The battle of Beast Vs. Beast begins in X-Force #48

X-Force #48 teaser art — (Image credit: Marvel Comics)

Hank McCoy, the bouncing blue-furred Beast, has been going through a rough patch for the last few years that has taken him to a dark place as the scheming, manipulative, ruthless leader of X-Force. But now, Beast will actually be the team's next target as they begin a plan that seems to center on bringing back the old Hank McCoy, before he went bad, to take on his own misguided counterpart.

Though Marvel hasn't specifically spelled it out yet, a new teaser for January's X-Force #48, seen below, is going even farther to tease readers with the possibility of two Beasts duking it out, possibly with a younger, less evil Hank McCoy emerging from the wreckage of the Krakoan cloning process.

"The best way to stop Beast is... Beast. Beast has finally gone too far and X-Force enacts a radical plan to take him down in next month’s X-Force #48, " reads the text accompanying the teaser. "Don’t miss this long-awaited evolution for an original X-Men icon as writer Benjamin Percy and artist Robert Gill set the stage X-Force’s milestone 50th issue!"

"Target: Beast begins here! He was their mission commander. Now he is their mission." states Marvel's official solicit text. "At last, X-Force takes the fight to Henry McCoy, AKA Beast - and he will answer for his crimes!"

If Beast is resurrected or cloned as a younger version of himself without the memories (or sins) of his current self weighing on him, it wouldn't be the first time. There's already precedent for that in the Marvel Universe. Something similar happened to Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, just a few years ago, when she was resurrected on Krakoa with the memories and personality of her younger self from her Avengers heyday, before the events of Avengers: Disassembled in which she betrayed the team.

X-Force #48 goes on sale January 24.

Check out all the new X-Men comics Marvel has planned for release.

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I've been Newsarama's resident Marvel Comics expert and general comic book historian since 2011, and now I'm the Entertainment Writer at GamesRadar+. I've also been the on-site reporter at most major comic conventions such as Comic-Con International: San Diego, New York Comic Con, and C2E2. Outside of comic journalism, I am the artist of many weird pictures, and the guitarist of many heavy riffs. (They/Them)