Warning! Spoilers ahead for X-Force #18!
A founding member of the X-Men was just killed for the greater good of Krakoa, highlighting one of the mutant nation’s darkest protocols. The transition to life on Krakoa saw the X-Men striding the line of morality on more than one occasion. Seeing their new nation as one of the only ways to save mutantkind, the leaders of Krakoa were willing to make some underhanded deals and even some threats of force to ensure that their island would be recognized by the other nations of the world. Thanks to the discovery of mutant resurrection, they’ve been able to take even bolder steps to protect their new nation. Unfortunately, this has led to the recent death of Beast in Benjamin Percy and Garry Brown’s X-Force #18.
The latest batch of X-Force comics have largely focused on Quentin Quire, aka Kid Omega, who has died and been resurrected numerous times throughout the series. As his alias would suggest, Quire is an Omega-level mutant, whose telepathic powers have allowed him to accomplish some fairly incredible feats. Recently, however, he’s found himself in a very troubling situation with evidence suggesting that he is the culprit of a recent psychic attack which killed several humans. When he was sent onto the scene to investigate, he was killed before finding the perpetrator. With no memory of the attack after being resurrected, Quentin and his girlfriend, Phoebe Cuckoo, are diving deeper into the mystery, but now other Krakoans are in harm’s way.
X-Force #18 kicks off with team members Black Tom, Sage, and Jean Grey facing frightening encounters with nightmarish apparitions, but it is Hank McCoy, aka Beast, who endures the worst of these psychic attacks. As Quentin and Phoebe make their way to the Pointe, they find the hairy, blue scientist lying unconscious on the ground. Quickly thereafter, Sage arrives on the scene and informs the two young heroes that Beast has suffered a stroke. She then fills the telepaths in on the terrifying occurrences that have been taking place, before Hank wakes up, ready to share what happened.
Using the Shadow Room to project Beast’s thoughts for all of them to see, the heroes discover that the telepathic assault occurred in a nightmare while Hank was asleep. They continue to watch as a childlike version of their fuzzy friend sits in a classroom being scolded by a teacher. The teacher, who appears as a monstrous version of Quentin, tells Beast to write down all of Krakoa’s secrets on the chalkboard as discipline for dozing off in class, but Beast refuses. Sadly, resisting the monster’s influence begins to brutally damage his mind, resulting in his eventual stroke. Once the heroes are done watching these memories play out, Beast begs Quentin to kill him, but Kid Omega refuses, as he’s trying to become a better person. Sage is quick to honor the request though, and she swiftly breaks her ally’s neck. As Quentin and Phoebe look on in shock, Sage explains that she and Beast promised they’d kill each other if either of them were ever compromised because they know too many secrets about Krakoa. She explains further, “A compromised version of our bodies is like a damaged hard drive full of invaluable data. It’s not worth trying to keep it chugging along.” With that Sage prepares for Beast’s resurrection and Quentin and Phoebe continue trying to figure out what new enemy is causing this chaos.
Beast and Sage’s agreement to kill each other if needed highlights a few important developments for Marvel’s mutants. First, it proves just how important both of these heroes are to Krakoa’s functions. With so many secrets about the nation crammed into their heads, both Beast and Sage are incredibly dangerous at anything less than optimal performance. This, added to the fact that they are needed back at full capacity, means that even slight psychic or mental damage calls for their immediate extermination.
More importantly, this issue shows that, while resurrection is a great advancement for mutantkind, it has also noticeably impacted their mindsets and morals. Without fearing permanent deaths, many of them find it more than okay to bite the bullet once in a while for the sake of Krakoa. Down the road, this could present a problem, as it’s already been established that resurrections can change mutants on some level. Until then though, it will likely continue adding some more shock value to stories without costing the X-Men any actual casualties. X-Force #18 from Marvel Comics is available now in stores and online.
