'My Hero Academia' Introduces Own Take On X-Men's Beast

To say My Hero Academia has a strong tie to comics is an understatement. Creator Kohei Horikoshi is a vetted Marvel lover, and it looks like his interest in X-Men just became real relevant for manga readers.

Over in Japan, the latest issue of My Hero Academia has gone live, and it was a big one. Not only did the update reveal show Shinso planned to join the Hero Department at U.A Academy, but it revealed Class 1-B had a rather special hero on their team.

With the two classes pitted together, Shinso joined up with Kaminari and Kirishima to take on Class 1-B. The group was surprised after their opponents came for them from behind, and it was Jurota Shishida who went in for the grab.

His quirk? Well, X-Men fans will be happy to know it is called Beast.

According to the manga, Jurota has a similar quirk to Beast from X-Men, but he is able to control it at will more easily.

"He can transform into a beast, drastically augmenting his physique, muscle strength, hearing, sense of smell, and vision! However, while he's transformed, he also get an overwhelming high!"

While Hank McCoy gets testy at times while transformed, it seems Jurota gets rather giddy. The high schooler is liable to spout off at the mouth about fighting, but he is able to keep his wits. Still, Shinso managed to overcome the Beast with a bit of fancy tech. The hero-in-training used a speech modulator to prompt Beast into answering a question, allowing Shinso to brainwash the towering student without him even knowing.

My Hero Academia was created by Kohei Horikoshi and has been running in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump since July 2014. The story follows Izuku Midoriya, who lives in a world where everyone has super powers but he was born without them. Dreaming to become a superhero anyway, he's eventually scouted by the world's best hero All Might and enrolls in a school for professional heroes. The series has been collected into 19 volumes so far, and has been licensed by Viz Media for an English language release since 2015.

Do you see the similarity here? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!