Patsy Baxter opens her door to
have the injured Beast collapse on her. She decides against calling her husband
and drags Beast to a couch and applies first aid to his wounds. He rehearses
his history in his delirium, waking up to discover his fur has turned black; he
panics but when Patsy calls him by name, he calms down. She reveals he talked a
lot while he was out and knows his situation….
In Westchester, Warren “Angel”
Worthington reads about the Beast at Brand Corporation in Jack Anderson’s
newspaper column and recognizes it as Hank. He wants to go out to see what’s
going on even though Professor Xavier warns him that Hank has asked to be left
alone by the X-Men. Warren disagrees and flies out to Brand for his friend….
Beast heads back to his apartment,
wondering if Patsy will be traumatized by discovering his secret, when he is
seized by the Griffin, part lion/part eagle, sent to kill Beast. They struggle
in mid-air, Beast dodging his foe’s massive claws, until he gets him in a hold
and tries to take his mask off—only to discover Griffin isn’t wearing a mask.
Angel comes upon the two monsters fighting and remains at a distance since he
doesn’t recognize either one, while Hank doesn’t know why Warren isn’t helping
him. When Griffin plummets from the sky, Warren swoops down to save him and is
knocked out for his trouble and Hank must rescue him. Hank and Warren get
things sorted out as Griffin flies off. They return to Hank’s apartment where
they don their “normal” disguises and head off to Brand, just as the mystery
woman arrives and sees them depart, angry and worried that “we’re all going to
die.” [Wait for the end of this issue.]
Meanwhile, Linda Donaldson,
secretly Agent Nine of the Secret Empire, contacts Number One to complain about
Mastermind and Quasimodo interfering with her plans to dupe Henry McCoy; the
big boss threatens her with death for failure which only makes her angrier.
Then Griffin flies in her window, prompting more anger at interference with her
mission as well as risking being seen. Griffin insists he is never seen, having
started out as a dangerous punk who was recruited by the Secret Empire and
turned into a genuine supervillain; they just didn’t mention the cost: that the
changes were permanent. Linda doesn’t care and moves on to her big assignment,
spying on Hank McCoy’s interview with Captain Baxter. Hank arrives with Warren
to join him; Baxter’s wife Pat is also present. Baxter demands to know why Hank
lied about his whereabouts over the last few days; Hank says that he was
hanging out with old school chum Warren for a few days…and that he lied last
night because he and Warren were arguing over a girl and he didn’t want to say
that in front of Linda. Then Pat jumps in, claiming to have overheard the two
men in a restaurant. Baxter is forced to let them leave so Hank and Warren don
their normal forms to cut loose in the sky—and then Griffin returns to seize
Beast. The three fight in the sky over the Brand campus as soldiers on the
ground witness the battle. Griffin gets a grip on Beast and prepares to bite
his neck but Hank grabs the bad guy’s wings and as they plummet, Angel punches
Griffin’s lights out. Beast and Angel leave the bad guy on the ground for the
soldiers while they take off into the woods….
Later, Hank has explained to
Warren his situation and why he doesn’t want the X-Men to worry about him. They
say their goodbyes and Warren departs. Hank heads to the library to return the
books on makeup he borrowed in issue #12; he then notices that he
subconsciously checked out a copy of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And then
the mystery woman spots him and gets his attention and he is surprised to see
her. [It’s Vera Cantor, revealed next issue.]
Excelsioring your collection