Amazing Adventures #15
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeAmazing Adventures #15 (November 1972) is one of the pivotal Bronze Age mutation landmarks in X-Men history: it is the issue in which Hank McCoy's fur transitions from gray to what the story calls black — though colorist shading rendered it as blue in print, accidentally establishing the look that would define the Beast for every decade that followed. The same issue delivers the first appearance of the Griffin (Johnny Horton), a Secret Empire-engineered villain who has remained a recurring presence in the Marvel Universe into the 21st century. Equally significant from a long-game perspective, the issue deepens Patsy Walker Baxter's integration into the superhero Marvel Universe — a story thread that Steve Englehart would later pay off when she became Hellcat in Avengers — making this a foundational chapter in the transformation of a decades-old teen-romance character into a full-fledged superhero.
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Written by Steve Englehart and penciled by Tom Sutton (with inks by Frank Giacoia and John Tartaglione, editing by Roy Thomas), the issue was cover-dated November 1972 and carries an on-sale date confirmed by contemporary trade publications. The cover was drawn by Jim Starlin with inks by Joe Sinnott. Englehart had taken over the Beast feature from Gerry Conway beginning with issue #12, and by his own account he was deliberately using the strip to rehabilitate Patsy Walker — a character defunct since 1967 — as a genuine Marvel superhero, having been struck as a fan by her cameo in Fantastic Four Annual #3. The fur-color change in this issue was not a planned creative decision but a consequence of colorists using blue ink as a highlight for black, a standard printing technique that artists and editors at the time acknowledged rendered the Beast ambiguously blue rather than the black stated on-page; it was not until Avengers Annual #6 (1976) that Hank McCoy explicitly acknowledged his fur as blue.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of the Griffin (Johnny Horton), created by writer Steve Englehart and artist Tom Sutton; the character was surgically transformed into a griffin-like creature by the Secret Empire and tasked with killing the Beast.
- Beast's fur transitions from gray to what the script describes as black in this issue — but due to blue highlight inking, he reads as blue in print, establishing the color that has defined the character ever since.
- The issue is written by Steve Englehart (his fourth issue on the Beast feature), penciled by Tom Sutton, inked by Frank Giacoia and John Tartaglione, with a cover by Jim Starlin and Joe Sinnott; Roy Thomas served as editor.
- Patsy Walker Baxter learns Hank McCoy's secret identity in this issue, a plot development that Englehart deliberately seeded for a future superhero arc he would eventually complete in Avengers (she debuted as Hellcat in Avengers #144, 1976).
- Angel (Warren Worthington III) makes a key appearance, encountering Beast mid-battle before the two former X-Men teammates reconcile and Beast reveals himself to Warren for the first time since his transformation.
- The Secret Empire's subplot — including the revelation of Number One and agent Linda Donaldson (Number Nine) — advances in this issue, connecting to storylines Englehart would later continue in Captain America.
- The issue was reprinted in Marvel Masterworks: The X-Men Vol. 7 (October 2008), Essential Classic X-Men Vol. 3 (2009), and the French omnibus X-Men: l'intégrale 1972–1975 (2012), among other collections.
- The letters page includes a letter attributed to 'Hedy Wolfe' — a playful nod to Patsy Walker's fictional rival from the original romance comic — in which the writer correctly identifies the recurring character 'Pat' as Patsy Walker.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Frankenstein #6 (1976), Marvel Masterworks: The X-Men #7 (2008), Essential Classic X-Men #3 (2009), X-Men : l'intégrale #1972-1975 (2012), X-Men: Children of the Atom #[5] (2019), X-Men Epic Collection #4 (2019)
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