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Ah ! That's a great bit of added context - thank you ! My earliest Marvels were the early 1970's UK black-and-white reprints, which were fairly haphazard in terms of what order stories appeared in ; the first look I had of the furry Beast was ( I think ) as a head-shot in a 1970-something Marvel calendar that was printed onto the back covers of some of the issues, but there was no explanation for the change. Younger me was only used to the original version of the Beast, but probably went with it as one of the many things I didn't yet know about Marvel, I guess.

That was around the same time as Dracula and Planet of the Apes were getting popular over here, so the change as part of the same horror influence now makes perfect sense.

Some while after, I caught up with the stories where Hank became furry, so found out the fictional reasons for the change - I'd not realised the real-world influences, though.

Who'd have thunk ? Still things to learn, even all these years later ... thanks, Mr Byrne !

Steven, in the "Amazing Adventures" story, Hank McCoy takes a serum he created while working for the Brand Corporation. The serum was a chemical that caused mutation which he took to disguise himself to stop a villain. He did this without knowing what effect it would have on someone who was already a mutant! He gained greater super strength, and was even bullet-proof! After a few issues, as noted above, his color changed (from grey to black -- and later was colored and referred to as being blue), and his super strength was scaled back, and he was no longer bullet-proof.

Obviously, in the alternate universe, McCoy never left the team and worked for the Brand Corporation, so no grey/black/blue furry Beast.

JB: "...Beast became more beastly during Marvel’s horror phase, mostly (tho not entirely) inspired by the success of THE EXORCIST. This brought us WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, TOMB OF DRACULA, MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN, and the black and white books..."

I also noticed the deluge of horror comics at both Marvel and DC, and other publishers, after the Comics Code lightened up its restrictions in the early 1970s.