I’ve just been re-watching some X-Men TAS episodes, and just saw the one where Archangel is trying to find Apocalypse’s weakness… in it, he finds many ancient documents depicting the big A, going right back to ancient egypt/babylon/before times.
Question 1: Where did A come from? the cartoons don’t ever reveal it - has it been shown in a comic sometime?
Question 2: If he’s so damn powerful, why does he keep using secondary means -virus, horsemen, etc to meet his ends?
Question 3: If A wishes to destroy the world, why didn’t he do it 10,000 years ago, when there were no mutants around to stop him?
“Apocalypse was born nearly 5,000 years ago, in ancient Egypt. Ugly and malformed, he was abandoned to the harsh desert. But Baal, leader of a roving band of Sandstormers, recognized the child’s potential power. Baal raised the youngster as his own; he named him En Sabah Nur, “The First One.” As Nur grew, he surpassed his fellow tribesmen in intelligence and strength. Hated and feared for his inhuman appearance and strange abilities, he hardened his heart. Nur held fast to the tribe’s defining principle: Only the fittest, tested by hardship, would and should survive.*”
Well, it’s a comic book. Pretty much the same reason The Human Torch never really roasted anybody and The Punisher shot some cable thingy at Spider-Man instead of bullets: the evil characters can’t be too evil or they would be unstoppable and the comic would be boring.
Well, maybe he didn’t want to destroy the world 10,000 years ago. Also, I don’t think he was as powerful back then. Mutants tend to hone their skills more and more as they get older.
*From Marvel.com (Click to read Apocalypse’s biography.)
I haven’t read much about Appie since the first few years of X-Factor, but does he really want to destroy the world? I thought he merely wanted to be the crucible by which humanity (and particularly mutants) would be stripped of the unfit.
Apocalypse uses other means such as horsemen or Mr. Sinister because it tests how fit individuals are. If someone survives multiple attacks, they are thus more fit. Apocalypse doesn’t want to destroy the world but make it so that only the most fit, survive. These can be humans as well as mutants. Not quite the Highlander, “there can be only one” approach but more like only 100 or some low number.
Apocalypse was fused with alien technology for several thousand years so that where mutant powers and alien technology begin and end is blurred. The Big A. found a crashed alien ship a went inside and was forgotten about. That is why, until recently, he was more myth than reality. This was seen in a story involving Exodus no less.
Is it just me or do too many aliens crash into our planet. We need to put up a WARNING: PLANET AHEAD sign or something.