The Scott and Jean Archives
Cyclops oversees the X-Men in yet another Danger Room session. Cyclops and Marvel Girl, desperately pining for each other, try their hardest to hide their feelings from each other, thinking the other isn’t interested. Beast cautions Cyclops to be wary of becoming “drunk with power”. Cyclops admits that he might be working the X-Men a little too hard.
Later, Hank and Bobby make their way down to the coffee place they frequent when they spot a young boy trapped on the top of a water tower. Hank effortlessly scales the tall building to rescue the boy. Instantly, the crowd gathered below start suspecting Hank of being a mutant and start attacking Hank and Bobby.
Upset with the ungrateful human race, Hank quits the X-Men and storms out. At a loss, Scott contacts Xavier for guidance. Xavier tells Scott to leave Hank be.
A week later, Hank has made waves in the pro wrestling circuit playing a villain, the Beast. He comes face to face with the “untouchable” Unus. Hank suspects that Unus might be a mutant. After the match, Unus is approached by Mastermind who tries to convince the former to join Magneto against the X-Men.
Having detected the Unus, the four X-Men begin their search for Unus. They are unsuccessful in trying to take him down. They retreat back to the Institute to re-strategise. To their surprise, they find Beast had returned and was already working on a machine that would magnify Unus’ power. Fearing that Beast might have “gone mad”, the X-Men chase after him.
The X-Men arrive at the gym to find that Beast had already magnified Unus’ powers. The X-Men are outraged but Beast tries to convince them that he has a plan. Meanwhile, Unus finds out about the downside of the power boost. He is now unable to control his ability and is unable to even touch and consume food. Unus begs Beast to undo the power boost and promises that he’ll never join forces with Magneto. Unus returns to wrestling, and Beast to the X-Men where they belong.
(X-Men: The Early Years #8 is a reprint of Uncanny X-Men (Vol 1) #8.)