Warning: contains spoilers for X-Force #24!
Fans of the popular 'enter Thanos' theory, which inspired an enormous amount of hilarious memes, are sure to enjoy the recent X-Force #24, which reveals the X-Men have their own protocol for biological infiltration. The X-Men reveal this unusual form of espionage when a vicious enemy invades Beast's body and his teammates are forced to fight back against a minuscule menace. The ensuing battle inside Hank McCoy's body once again confirms that the wild fan-theory has some real merit as a plan of attack.
When it was first announced that Ant-Man would be taking a central role in Avengers: Endgame, fans were quick to speculate that his shrinking powers could be easily used to defeat the Mad Titan. They theorized that Ant-Man could "enter Thanos" and then expand, killing him. X-Force #24 is not the first time that Marvel Comics have explored the practical possibility of this plan of attack, but it certainly leans into the more body-horror elements of the absurd fan theory.
In X-Force #24, from Benjamin Percy and Martín Cóccolo, Beast's team face off against the spycraft of Mikhail Rasputin, the older brother of Colossus and Magik. While Colossus is engaged with Mikail, and his pawn the Chronicler, Beast and Black Tom Cassidy struggle with a team of "nesting doll agents" who have infiltrated Beast's body. This is particularly troubling as Beast is viewed as a retainer of confidential knowledge for the mutant nation of Krakoa. To defeat the invading agents, Black Tom uses his power over plant life to create a miniature representation of himself and enter Beast's body, in a gross and horrific twist on the already icky "enter Thanos" meme.
Unlike the popular meme, Black Tom does not enter Beast to expand and kill him, but instead hunts down the other mini-agents inside, ultimately manipulating a salad Beast ate earlier to get the upper hand. X-Force #24 also explores Thanos' potential perspective by showing Beast's perception of what is happening inside his invaded body, including a disturbing scene where he first believes he sees one of the enemy agents on Tom's face before realizing it's actually floating inside his eye.
While Beast and Black Tom manage to triumph, it's clear this is a tactic X-Force may use again in future, as their amoral leader uses a custom Danger Room to surveil his own insides. X-Force has seen Beast grow colder and crueler in his attempts to safeguard Krakoa, doing terrible things in the name of security. Now that he's set up a biological infiltration to save himself from Mikhail, it's only a matter of time until he tries out offensive applications for this new knowledge, just as he used telefloronic mind control on the citizens of Terra Verde.
The body horror imagery that X-Force #24 uses to establish the internal struggle happening within Beast's body is a lot less funny than the 'enter Thanos' meme would make it out to be. Mikhail's attack on McCoy shows a haunting portrayal of what can happen when humans (or mutants) are themselves weaponized. What the X-Men's own version of 'enter Thanos' might lack in its non-explosive finale is made up for by the brutal and creative way in which X-Force #24 explores the popular fan theory, and the dark lessons Beast is sure to learn from the experience.
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