BIOGRAPHY - Page 9
A sense of normality finally returned for Beast, as he was now dealing with the usual influx of injured X-Men in need of medical attention. Kitty Pryde had recently returned to the X-Men but thereafter soon became pregnant with a swarm of microscopic Brood. Beast shrank himself down and entered into her bloodstream to combat the alien creatures himself, whilst using it as an opportunity to educate some of his students. [Wolverine and the X-Men (1st series) #5-7]
The new Hellfire Club were determined on causing as much damage to the X-Men as possible and they specifically targeted Beast, as he was deemed to be the heart of the team. When Beast travelled into space to visit the SWORD space station, he discovered many of the agents had been slain and Abigail was being held hostage by Sabretooth. Both of them were floating in open space and so Beast donned a space suit and tackled Sabretooth, knocking him inside the space station. Sabretooth proved to be too strong and he gutted Beast, leaving him to die whilst he went back outside to finish off Abigail. Beast wasn’t to be deterred so easily and so, holding his guts in, he leapt out of the airlock with a smashed helmet. He tackled Sabretooth and then quickly pushed himself back into the station again. Abigail was able to get hold of a gun and shoot Sabretooth before rushing to Beast’s side as he lay bleeding to death. She managed to save his life and the two grew closer from the ordeal. [Wolverine and the X-Men (1st series) #8]
Beast’s loyalties were put to the test when the Phoenix Force made its way back to Earth. The Avengers saw it as a potential threat to all life on Earth but the X-Men saw it as the savior of the mutant race. 
Captain America came to the school to tell the X-Men that he was putting a team together to try and stop the Phoenix Force. Having firsthand knowledge of what the cosmic entity was capable of, Beast immediately volunteered and joined the Avengers in their quest. The team set off into space to meet the Phoenix Force, armed with a device Beast had designed that could potentially contain its energy. The plan failed and many of the team were critically injured. After taking a detour to Hala to find medical help, they ended up saving the Kree world from the Phoenix Force. Unfortunately, they were unable to deter it from heading towards Earth and eventually it arrived, ready to take a host.
Thanks to a failed attempt to destroy the Phoenix Force, five of the X-Men were possessed by fragments of the cosmic entity. Those X-Men, dubbed the “Phoenix Five,” were empowered beyond anything they had experienced before. They immediately set about healing the world of various troubles, such as war, drought, poverty and starvation. Whilst many saw them as heroes, the Avengers only saw trouble waiting to happen. 
Beast stayed with the Avengers for a short time, coming up with ways to remove the Phoenix from his friends. However, after seeing how much good his friends were doing to the world, he resigned from the Avengers and joined his fellow X-Men again.
The Avengers were eventually proved right, as the Phoenix Five soon lost control of the power inside them and started to do more harm than good. Beast rejoined the Avengers again in a bid to discover a way to remove the Phoenix Force from his friends. The Phoenix Five eventually fell to infighting and, in the final confrontation between them and the heroes, Charles Xavier was slain by Phoenix-possessed Cyclops. It was Hope Summers and the Scarlet Witch who managed to wrestle control of the Phoenix from Cyclops. The moment Beast had been praying for in the long years since M-Day finally arrived and the two women used the Phoenix to restart the mutant race, before expelling the entity back into the cosmos. [Avengers vs. X-Men crossover]
A few years earlier, Professor Xavier had been part of a secret group of influential superheroes known as the Illuminati, which took on some of the world’s biggest threats and made decisions too big for regular superheroes. One of the consequences of their decisions was that each member had ended up with one of the Infinity Gems, a set of stones that when assembled could make the holder omnipotent. When Xavier was killed, the location of his gem had been lost with him but he had created a back-up plan in case of such an event. He had shown Beast the location of the gem and then erased all knowledge from his student’s memory. In the present, Beast received a note from the deceased Xavier that triggered his mind to recall the gem’s location. He soon had need for it, as the Illuminati had reformed due to a threat that was going to wipe out all of existence.
The members of the Illuminati, Dr. Strange, Black Panther, Iron Man, Captain America, Black Bolt, Reed Richards and Namor, decided to let Beast join, as Xavier had clearly intended for him to do so. Beast was unsure if he wanted to be a part of such a big secret but the others managed to convince him to do so. He was fitted with a microchip that would alert him when the Illuminati needed to convene, as well as acting as a location device. He soon received firsthand experience of the threat that he was fighting to save the world from when he witnessed his first incursion. Something had gone wrong in the multiverse and now alternate realities were colliding, with Earth acting as the epicenter. The team jumped to an alternate universe to try and prevent an incursion happening at that very moment. The Infinity Gems were assembled on their gauntlet and Captain America tried to use it to push oncoming reality away. Something went wrong, though, and the gems shattered, dooming both of the universes. Beast could only watch as the rest of the Illuminati pointed the fingers at each other and gave in to infighting. Later on, the group began arguing again about how far they would go to save their world and Beast sided against Captain America, who wouldn’t compromise his ideals. In response, Captain America had his mind wiped by Dr. Strange and was kicked out of the group, an act that showed Beast just how serious this all was. [New Avengers (3rd series) #3]
Things were going from bad to worse for Beast though as his lifelong mentor was now dead and, worse, he was now undergoing another mutation. This time, though, the effects on his body were more severe and he feared he would not live through the transformation. On top of it all, Cyclops, who had been arrested after the Phoenix left him, had escaped from prison and was starting his own mutant “revolution.” Beast was at the end of his tether but an off-hand comment by Iceman gave him an idea that would change both the future and the past. Hank travelled back in time to the very early days of the X-Men, when it was just him and his four friends. The youngsters were apprehensive of Beast’s tales of doom but he managed to convince them that the only way to stop his apparently bleak future coming to pass was for them to come and see it for themselves. Just as they arrived in the present day though, Beast collapsed, finally succumbing to the effects of his new mutation. [All-New X-Men (1st series) #1-2]
As Beast lay in the infirmary, the other X-Men did everything they could to keep him alive. Ultimately, his younger self realized that his current problem was due to a latent effect of the serum that had originally turned him blue and furry many years ago. After correcting the error in the formula, Beast was saved but the side effect was that he has physically changed once more into a slightly more brutish, though less animalistic, form. Once he was able to stand, he told the original X-Men that they were to go back to the past now that they had seen what Cyclops would eventually do to the world. However, young Jean Grey had other ideas and convinced everyone to let them stay in the present. [All-New X-Men (1st series) #4-5]
Beast had to work with Abigail when the alien student Broo was shot in the head. They reached out to numerous other scientists around the world but were at a loss to help him. Broo eventually managed to regain consciousness but his mental capacity was severely reduced. After failing himself to restore Broo’s mind, Beast turned to the dangerous alien Dr. Xanto Starblood. His trust was misplaced though, as Starblood kidnapped Broo and took him to the Hellfire Academy, a rival to the Jean Grey School. [Wolverine and the X-Men (1st series) #19, 30]
The longer the original X-Men stayed in the present, the more they found out about the world. 
It soon became apparent to them that Beast had not been telling them the whole truth about certain events, such as Xavier’s death. They believed Cyclops did it of his own free will but, when they found out that he was possessed by the Phoenix, the younger Cyclops saw it differently. He lashed out at Beast for putting his own spin on the truth. [All-New X-Men (1st series) #9-10]
Beast’s decision to bring the original X-Men to the present came back to haunt him, quite literally. A group of X-Men from the future came back in time with a warning that, unless the original X-Men were sent back to their own time, then there would be dire consequences. 
Among these older X-Men was another version of Beast, who had apparently changed his mind and saw the damage he had caused. Unfortunately, the young Jean Grey and Cyclops did not want to go back to their time and so they escaped the two groups of X-Men. Beast joined in the search for the teens and eventually caught up with them, but they were rescued by present day Cyclops and his own group of X-Men. Whilst the search continued, it became apparent that the X-Men from the future were harboring secrets of their own. When another group, claiming to be the real X-Men, arrived from the future, the façade was revealed. The first group were actually the future Brotherhood and they managed to capture Beast, along with some of the other X-Men. The various groups of X-Men banded together and stopped the Brotherhood from forcibly sending the teens to the past. The damage had been done, though, as it was revealed that the teens were unable to be returned to their timeline anymore. The whole incident had shaken Beast and made him realize that he had been foolish to think he could change the past. [Battle of the Atom crossover]
When Beast first joined Wolverine at the Jean Grey School, he accidentally created a portal and unleashed a number of small, blue creatures called Bamfs. Their resemblance to Beast’s fallen teammate Nightcrawler hadn’t gone unnoticed, but the similarities went far deeper than anyone realized. They had been regarded as a mild nuisance for a while but, when they stole Beast’s coffee maker, they had gone too far. On his quest to eradicate them, he discovered they were building a portal of their very own. Whilst examining it, Beast and a team of X-Men were sucked through the portal. 
Beast found himself in Purgatory, along with Nightcrawler’s father Azazel and his pirate army. Going toe-to-toe with the demonic teleporter, Beast had to rely on both his brains and feral instincts to stay alive. When he was stabbed in the back with a sword, he went into an animalistic rage and attacked everyone around him. The other X-Men were saved by the arrival of Nightcrawler, who gained Beast’s attention and managed to snap him back to his sense again. Beast was overjoyed to see his old friend again and, after a heartfelt reunion, they teamed up to take Azazel down. They managed to make it back to Earth again, where Nightcrawler was reborn, again thanks to the Bamfs. [Amazing X-Men (2nd series) #1-5]
As part of the Jean Grey School, Beast was drawn into fights against Frankenstein’s Murder Circus, as well as the Hellfire Club’s rival academy. [Wolverine and the X-Men (1st series) #21-23, 31-35] 
When two of the students were critically injured, Beast took care of them. Unable to bring them out of their comas, he turned to a more dangerous solution in the form of the deadly sentient bacteria Arkea. He used a dead sample and created a serum that would save the teens but was unsure as to whether he should use it. Jubilee spoke to him and reassured him that she believed that he always looked out for the best interests of the students. Beast decided to give the teens the serum, saving their lives in the process. [X-Men (4th series) #13-16] When all the humans on the planet suddenly disappeared, Beast was among the various X-Men who fought to bring them back again. [X-Men: No More Humans]