Posted by Jennifer
I’m a huge Hank McCoy fan. I think he’s possibly the most awesome character ever to come out of comics. Maybe not my number one favorite, maybe not the objective best, but certainly the character most clearly endowed with pure, undiluted awesomeness. I want to be Hank McCoy when I grow up, and I’m pretty sure anyone who’s ever read an X-Men comic secretly shares that desire.
But, unlike most Hank fans, I’m also very, very happy that he’s a cat.
Everyone knows that the X-Men started out as a group of five attractive, WASPy kids in Westchester, New York. While their fantastic powers set them apart from society, it wasn’t hard for them to blend in when they wanted to. Bobby and Jean were, for all intents and purposes, baseline human; Warren could hide his wings under his jacket; and Scott was just the weird kid with the sunglasses. Even Hank, with his big hands and feet, looked more like he had a glandular problem than a mutation. Given these factors, it was often hard to believe, however much they claimed to be ostracized, that the X-Men really felt alienated at all.
If the central theme of the X-Men — of people with special and terrifying genetic attributes protecting a world that hates and fears them — was to function, this had to change. And so Steve Englehart wrote the 7-issue story arc in Amazing Adventures that turned Hank McCoy into the bouncing blue ape with Wolverine hair that readers would come to know quite well over the next few decades. In those issues, as Hank adjusted to his new appearance, he was very clearly alone in the world, and was immediately feared by everyone he encountered, bringing the public negative reaction to mutants to the forefront. Though he was cut off from the X-Men, the reader was able to feel, through Hank’s angst and experiences, the alienation that had been missing in the core mutant book.
Through the years, Hank had periodic fits of angst about his furry blue exterior. He wondered if any woman would ever be able to love him; he wondered if he was really a man at all, or if he was just a “beast.” But, after that first story, the effects of Hank’s mutation on his psyche were never fully explored. Soon after, Hank joined the Avengers, where he found himself beloved by the public and swamped by women desperate to sleep with him, fur and all. Even in the X-related books, women from Trish Tilby to Cecelia Reyes expressed interest in him. Everyone loved the Beast, and if he happened to find himself around the few who didn’t, the click of the button on an image inducer was enough to render his strangeness invisible. And his animalistic body didn’t seem to hinder anything he wanted to accomplish physically — he retained opposable thumbs and a voice box, and could still hang upside down and perform other feats of acrobatic elegance. What did he have to complain about?
The X-Men, meanwhile, gained other characters who didn’t look visibly “normal” — most notably Nightcrawler and the Morlocks — but they were still, for the most part, a group of pretty (if no longer quite so WASPy) young heroes, not at all visually threatening to the general public. The alienation metaphor was getting lost again, and even began to seem a bit hypocritical. We can write about difference, the writers seemed to be saying, as long as the characters are all homogenous comic book pin-up girls and boys.
And then came Grant Morrison.
I’m not really a Morrison fan, and there’s a lot I dislike about his New X-Men. But the one thing I love is his insistence — later carried forward by Joss Whedon in Astonishing X-Men — on presenting mutants who weren’t generically pretty. Mutants whose mutations hurt them, alienated them, and generally made their lives more difficult, like half-chicken Beak and his fly-like girlfriend Angel. For the first time, we could believe that the public would be afraid of these people more than they feared, say, the Fantastic Four, and we believed that these mutants would be torn between loving themselves for what they were and wishing they could get rid of their mutations altogether.
Of course, Morrison had still inherited a cast of pretty people from many years of X-Men continuity. He couldn’t mutate them all, and they were, by default, his main characters. And so he made the wise — in fact, the brilliant — decision to mutate Hank McCoy. Hank, who had a history of horrifying physical mutation. Hank, who everyone loved, and whose pain and alienation everyone, characters and readers alike, would be affected by. Hank, who had spent the last few decades as a fun-loving playboy, his physical appearance no barrier to his emotional fulfillment.
So Morrison turned him into a cat.
I’m not going to defend the scientifically suspect concept of cats being the step before apes on the evolutionary chain. Frankly, if I cared about believable evolutionary science, I wouldn’t be reading X-Men comics. But what I will defend is the story logic of imposing these physical consequences on Hank McCoy. Of giving him back his fear of becoming a beast in more than name, and losing his higher brain functions. Of giving him physical limitations, like a lack of thumbs, that adversely affected his quality of life. And of making his girlfriend, Trish Tilby, suddenly afraid of the public reaction to their physical relationship — and her own sexual reaction to it. Unbelievable as it was, many women were canonically attracted to the blue monkey version of Hank’s mutation. But by changing him into a cat, Morrison was able to change the level of attraction, and he wisely chose to point out that, in all likelihood, being a giant cat wouldn’t bring a guy all that many sexual offers. And Morrison achieved all of this by choosing a character design that would still look like Hank, despite the major change.
Beyond his metaphorical usefulness to the X-Men at large, Hank McCoy simply works best as a character when he’s struggling with the contrast between his beastly outward appearance and his inward intelligence and gentility. It’s the contrast that motivated Hank for much of Morrison’s run, and continues to motivate him to this day. “I’m so scared I’ll wake up some day like Gregor Samsa in his bed and find I’ve mutated into a bug or a virus. What use would a virus have for art and music and poetry?” he wondered, in one of the first few issues of Morrison’s run. And yet, in many ways, Hank had already become Franz Kafka’s tragic hero. Earlier on the same page, Hank had lamented to Jean, “I used to have fingers! You knew me when I could play the guitar!” He may not have been an insect, but he had already found himself in a body which was incapable of making music—an art so fundamentally human that Kafka’s Metamorphosis is compelled to ask, of Gregor, “Was he an animal, that music could move him so?”
Hank is a scientist, an intellectual, and an aesthete — the most learned and cultured of all the X-Men — and yet in many physical ways he’s less than human. The cat mutation allows the readers to see just how horrible this psychological contrast is, in a way that had been impossible in all the years of public acceptance of Hank’s ape look. Hank’s cat mutation may be important for the overall alienation metaphor of the X-Men, but its effect on his character, and the emotional conflict it creates (drawn most expressively in his confrontations with Cassandra Nova in Morrison’s run and Astonishing X-Men, and during the Astonishing Cure plot), is perhaps even more important.
Were Hank to revert to his ape form now, the X-Men would lose one of their most valuable assets: an emotionally conflicted, complex character who embodies the theme of alienation that permeates the comics. Sure, he could use his thumbs again, and he could date women who aren’t half-aliens like Agent Brand. He could have a more consistent character design between artists (a reasonable complaint I’ve heard), and he’d look more like the Beast everyone in my generation remembers from the 90s cartoon. But in my opinion, the X-Men books, and Hank’s characterization, would be much poorer for it.
E-mail: Jennfer@fantasticfangirls.org
Twitter: throughthebrush
Like Hank wants to date anybody but Agent Brand. . .
Excellent article, great examples. I’ve honestly never really understood the objections to cat-Beast, I think he works great that way, and you’ve done a marvelous job outlining the reasons why. And I love when Jean tells him to learn the drums, that’s maybe my favorite scene in New X-Men.
Caroline, what you said.
*is shameless shipper*
It probably says something about how out of the loop I am in X-Men lore that I didn’t know there WAS an objection to cat-Beast. Jennifer, the searing scene with Logan from which you took the “I used to have fingers…” panel is one of my favourites in Joss’ AXM run, and the use of Hank in the “cure” storyline in “Gifted” worked for me better than the use of Rogue in X3 precisely because of that scene. Also, I love this article.
I have no problem with Hank’s further (de-)evolution–other than an issue with the whole “secondary mutation” thing as a whole. As a rule, I like the “grotesques” much more than the square-jawed pretties. My only issue with this is why a cat? I don’t get the whole cat-thing. There was never anything feline about Hank’s biology. Make him more bestial, fine, but follow the simian lines that were established since his first appearance. Let’s be honest, there are some pretty savage primates out there.
And, if one more Morrisonian (not that I’m accusing anyone here of being in that particular cult) tries to explain it to me by using the BEAUTY AND THE BEAST metaphor, I may choke on my own rage. It may be a cute idea, but French cinema is not the driving force of evolutionary change. At least, not the last time I checked.
@Dan Why do you hate cats, you cat hater?
@Caroline I love cats. They’re soft and they purr and they spend all their time plotting evil. I just hate cat-Beast.
@Caroline, @Selena Thank you! I love both those Jean and Logan scenes as well.
@Dan I don’t know why a cat was chosen in particular, but it’s not something I totally mind. The problem with simian devolution is that they wouldn’t cause Hank to have very many physical handicaps. The cat thing works for me because of the cat-like limitations it puts on him — his hands, his mouth, the horrifying litterbox scene with Cassandra Nova. A more bestial primate would certainly trigger the loss-of-intelligence fears, but not the physical issues.
I suppose they could have gone to a dog place instead, a la Jeph Loeb’s Wolverine, but who wants that?
Plus, I like the enhanced senses the cat mutation gave him.
Everybody! Everybody! Everybody wants to be a cat!
/Aristocats theme.
Terrific post! I also like Cat-Beast, for all the reasons you described. I didn’t realize until recently that this was an unpopular opinion.
Sorry to bring in a discordant not, but some thoughts:
1. I am unconvinced that ugly mutants are necessary for the mutant metaphor to work. After all, which of the groups for which mutants are seen as a metaphor (Blacks, Jews, gays, political minorities, etc.) is characterized by physical ugliness in reality?
2. On the other hand, Hank in his ape-like form worked very well as a metaphor for racist sexual fears about e.g. Jews and Blacks. These are described as ugly (hook-nosed, thick-lipped, ape-like even) by racists, yet these racists often are sexists as well and fear that women will almost inevitably will fall prey to the lure of their “animal magnetism”.
3. The alienation due to physical ugliness actually already has been done for almost half a century with characters like the Thing, the Hulk, the Gargoyle – none of whom are mutants. So why suddenly make ugliness a peculiarly mutant trait? (A brief reminder: when Hank first became “ugly” and furry, he joined the Avengers and actually found more acceptance among non-mutants than before).
4. Changing Hank to a cat did not actually make him uglier or less attractive (c’mon, everybody loves cats, Charlton Heston did not say “get your paws off me you dirty cat!”). That was IMO an unconvincing pretense by Morrison in NXM.
5. Even if Hank actually had been changed to a more ugly form, the effect really would at best have been transitory. The Thing looks more ugly and grotesque than the Beast ever did, yet both the readers and most denizens of Marvel-Earth got used to him soon enough after seeing him for prolonged periods.
6. What to say about the method by which Hank was transformed to a cat? Stan Lee once wrote (jokingly? half-seriously?) that he chose genetic mutation as a cause of superpowers out of laziness, so that he would not have to think up a new origin every time. Morrison’s concept of “secondary mutation” takes this laziness one step further. Essentially he thumbed his nose at the readers: “I’m going to change these characters because I can and I’m not even bother with an explanation story.”
7. Hank’s previous bodily changes (other than the oversized hands and feet) were not mutations, but were caused by outside agents, such as the ingestion of an experimental formula that transformed him to a furry ape.
8. Since the mutation to cat-form was also used to break up Hank and Trish, let me finally add that I valued this relationship. Not only do I think it was one of the most interesting relationships in the X-books (not least because they e.g. had fallings-out over important matters of ethics), it was also seemingly the only significant Homo sapiens sapiens/Homo sapiens superior romantic relationship left. And I did not find the break-up all that convincing either, as the change from blue-furred ape to blue-furred cat was minute compared to the shock of seeing Hank change from pink-skinned, nice but dumb to blue-furred and super-intelligent that Trish experienced and overcame during the early stages of their romance (during Louise Simonson’s run on X-Factor).
Maybe there was something good about Morrison’s run on X-Men, but this was not it.
And so I say au revoir before I leave to be without internet access for a week. I’ll check in again then to comment on your rebuttals to my comments
@Menshevik I’ll take time to rebut each of your points later, but I’d like to point out, just to start, that I never used the word “ugly” in this essay. In fact, I don’t think ugliness is the point at all. It’s “beastliness” — being like an animal — that’s the core point.
Had never given Hank much thought, although I always thought him cool and love his stiff upper lip humor! Great read.
@euthanatos, @Sarah Thank you! I’m happy the Hank love is widespread.
@Menshevik
Ok, here goes:
1.) As I said in my first comment, I never used the word “ugly.” I did use the word “pretty,” and that was probably poor word choice on my part. But the point I was trying to make was one of physical difference from the privileged norm. The original five X-Men didn’t so much have that, and I think the racial metaphor works much better when they’re a minority group that can’t “pass.”
2.) I don’t disagree with this, but I don’t see how the cat form is any less functional in that way. And while it’s true that the ape functions metaphorically like you said, based on common stereotypes and historical comparisons, the fact is that Hank WASN’T treated that way as an ape — he was popular and beloved.
3.) I talk about Hank’s Avengers history very plainly in this essay; no need for a reminder. But that’s my point — while he should have been alienated (and while his mutation WAS originally used that way, in Amazing Adventures), he wasn’t, and thus his ape form lost its metaphorical usefulness. Furthermore, the difference between Hank and the Hulk, Thing, and others is that he’s been transformed into an animal. Something very specifically sub-human. That’s why the metaphor is stronger — much stronger than it is when a person is a fantastical pile of rocks. And Hank, unlike the Thing, didn’t have any physical limitations in his ape form, so he didn’t even have that much alienation to deal with.
4.) Once again, “ugler” and “less attractive” have nothing to do with it. I’m simply saying that it’s much, much more believable for someone to have sexual interest in a human-acting monkey, which has basically the same anatomy as a human, than a cat, which is fundamentally anatomically different in important ways, particularly in the mouth and genitalia.
5.) It’s not so much about the public reaction as it is Hank’s internal feelings of alienation. The Thing still feels alienated frequently, despite the fact that the world loves him and he’s part of the “family” of the Fantastic Four. Hank feels alienated from both his society and from HIMSELF, because he’s not sure if he’s a man or an animal. And that makes a lot more sense when he’s dealing with animalistic senses and emotions and a lack of fingers.
6.) Marvel Comics have, since the beginning, come up with all sorts of pseudo-science to explain changing or developing powers. I fail to see how Morrison’s introduction of secondary mutations was at all new or different. Morrison puts enough fake science in to explain the secondary mutation. I don’t see how it’s any more unreasonable than the idea that a single gene can cause both metal skin and telekinesis in separate people is to begin with.
7.) Technically, Hank’s transformation this time was also caused by an outside agent — Sage’s intervention. She jumpstarted his mutation to save his life in X-Treme X-Men. Since the original chemical he ingested to become blue and furry was “the chemical cause of mutation,” and its effects were therefore still directly related to his original mutant gene, I don’t see how this new outside agent was any different.
8.) We’re going to have to disagree here — I hate Trish, and I’ve always hated that relationship. The thing about Trish in X-Factor was that she never really had a problem with his being blue and furry — in fact, when he transforms back, she’s most upset by the fact that he’s SMART. This always came off as creepy and awful, to me — she only liked him because he had the mind of a child? Either way, I buy that someone as conscious of her career as Trish was would be put off by the news speculating on her sexual relationship with a man who had the anatomy of a cat. Remember, this isn’t Tigra we’re talking about — Hank isn’t a cat-man. He’s just a giant cat, plain and simple, and though I don’t like Trish, I also don’t blame her for being a little freaked out. (However, the less said about the “pretending to be gay” storyline that followed, the better. I hate that almost as much as I hate the psychic affair.)
I think I’ve addressed all of your questions, but feel free to respond with your own two cents.
I want to be all analytical, but instead I’m all full of squee and Hank-love. Squee! Hugs! More hugs!
@Jennifer
My 2 Eurocents:
ad 1) Insert “not attractive” or “not pretty” or “different from the privileged norm” for “ugly” according to preference. I’m still not convinced that physical differences are necessary to the the whole “protecting a world that hates them” shtick, but the racial-minority-that-can’t-pass metaphor worked just as well with mutants like ape-like Hank and lots of others, most notably Nightcrawler.
ad 2) and 3) Maybe I should also have mentioned Wolfsbane, or Sasquatch or Catseye or Hank’s fellow Avenger Tigra for animal-like. Or even Squirrel Girl with her bushy tail and freakishly large teeth? I still see no necessity for changing Hank further, especially as after a very short while Hank was back to being popular and beloved among the people he associates with.
ad 4) Well, the uncomfortable sex aspect definitely is there with the Thing. And Hank had some pretty scary canines in his “ape” form.
ad 5) Well, I did not disagree about the self-alienation part to start with, although I would say that Hank already had that in his “ape” form, at least to start with, and could easily have been written like that again (having a relapse, as it were) without changing his outward appearance. Not to mention that we’ve also been down that road with Wolfsbane (who once even fell in love with a wolf).
ad 6) and 7) Okay. Of course then Hank still is no different from non-mutants with a similar predicament (see 2) and 3)) and thus the racial metaphor is no longer appropriate in Hank’s case.
ad 8) To someone who hates Trish, wouldn’t a bigger focus on Hank physical transformation in X-Factor have been an indication that she’s a superficial person? Anyway, I checked X-Factor #36 (the first issue where Trish and Hank interact after the transformation) and Hank’s smartness was not the overriding factor. It was only mentioned once, as one of a whole list of changes. And other factors got mentioned more:
On p. 3 she tells Hank re. his transformation: “It’s … unsettling, too, of course. Not just your physical appearance, it’s…” (Hank then brusquely turns and leaves her standing, not exactly creating the impression that he wanted to give Trish any more time to adjust to the change after she apparently distanced herself from him for a while).
On p. 11 she tells Iceman: “Just … try and understand, okay? The Hank I knew … well, he was special. Handsome, gentle, and vulnerable… if not too bright. The Beast is a strong, cocky genius with fur and fangs and a glib rap. I’m glad he recovered … even in this state, but I don’t know him anymore. He doesn’t need me. He … frightens me.”
On p. 17 she thinks, while rejecting his offer of a hand after the defeat of an anthropomorphisized subway train: “It’s not the fur. I could get used to the fur. It’s the chatter. Like this is all some massive joke. Can’t he see how scared I am. How scared we all are?”
The two reconnect during the battle and on p. 25, at the first (parting) kiss post-transformation Trish says: “Not one crack or flip remark, just go. [...] You’re not the Hank I knew … but you’re a guy I’d like to know a whole lot better.”
@Menshevik I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree. You’ve certainly made a stronger case against his cat form than I usually hear (boiling down to “It looks dumb!”). Thank you for sharing.
Yes, I don’t think either of us is going to convince the other.
Having slept over the matter, I think on big problem I have with your interpretation is the manner in which it mixes the racial metaphor of the animal-like look with the (self-)alienation factors. Race is – at least to a large extent – a social construct and in real life, although racists abhor interracial sex (“miscegenation”), physical differences do not prevent members of different racial groups from falling in love or being sexually attracted to each other in large numbers. Investing Hank’s predicament with the kind of importance you do does send a potential message that makes me feel uncomfortable in the context of “mutants as metaphor for race”. There is a bit of a danger of a reader seeing the “lesson” that interracial attraction really is “unnatural” and that there actually is a core of truth to racial prejudice (seeing members of non-caucasian races as physically and mentally inferior, in a state between human and animal). So I prefer to see Hank’s predicament – like that of the various non-mutants I’ve mentioned – as more akin to the situation of a person injured and disfigured in an accident or due to prenatal damage (vide Thalidomide/Contergan etc.).
@Menshevik I’m sorry if the issues got confused. I really did intend for them to be two separate issues — Hank’s feelings of alienation as a metaphor for racial alienation on the one hand, and Hank’s animalistic inner conflict on the other. The first is the metaphor; the second is just something I think produces good stories. I can see your concerns, but I don’t think they’ve been mixed problematically in the comics so far, and hopefully they won’t be.
I’m also not sure that thinking of Hank as deformed is helpful — half the point of his struggle is that, even though he’s tempted, he doesn’t WANT to be cured. He’s proud of who he is, and of being a mutant, and I think viewing him as having a deformity is dangerous ground for the racial metaphor.
As you said, though, we’re not going to convince each other, so it might be best to put the argument to rest. Thank you for sharing your perspective.
Unfortunately it seems that the final sentence of my previous post was misleading, so before I close my end of this discussion, I should perhaps clarify what I meant:
The disability/disfigurement/deformity metaphor was not intended to be seen in conjunction with the racial metaphor but as something to replace it. This is partly because Hank finds himself in a situation that is very different from that of the majority of other mutants (while it is actually extremely similar to that of the Thing, Tigra, Man-Thing, and numerous other non-mutants). And a large part of his predicament can be compared to e.g. a normal human who lost one or more limbs (thumbs count) in an accident or war. And since Hank’s current form is at least to a large extent due to outside influences, I do not see it as that intimately linked to his identity as a mutant (in his cat form he is no more representative of mutants than the Elephant Man was of Homo sapiens sapiens), and so him wanting to stay as he is now is more comparable e.g. to the discussions that flared up recently on the question as to whether or not Oracle should regain the use of her legs or even want to. Also I think that the way people in the Marvel Universe react to Hank, the Thing et al. is very much like that towards people with a handicap/deformity (often trying to overcome an instinctive revulsion mixed with pity and embarrassment etc.).
On a side note, Hank has been through so many transformations already that he should reckon with the possibility of more of them in the future. Maybe he secretly hopes that in his next mutation he’ll gain wings
But all this is just meant as a clarification, not to restart the discussion.