I remember from the X-Men cartoon that he was a big baddie, but I don’t recall whether he was a mutant or something else, and I don’t think I ever knew what his actual powers are. What is he, and what is his backstory? (spoilers please)
He’s supposed to be the very first Mutant. He was my favorite X-Men/x-Factor enemy for a very long time, but the past couple of storylines involving him really sucked (especially that “Twelve” storyline, or whatever it was where they tried to pass him off as a guy in a suit? WTF?).
Anyway, his big powers were the ability to manipulate his body on a molecular level. This allowed him to pretty much exist with the need for internal organs (there’s a scene in one of his first appearances where, to avoid an optic blast, he simply openned a big hole in himself), change his size, increase his strength and density, and pretty much beat anyone to a pulp and sustain massive amounts of damage. He’s even incredibly powerful in a mental/psychic sense, although he has no psychic powers of his own. Eventually, they gave him teh ability to discharge energy as well. He’s also immortal, but they then started to pass that off as another one of his little skills…he never truly dies, and by going threw a little procedure, can possess another person and be reborn.
At some point in time, he came accross an alien space ship that helped boost his powers, and he used it to manipulate his body even further. For a good long while, he was probably the strongest mutant out there, plotting secretely to wage a war to anihilate humans and leave only the strongest mutants around. Very Darwinian. True believer in the “Only the strong survive” mentality. Again, he was really an awesome character, and the best X-Villain, until recent writters screwed him as bad as they screwed everyone else.
Apocalypse was born En Sabah Nur in ancient Egypt and was one of the very first mutants (he was meant to be the first mutant, but they screwed it up by having Selene hail from the Hyborian Age). He’s insanely powerful and damn near immortal, and wants to take over the world and do Generally Bad Things. In addition to this, he found this floating orb left behind by aliens that imparted addition powers to him.
When a Victorian-era scientist named Nathaniel Essex attempted suicide, Apocalypse rescued him and transformed him into Mr. Sinister. As Sinister, Essex has made life hell for the X-Men with his strange obsession with the Summereses’ DNA. On his own, Poccy has taken over the world in two alternate timelines (AoA and Days of Future Past) and transformed Wolverine and Angel into his “horsemen” (horsemen of the apocalypse, get it? Death, Famine, Plague… oh nevermind).
There’s a cool site all about Marvel villains(including Poccy and Sinny).
.:Nichol:.
I sort of fell out of reading comics when he was on the scene. who were the original 4 horsemen? i remember archangel, who else? and didn’t he form a new group of them after they were defeated?
The original 4 Horsemen (from early X-Factor issues, circa 1988) were Death (aka Angel, who had seemingly died some time before), Famine (originally a young girl who had the mutant power to disintegrate organic matter, esp. food), Pestillence (originally the Morlock Plague, who could give others a disease by touching them), and War (originally a paralyzed mutant who had been able to cause explosions by bringing his hands together). AFAIK, all of them except Angel were created for this storyline and first showed up in early X-Factor issues, although maybe Plague/Pestilence had appeared in the X-men previously with other Morlocks.
–Cliffy
Poccy didn’t just get his mitts on any old alien tech - he found a Celestial ship crashed to Earth. Celestials are the it power in the Marvel Universe, far beyond everything but Galactus. And it has been hinted that enough Celestials together can take the Big G.
The Celestials are so powerful that a recent what-if story suggested that
They genetically manipulated early man to their own ends, creating all of our superheroes, in order to protect their offspring inside the earth. Humans basically became antibodies to protect the Celestial egg at Earth’s core. The birth would’ve destroyed the planet, until Galactus came and consumed the infant Celestial and killed three of them in the process. The story is called Earth X.
Didn’t the High Evolutionary go insane because he witnessed the birth of a Celestial?
I seem to remember reading in the ‘Eternals’ that the Cs did engineer Eternals, Morlocks, and Humans. The former two had inborn powers, while the latter had the seeds within them to evolve greater powers (i.e. mutants).
I don’t see how they could have “engineered” the Morlocks. They are just mutants who have cut themselves off from society because they look freaky.
BTW: The Celestials are really powerful, but they aren’t the end-all be-all of existance. There are several beings who could wipe them all out with a thought.
The Celestials could not have created all of the superheroes, because darn near half of them are “enhanced” humans in some way, with powers steming from technology. But they may well have pushed early man to existance, along with the potential to gain superpowers.
Well, Angel was dead, Archangel was created solely for that storyline as well. And Plague did appear in previous X-Men comics. Apocolypse showed up during the Mutant Massacre and rescued her. Well, she pretty much took care of herself for the most part, but the Big A still got to slap someone around before teleporting the two of them out of there.
I hate to hyjack this, but speaking of Big A, however did the AoA storyarc actually end? I had most of the books except the ones near the end.
The Earth X story is not canon. But its version of the Celestials were responsible for the jump from ape to homo-sapiens. They arrived here that early. The story also theorizes that they added in man’s drive, be it Reed Richards need for scientific discovery or Tony Stark’s need for more women. Essentially, the Celestials bred in humans the desire to save the world, since it was their egg humans were saving.
Major plot point ahead for Earth X/ Universe X -
Another thing also bred into humans was a gene that gave everyone powers once exposed to something called the Terrigen Mists(this is what created the Inhumans). This is a natural state of Celestial gestation, to give the ‘antibodies’ more power to protect the egg at its weakest state - just before birth. One human was also bred to have innate mental control over everyone he/she chooses, in order to keep the super-powered populace from destroying the world before the birth.
Yes, Gambit’s gambit was successful and they jump-started the universe. This was a good thing. magneto’s all out attack on Apocalypse had barely succeeded, and he managed to shred the BIG A like he was hamburger. However, the last Human Strongholds had no choice, knowing Big A was about to attack them, but to lauch a massive nuclear strike. So most of the heroes and villains died.
The problem with the Celestial’s plan is that it would require them to have basically given humans more tpower than they themselves had. There are several people with super-powers much in excess of the Celestial’s power, including cosmic rewriting at whim.
sorry. my bad…i meant Deviants. the enemies of the Eternals, now mostly dead/imprisoned. The Eternals were close analogues of the greek Gods/heroes, and some of them went to space and became known as the Titans (of which Thanos was one).
Interesting point on Apocalypse’s name. I talked to an Arabic-speaking friend of mine, who said En Sabah Nur seems to be a grammatically incorrect attempt at saying “the morning is the light”. Like so:
En = The
Sabah = Morning
Nur = Light
According to her, the correct phrase would be El Sabah Nur, but hey, at least the writers tried. She found it odd that Poccy would be named Sabah Nur, saying those are typically girls names. I found it odd that Apocalypse, who was born thousands of years ago in Egypt, doesn’t have a name resembling Coptic instead of Arabic.
.:Nichol:.
Maybe it’s OLD coptic. You know, like old English really doesn’t sound a damn like modern English.
I don’t remember much about the storyline, because I really hated it despite my love for the character, but in the story The Rise of Apocolypse, he’s picked up by a group of bandits as a child and adopted, so they could have been Arabs living in Egypt, and hence the non-coptic name.
I believe that it has recently been revealed that the Dark Beast, from the AoA universe, was the one that engineered the Morlocks, and that, for some reason, is why Sinister wanted them killed off.
His power comes from the fact that he is the ultimate plot device.
No, that’s Franklin Richards.
Bit of a hijack here, but wouldn’t a new movie with Apocalypse be pretty cool?
And one with Omega Red as well? Just release it against the newest Bond movie.
I don’t think that Big A would work in a real-life movie: they’d design some costume that would have shades of Victor Freeze in Batman & Robin. I can already see how terrible it would be. Big A works in the comic books because he’s barely even human looking and has a philosophy that’s radically different than most people can relate to. I don’t see how Hollywood screenwriters could NOT screw that up.