The exciting finale of evil Beast is finally here as X-Force #50 wraps up Benjamin Percy’s epic run. As the Krakoan era of X-Men winds down, series like this one get to wrap up stories that have been building for years. That’s right, Beast has been slowly edging towards full evil for quite some time, but now he needs to be put down by Wolverine or stopped peacefully by the last good Beast clone. It’s a race till the very end of the issue, that is for sure.
X-Force #50 stays tried and true to the series with a near nonstop action sequence. Good Beast and Wonder Man are tracking down evil Beast in a boat while a giant Orchis gun ship bears down on them. it’s not looking great, but thankfully, the X-Force are on their tails so as to stop the two Beasts from working together. For all they know, good Beast isn’t good at all. Thanks to Orchis, this issue has been broken up into two conflicts: Beast vs. Beast, and X-Force vs. Orchis.
The action is intense and exciting thanks to Robert Gill and well-placed bits of dialogue and character moments. Laura, aka Wolverine, gets to show off her badass self while it’s nice to see Colossus fighting alongside his comrades. There are a few design elements that are fun, too, like Wolverine’s deep sea suit, and Evil Beast Krakoan’s suit is also cool to look at. The action pretty much never stops, except for a quiet scene between the two Beasts.
One of their superpowers is grabbing scuba gear in time.
Credit: Marvel
The argument between the Beasts is interesting, albeit thin. Evil Beast insists that the good Beast is just young and without wisdom, while the good Beast knows in his heart he can convince the evil Beast to change his plan. They go back and forth a bit in a short scene, but it doesn’t probe their psyche too deeply. They’re at an impasse, and nothing much comes of it. Good Beast may have had an effect given the conclusion, but it’s more of a he said, she said than any well-made argument being delivered. This devolves into Wolverine showing up, but even his time to shine is reduced.
Brevity is this issue’s weak point. The final climactic moments last about a page, which leads to a very quick one-page wrap-up. evil Beast, having a change of heart, seems to come out of nowhere, even with good Beast trying to sway him. Percy does cleverly use Wonder Man to help nudge evil Beast, but it still seems out of left field given how long we’ve witnessed Beast turn from good to evil. To then wrap things up in an epilogue sort of page feels sudden and unfulfilling. This is likely partly due to the characters needing to be at the North Pole for the “Sabretooth War” story arc to kick in, but it’s still disappointing.
X-Force #50 is wall-to-wall action, but it doesn’t dig deep enough into the character’s psyches to make its ending feel earned. Instead, it’s a rush to wrap things up while we wait for this era to end.
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