Rise of Apocalypse The being who would later be called Apocalypse is born with the mutant X-gene thousands of years ago in Akkaba, a settlement in ancient
Egypt. Because of his grey skin and blue lips, his people abandon him as an infant. He is rescued by Baal of the Sandstormers, who sees the child's potential power and will to survive. Baal names him En Sabah Nur, which Marvel translates as "The First One". The Sandstormers live by the credo of
survival of the fittest, believing that only those who are strong enough to survive hardship and direct conflict are worthy of life. It is also revealed during the Apocalypse Wars that, as a young boy, En Sabah Nur is very generous and selfless, to the chagrin of Baal. A time-displaced
Evan Sabahnur and
Beast try to save En Sabah Nur, but he allows himself to be captured to help them escape. Around this time, the time-traveller
Kang the Conqueror arrives in Egypt and assumes the identity of Pharaoh
Rama-Tut. Knowing who En Sabah Nur is fated to become and where he is, Rama-Tut sends his General
Ozymandias and an army to destroy the Sandstormers and find the young Apocalypse. En Sabah Nur and Baal are injured and seek refuge in a cave. Before he dies, Baal reveals advanced alien technology hidden in the cave, left behind by the deity-like aliens known as
Celestials. Vowing revenge on Rama-Tut, En Sabah Nur enters the Pharaoh's city posing as a slave and draws the romantic attention of Ozymandias's sister, Nephri. On seeing the mutant's true appearance, Nephri rejects him and turns to her brother for protection. The heartbroken En Sabah Nur's rage causes his mutant abilities to fully emerge. Rampaging, he renames himself Apocalypse. Rama-Tut flees and En Sabah Nur uses the Celestial technology to transform his former tormentor Ozymandias into a blind clairvoyant made of living stone, now enslaved to Apocalypse. As the years pass, Apocalypse finds he no longer aged. It is revealed in the series
S.H.I.E.L.D. that Apocalypse, at some point in the days of ancient Egypt, joined forces with the Brotherhood of the Shield to fend off a
Brood invasion. Also present were
Imhotep and a man who was either the moon god
Khonshu or his first
Moon Knight avatar/champion.
Early history As the millennia pass, Apocalypse travels around Earth, convincing civilizations that he is a
deity (inspiring different myths as a result) and manipulating them into fighting wars. He justifies that this encourages "growth, judgment, and destruction". Apocalypse's progeny become
Clan Akkaba. Apocalypse encounters the near-immortal human offshoot race known as
Eternals, primarily
Ikaris and
Sersi, who refer to him as their "Ancient Nemesis". At different points, Apocalypse uses his Celestial technology to enter periods of
suspended animation, leaving Akkaba and Ozymandias to act in his stead. In AD 1013, Apocalypse seeks to destroy the
Asgardian Thor, who he knows will cause him trouble in the future, according to information obtained from Rama-Tut, yet the plans are foiled by
Odin. In the 12th century, Apocalypse encounters Sersi again while awakening latent mutant powers in a crusader named Bennet du Paris, also known as
Exodus. In 1459, Apocalypse defeats
Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) in Romania, who later becomes
Dracula. In 1859, Apocalypse encounters British scientist Nathaniel Essex and learns more about the nature of mutants. Apocalypse uses his Celestial technology to transform Essex into the superhuman being
Mister Sinister. He then coerces Sinister and the
Hellfire Club into aiding his plans for global conquest, but Sinister concludes that these plans are madness and betrays Apocalypse, forcing him back into hibernation. In 1897, Count Dracula attacks Clan Akkaba in revenge for his defeat at Apocalypse's hands, forcing Clan Akkaba to revive their master from suspended animation. Apocalypse defeats the vampire again, this time with help from
Abraham Van Helsing. Eventually, Apocalypse enters hibernation again, expecting to remain so for possibly two centuries, by which point mutants should be more common on Earth.
Modern era After many years of suspended animation, Apocalypse awakens nearly a century earlier than planned due to the arrival of the time-traveling mutant
Cable. Apocalypse decides that Earth is ready for further examination and testing. He grants superhuman powers to the terrorist
Moses Magnum, who then tests the X-Men and the
Avengers. Apocalypse later briefly employs the
Alliance of Evil to capture the mutant Michael Nowlan, who can boost the power of other mutants. This plan brings Apocalypse into direct conflict with the first incarnation of
X-Factor, when the team consisted of the original X-Men. Apocalypse then recruits mutants to serve as his personal guard, known as the
Four Horsemen. Among them is
Warren Worthington III (Angel), whom Apocalypse has corrupted and turned into a cyborg called Death. Warren regains his identity and helps his friends defeat Apocalypse, adopting the new codename Archangel. Apocalypse escapes with his new recruit,
Caliban, while X-Factor then takes his Celestial spaceship as a base. During
The Evolutionary War, the
High Evolutionary plans to rid Earth of those he feels are preventing evolution. Believing this disrupts the natural order and his own plans, Apocalypse battles the High Evolutionary.
Sins of the Futures Apocalypse learns of Sinister's intention to create an adversary powerful enough to destroy him: Nathan Summers, the son of
Scott Summers and
Madelyne Pryor. Apocalypse, viewing him as a threat and realizing that Nathan's energy is the very energy that awoke him all those months earlier, sends his newly formed group, the Riders of the Storm, to abduct Nathan. Although Apocalypse is severely defeated, the young Nathan is infected with a
techno-organic virus and is sent to the future with a woman named Askani to be cured. In the future, Apocalypse has conquered Earth and ruled until the 39th century. By this time, Apocalypse's body had grown feeble: he becomes aware of the young Nathan's presence in this time, but only succeeds in kidnapping a clone of the child which Askani created. Apocalypse plans to transfer his consciousness and power into the clone's stronger body, but is killed in combat with the real Nathan. Nathan grows up to become the warrior
Cable (while his clone grows up to become the mutant terrorist
Stryfe) and travels back to the past to prevent Apocalypse's future domination of the planet. In the present, Apocalypse is prematurely awoken from his regeneration chamber by his Riders (now calling themselves the
Dark Riders), who inform their master that his Horsemen have kidnapped
Cyclops and
Jean Grey, supposedly under his instructions (in actuality, Mister Sinister, who was posing as Apocalypse). When attempting to rejuvenate himself again, Apocalypse is nearly killed by Stryfe, who had arrived in the past to take revenge on Apocalypse. After a battle on the Moon with his former servants, the Dark Riders (who had joined Stryfe), Apocalypse is left for dead by Archangel. The Dark Riders' new leader,
Genesis (the adopted son of Cable, who had traveled to the present to ensure Apocalypse's rise and exact revenge on his father), plans to resurrect Apocalypse by sacrificing the lives of the people in villages neighboring Akkaba. During this time,
Wolverine is held captive by Genesis, who attempts to restore Wolverine's lost
adamantium skeleton and turn him into a Horseman as a gift for Apocalypse. Wolverine breaks free and kills Genesis along with nearly all of the Dark Riders. Genesis had built a
sarcophagus with Apocalypse's likeness, which is empty since Apocalypse had already revived.
Further schemes After a long healing slumber, Apocalypse, fully restored, awakens with Ozymandias at his side and quickly learns of the present danger:
Onslaught. He observes the conflict between the psionic entity and Earth's heroes with
Uatu, who suggests to Apocalypse a course of action: an alliance with the one who hated him the most, Cable. Apocalypse surmises that Onslaught will be most vulnerable through the
astral plane and that he needs Cable for transportation to this realm. Once on the astral plane, Apocalypse removes the captive
Franklin Richards, greatly weakening Onslaught. The plan succeeds, but is interrupted by the
Invisible Woman, who had invisibly accompanied the pair, having suspected Apocalypse's motive in wanting to actually kill her son. However, the reprieve in battle gave Onslaught the time to escape, prolonging the conflict. Following the events of the
Onslaught saga, the
Hulk and his human alter ego, Bruce Banner, are split into two separate entities: Hulk now draws upon energy derived from Franklin Richards'
pocket universe. Apocalypse recruits the Hulk to become his Horseman,
War, with intentions of using the Hulk's nexus-energy to overcome the
Celestials. To test this newest recruit, Apocalypse sets War against the New World Order, a shadow cabinet organization that intends to conquer the planet. The New World Order in turn sets the
Juggernaut and the
Absorbing Man against War, but both are easily defeated. Hulk comes to his senses after injuring his friend,
Rick Jones. Despite this apparent setback, the incident is still a victory for Apocalypse as it was a successful testing of newly understood Celestial technology. Apocalypse activates the self-destruct mechanism on the sword of War, which the New World Order had obtained, destroying their headquarters. The Hellfire Club later awakens Apocalypse's long-hidden Harbinger from its deep sleep: originally a normal man, whom Apocalypse in the 19th century once left to
incubate for 100 years. Apocalypse releases his Horseman (Caliban) and his scribe Ozymandias from his possession, to fend for themselves, if they were to survive the coming events. Cable with the
Avengers battles the Harbinger, but are unable to stop it. Apocalypse then appears, activating a bomb inside the Harbinger intended to destroy all of New York, but Cable manages to prevent this disaster. Intending to start an all-out war between the humans and the subterranean-dwelling
Deviants as part of his plan to test the strong, Apocalypse sets off
nuclear warheads at
Lemuria, causing the Deviants to further mutate. Apocalypse launches an attack at
San Francisco, using a mentally controlled Deviant,
Karkas, now a gigantic monster, that the Eternals are forced to battle. Apocalypse is confronted by his centuries-old foe, Ikaris, who now is a
Prime Eternal. Although Apocalypse defeats Ikaris, the Eternal still succeeds in destroying his ship and thwarting his plan. Various mutants, all listed in the prophecy, are abducted by Apocalypse's Horsemen including a faction of the Skrulls. The Twelve legend was in fact a ruse, orchestrated by Apocalypse himself: once the Twelve are assembled, Apocalypse intended to use them to transform himself into a deity-like entity beyond the
Celestials. It is revealed at the end of this story arc that Apocalypse's physical form has been burned out due to the vast amount of energies he has under his control, forcing him to wear a bio-armor (like his future counterpart) and now plans to use
Nate Grey as a host body for him to move his energy and consciousness into. The X-Men confront Apocalypse as he is close to merging with Nate, but are unable to stop him. Cyclops pushes Nate Grey out of the way, merging with Apocalypse instead. While the merge is successful, Apocalypse's aim for unlimited power is not and he attempts to complete the transformation by warping reality into various scenarios. Apocalypse hoped to lure the Twelve into empowering him with their energy, but eventually, the mutants realize their true predicament and Apocalypse teleports away. An amnesiac and powerless cyborg Cyclops regains control of the merged form, but Apocalypse begins to re-emerge. Jean and Cable are alerted to his location in Egypt, where Jean in the end manages to free Cyclops by telepathically tearing out Apocalypse's essence from her husband's body, rendering Apocalypse in an incorporeal
astral form, which Cable apparently destroys using his .
2000s In the aftermath of the 2005 "
Decimation" storyline, in which most of the mutants lost their powers, Apocalypse was revealed to be alive and well. The techno-organic virus, with which he long ago infected Cable, was revealed to be the means by which Apocalypse's spirit reconstituted itself. With only a drop of his blood into a vat of organs and blood, the virus rewrote the genetic code of the material within to form a body for Apocalypse. Apocalypse awakes from a slumber in a tomb in Akkaba, recalling: Across the world—helpless mutants slaughtered. Pogroms. Horror. ...Something has woken me from my slumber. Once, a sudden surge in worldwide mutant power stirred me from a similar sleep. Now—a plummet in global mutant capacity—has opened my eyes. Apocalypse finds himself on a planet with its mutant population reduced to a fraction of what it had been, only a few hundred remaining out of the millions who populated earth prior to his demise at Cable's hands. Reappearing inside a
Sphinx-shaped ship, Apocalypse confronts the X-Men with his newly assembled cadre of Horsemen on the front lawn of the
X-Mansion. The Horseman Famine uses his powers to cause an intense feeling of hunger and weakness in the mutants and humans on the institute grounds. Apocalypse offers the mutants an elixir: his own blood, provided they join his side. Bent on becoming the new
messiah for mutant-kind, Apocalypse approaches the Earth leaders at the
United Nations in New York and issues an
ultimatum: humanity would destroy ninety percent of its own population, putting man and mutant on level ground in anticipation of the final conflict when the worthy alone would survive – or Apocalypse would unleash his meta-plague on the planet and obliterate all humanity. In the end, Apocalypse's horsemen are lost, Ozymandias betrays him, and he is forced to retreat by a combined assault of the X-Men and the Avengers. Ultimately, it is discovered that the Celestials lent their technology to Apocalypse, requiring as payment greater sufferings later. He attempts to embrace death as an escape from his lifelong pact, only to find himself instantly resurrected and hearing a voice: "We cannot let you die. Not yet. It is time Apocalypse… it is time".
2010s Apocalypse's followers, Clan Akkaba, manage to bring about Apocalypse's return, albeit in the form of a child they will indoctrinate. Upon learning of Apocalypse's return, X-Force seeks to kill him, but when they discover he is a child,
Psylocke decides to protect him, believing they can rehabilitate him and train him as a force for good. To the shock of the rest of the team,
Fantomex fatally shoots the child. In a 2011 storyline, as X-Force succeed in stopping the Deathloks inside
the World, the home of all Weapon projects, it is revealed that
Ultimaton, guardian of the World, is keeping watch over an incubating young boy labeled En Sabah Nur, aged 847 days. During the 2012 storyline "
Dark Angel Saga", it is revealed that Apocalypse had fathered a
son with
Autumn Rolfson and she kept this a secret from Apocalypse out of fear of what he would do to him. At the end of the storyline, it is revealed that Fantomex creates a clone Apocalypse which he helps raise to the age of a teenager in an artificial world, where the clone knows Fantomex as the kindly "Uncle Cluster" who taught him to use his abilities for good. The boy, code-named Genesis, helps X-force fight Archangel and when the battle is over, Fantomex enrolls him in the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.
Evan Sabahnur Apocalypse Wars During the "Apocalypse Wars" storyline, the Extraordinary X-Men travel thousands of years into Earth's future in order to rescue
Colossus and his team of young mutants after they were investigating the sudden appearance of six hundred new mutant signatures in Tokyo. Arriving into Earth's future, the X-Men found themselves in a destroyed New York City and soon discovered that at some point Apocalypse had risen and what remained of Earth after his ascension became the Omega World, a huge structure composed of bubble worlds. The ones who survived the Great Trials lived on Omega World under Apocalypse's rule as he functioned as the Omega World's heart, keeping it alive, while his Horsemen functioned as its antibodies, cleansing the structure of anything that could harm their master. Omega World crumbled as the result of Apocalypse being fatally wounded by
Nightcrawler.
Storm was forced to take Apocalypse back to the present with them so they could undo the transformation of Colossus, who was turned into a Horseman, however, before he could restore Colossus back to normal, Apocalypse instead teleported him away, sending him to Clan Akkaba. It is left unknown if this Apocalypse was actually a future version of Evan or Apocalypse himself using a new host body. Apocalypse was kept at X-Haven, inside a cell specially built to contain him by
Forge, and later after again retrieving Colossus, Forge tried to find a way to cure him by reverse engineering Apocalypse's powers but failed. During the World-Eater's attack on Limbo, Nightcrawler agreed to free Apocalypse in exchange for a cure for his friend. After returning Colossus to his normal self, Nightcrawler indeed released Apocalypse from his prison, however what Apocalypse did not expect was that Nightcrawler would throw him into the vortex created by the World-Eater to consume Limbo, seemingly killing him in the process.
Degeneration Apocalypse is later revealed to be back on Earth, no details about what the Celestials did to him were revealed, and is shown performing experiments to create an immortal vessel which he can then use as a host for his vast power and consciousness by utilizing a modified ancient Celestial technology known as the Finch, which can repair genetic decay. His efforts are not in vain, as he begins to impose his own consciousness onto a human test subject, the fourth attempt, lending it his own regenerative powers to withstand the assault. However, the test subject resists the process, causing a massive chain reaction that bathes Apocalypse and the subject in a wave of energy. Apocalypse's mind and body are torn apart. He finds his mind wandering to that of his birth before his being is fused, mixed, and exploded along with this human form. Once the wave subsides, Apocalypse finds himself in a strange new land that he deduces was the result of the explosion within the Celestial machine that must have caused a dimensional rift which threw him into another dimension. He also discovers that his body has changed as well. Not only does he discover that he can bleed, something that should be impossible with his injury-resistant mutant physiology, but after a fight against a resident of the twisted dimension, which he was able to defeat, Apocalypse learns that his body is actively refusing physiological mutation. Needing to breathe air for the first time in centuries, he comes to a shocking truth as he watches his hand turn from its usual mutated appearance back to a human form: he's becoming human. After degenerating into an ape form, he is taken out by his previous human test subjects who, unlike him, have ascended in form after being empowered by Apocalypse's own DNA. He and other apes are tortured with the Finch, which was recovered and repaired by the human test subjects. When test subject D experiments on Apocalypse, he uses the last of his mutant power to try to transfer his mind into D and is finally able to possess him, which restores Apocalypse to his former glory. Apocalypse was soon afterward captured by some mysterious force - later to be revealed as X-Man, Nate Grey - and was being held captive along with
Kitty Pryde and anti-mutant senator Ashton Allen.
Dawn of X During "
Dawn of X", Apocalypse accepts Xavier's invitation to enter
Krakoa and even is among the
Quiet Council, a group of fourteen powerful and experienced mutants who serve as the island's lawgivers. He takes up learning magic and acts as an advisor to the new Excalibur team. Mutants who lost their powers after M-Day can regain them by dying and undergoing Krakoan resurrection. In order to prevent mass suicide by depowered mutants in order to regain their powers, the Quiet Council of Krakoa devised the Crucible, a trial by combat where a depowered mutant must endure grueling physical and psychological attacks from Apocalypse before they can die and be resurrected.
Fall of X Following
Orchis' attack during the "
Fall of X", Apocalypse returns to Krakoa and finds it dying due to a lack of mutant energy.
Wrongslide and several other mutants offer themselves up as sacrifices, with Apocalypse killing them to replenish Krakoa's energy. When Krakoa's Atlantean half returns from the
White Hot Room and merges with its Pacific half, Apocalypse arrives on Krakoa and takes down Exodus, who objected to Krakoa leaving for the White Hot Room. Upon learning that Krakoa has no need for Apocalypse's ways anymore, Apocalypse goes on the attack and fights the X-Men until Jean talks him down. Upon seeing through the eyes of the mutants on Krakoa, Apocalypse leaves for
Arakko. Meeting up with Orc, Apocalypse states that it is time for him to find an heir to his legacy. Apocalypse eventually selects
Doug Ramsey as his heir, with Doug taking the new name Revelation. ==Powers and abilities==