Concepts in Darkpages are metaphors for the mysteries of human existence. The beast represents the dual nature of man: an animal trapped inside a cage of human civilization and its ethical codes. The conflict for the beast is the struggle between instinct and reason. The beast both admires and fears the destructive potential of the Id unfettered by the restraints of morality. Thus, the beast is apprehensive when forming close bonds, concerned that the hidden monster will bring injury or death. Throughout history, religious and philosophical doctrines have provided guidance on how to tame our impulses, by turning the other cheek or rejecting worldly pleasures. But in the end, the beast shows us that some cannot truly control or repress their savage nature. The mask of civility can only hold back the face of evil for so long.

In folklore, the beast often appears as a lycanthrope – a man who transforms into a fierce creature – or as a hybrid possessing both human and animal characteristics. Werewolves roamed the countryside, attacked

wayward travelers and then returned to unassuming lives. Centaurs and maenads, rational beings when sober, engaged in drunken orgies of sex and violence. Transformation into a beast could be symbolic too:

Norsemen donned animal pelts to trigger a berserker rage during combat. Robert Louis Stevenson introduced a man of breeding who quaffs a potion to free himself from morality (1886: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). At the end of this allegory of good and evil, the killer Hyde eventually subsumes the gentler Jekyll. In the Golden Age, a disfigured district attorney obsessed with duality turns to crime (1942: Two-Face). To the beast, criminal behavior is justified since it is society that neuters man’s natural virility.

The beast flourishes in the Silver Age, especially the motif of the quiet, rational scientist who becomes a monster: a brute fueled by rage (1962: Hulk), a rampaging reptilian (1963: Lizard) and a bat-like creature (1970: Man-Bat). These men of science may have possessed noble goals, but their experiments backfired horribly. On a certain level, the beast is an offshoot of the mad scientist, reminding us of the consequences of “playing God” or conducting unorthodox scientific research.

The Bronze Age ushers in a paradigm change. No longer a pure good/evil dichotomy, both the human and animal personalities of the beast follow a grayer moral code. Suffering from a hereditary curse, a werewolf (1971: Werewolf by Night) stalks and kills the wicked. A knight who betrayed Camelot is bound to a fiend from hell (1972: Demon). A brooding warrior (1974: Wolverine) with a shadowy past constantly wrestles with his bloodlust.

The beast devolves into an amoral killing machine in the Modern Age. The prehistoric urges of a reptilian brain dictate the actions of a voracious inhuman monster (1983: Killer Croc). Genetically engineered and conditioned by “The System”, an assassin (1992: Azrael) fails to rein in his dark side and eventually loses his sanity. A similar secret experiment develops a female clone (2003: X-23) of Wolverine in order to create an unstoppable biological weapon.