Did you know that these 'fathers' spent all of time on a suicidal quest to destroy themselves? That they left everyone that loved them behind? That he left me behind? We Reeds learned that lesson very well. I actually went looking for my Nathaniel once and found him picking his own corpse clean--taking from the other him he had just killed. The old fool had become such an animal that he started calling himself the Beast... 
Nathaniel Richards of Earth-12498 was one of the last two Nathaniel Richards left during the Great Hunt. His death completed the Great Hunt, leaving Nathaniel Richards of Earth-616 the winner.[2] He was the father of one of the founders of the Interdimensional Council of Reeds.[1]
History
In 1956, when Earth-616's Nathaniel Richards was working for the Brotherhood of the Shield, he got into an accident with Nikola Tesla.[3] It gave him and his multiversal counterparts (including Nathaniel Richards of Earth-12498) the ability to travel through time and possibly immortality; the explosion flung them all 600,000 years into the future.[4]
However, the accident that gave him this power was followed by an injunction from the being known as Immortus: only one Nathaniel Richards could be allowed to survive with these powers. All the empowered Nathaniels must now fight until only one remains in a fight to the death known as the Great Hunt.
What no one knew at that the time was the Nathaniel of Earth-12498 was a homicidal lunatic. He began swiftly eliminating his counterparts, taking their equipment and using it to kill more and more counterparts. The other Nathaniels began to speak of him as "The Beast."[2]
At one point, he met his son, though the circumstances are unknown.[1]
Eventually, only two of the Nathaniels were left - himself and Nathaniel Richards of Earth-616. Gathering allies in the form of his college-age son and some friends, Nathaniel-616 came to The Beast's stronghold, Collapsed Chronopolis, a city existing across all of time at once.
The Beast was killed by a young Victor von Doom.[2]Attributes
Powers
- Immortality
- Interdimensional Travel
Notes
- The insignia on Nathaniel's jumpsuit is strikingly similar to the insignia on the jumpsuits of the Children of Tomorrow.