least, not the Good Beast.
In the final pages of the issue, The Chairman wakes up. He reveals that the mind of the future Beast from the Age of Revelation was in a “locked-down synthetic body,” meaning while Future Cyclops was locked up by the X-Men, Future Beast went nowhere, and learned nothing.
“I’ve brought such interesting data back from my unexpected jaunt to the future,” says The Chairman. “A future that we can remake in our own image. As I tried to do before Krakoa fell. An ‘X-Virus.’ Oh my stars and garters.”
So yeah, The Chairman is the Bad Beast from X-Force‘s Krakoa era, somehow having survived a [Soundgarden again] Black Hole gun, with his own consciousness now in a synthetic body. And he’s leading 3K along with other dark mirrors of the X-Men team members. Most importantly, it turns out Age of Revelation is a causality loop, because of course it is… 3K figuring out how to make the X-Virus, which Revelation erroneously tries to use to remake the world would not have happened if those dumbos in the future hadn’t accidentally sucked forward the brain pattern of Bad Beast. Oopsie daisie.
So what does this matter going forward? The answer is that as many suspected, we now know the dark future the X-Men are heading towards “X years in the future,” and all the pieces are in place to make it come to pass. Will they be able to stop it? Or more specifically, will Cyclops be able to stop it since he’s the only one who knows the truth? We’ll just have to keep reading X-Men comics to find out.
Comic Book Club Live Info:
Discover more from Comic Book Club
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.