BEAST #1-3 (1997)

It’s strange that Beast is one of the first Marvel characters, but he’s never had a solo book. Angel got one. Cyclops and Jean have been the focus of quite a few minis and one-shots. Even Iceman got one. Now Beast gets one. Except not really. He’s inconsequential to this adventure, really.

The basic story: Karma recruits Beast and Cannonball to help her save her young siblings from Spiral. She took them at the end of X-Force #62.

Spiral is working with Viper, of Hydra, to use the Body Shoppe to trap Nga and Leong in adult, cyborg bodies.

They end the series in these adult forms, and there’s a nice moment where Beast relates to them–given his own past with radical physical changes…

…but overall, Beast feels like a bystander in this mini, which is really about Karma and Spiral. I mean, when they need a scientist he can’t even figure out how to reverse what Spiral did to the kids.

Keith Giffen quits the series halfway through, taking only a plot credit for #2 and turning over scripting to Terry Kavanagh.

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