Issue(s): Amazing Adventures #15
Cover Date: Nov 72
Title: "Murder in mid-air!"
Credits:
Steve Englehart - Writer
Tom Sutton - Penciler
Frank Giacoia & John Tartaglione - Inker

Review/plot:
The Beast shows up extremely injured (and poorly drawn!) at the house of Patsy Walker, wife of the guy who is charged with hunting him down.

Patsy refers to herself as a "silly female" while she's trying to decide what to do with the Beast. I half suspect that that's Englehart poking fun at Stan Lee. He uses that phrase a lot. Maybe it was even more frequent in Patsy's books?

After getting patched up, the Beast wakes up and discovers that he's evolved further. He says his fur has turned "black".

I guess the original intent was for his hair to turn black, but often in comics, black is highlighted with blue, and in this case it's the blue that stuck. So we can now say that the Beast has fully evolved into the version he's most well known for.

Patsy agrees to cover for him and give him an alibi when her husband questions him. In return, we know that the Beast has agreed to something, but we won't learn the details of that bargain until Patsy shows up in Avengers #141 three years from now.

Meanwhile, Angel decides enough is enough and decides to go look for his friend. The other X-Men stay behind.

When Angel arrives at Brand he finds Beast fighting a new villain (monster?) called the Griffin.

The Angel isn't aware of the Beast's transformations, so he doesn't know who to help at first.

Later they bond by both putting on their straps.

We learn that the Griffin was created by the Secret Empire. They did a real number on him, permanently grafting on wings and a mane and replacing his hands with lion paws. He's bitter about it, but still taking orders.

We also learn that the Secret Empire has been behind all of the attacks at Brand and on the Beast in this series. Hank's girlfriend Linda Donaldson is Agent 9...

...and both Mastermind and Quasimodo were agents of the Empire (although Quasimodo was not acting on orders). I appreciate that we get the info dump behind the conspiracy; you don't want to let things like that go on too long. As it is, there's only one more issue of this series and the rest of this will be wrapped up when Englehart takes over Captain America.

It was nice to see Angel again. And the Griffin sure is an unusual looking bad guy. This was a decent, fun issue.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 4 - first Griffin. Beast turns blue.

Chronological Placement Considerations: Takes place soon after Amazing Adventures #14. This issue ends with Vera Cantor finally catching up with Hank, and next issue takes place some time later, with both the Beast and Vera having left Brand to head to Vermont.

References:

• A fever dream while the Beast is injured shows scenes from Amazing Adventures #11, Amazing Adventures #12-13, and last issue (so, the Beast's entire solo run so far).

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

The Beast would be colored grey again in his cameo in Captain America #183(and also in #175, I think).

Patsy Walker answers her door dressed like that? I wish she lived in my neighborhood.

Is this a different Number One than the highly-placed public official? I notice you don't have him listed as a character appearing.

The MCP lists it as a different Number One, with this being his only appearance besides a flashback to the Griffin's origin in Marvel Team-Up #78. Not sure how they made that determination (it's not clear from the Secret Empire entry in the Deluxe Handbook), but i followed them on that, and since it's his only realtime appearance, i didn't list him.

beast should have stayed gray, rather then become another blue mutant.