I’m probably preaching to the choir but this part of Beast’s storyline in X-Force is what’s annoyed me the most and I wanted to vent.
In Game of Thrones, when Daenerys burned King’s Landing the show tried to retroactively argue that she was bad all along to make it in character, and that the fans just didn’t see it. “When she murdered the slavers of Astapor, I’m sure no one but the slavers complained. After all, they were evil men. When she crucified hundreds of Meereenese nobles, who could argue? They were evil men. The Dothraki khals she burnt alive? They would have done worse to her. Everywhere she goes, evil men die and we cheer her for it. And she grows more powerful, and more sure that she is Good and Right.”
It feels like Percy did the same thing to Beast to justify his villainous characterization. In an interview he said “He hasn’t become this way out of nowhere. He’s made many decisions over the years that were troublesome. Look at the Legacy Virus, Threnody, and Mutant Growth Hormone. Look at his involvement with the Inhumans and Illuminati.”
Like the fact that he had to go all the way back to an obscure character like Threnody? Either he was a fan from the 90s who never got over that storyline, or he was just googling “bad things Beast’s done.” It just feels like a completely random thing to keep bringing up, both in interviews and the comics.
It would be like a writer wanting to make Reed Richards a villain and they used stuff like him turning the Skrulls into cows or slapping Sue when she was possessed. It’s not difficult to cherry-pick through any character’s history and find stuff that makes them look bad.