Apocalypse (comics)

Apocalypse is a comic book supervillain in Marvel Comics' Marvel Universe. An immortal mutant bonded with extra-terrestrial technology, he is a powerful foe of the X-Men. He often is accompanied by four mutant servants who are called, unsurprisingly, the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, named for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation. Apocalypse was born to the name of En Sabah Nur, and was a slave in ancient Egypt. There, he came into the attentions of the Pharaoah Rama-Tut, who was actually the time-traveller called Kang the Conqueror. En Sabah Nur was beaten for daring to rebel, and was left to die; he survived, due to the sudden emergence of his mutant gift of immortality, and came to a position of power once Rama-Tut had been forced to depart for his native time. Centuries later, En Sabah Nur discovered a starship created by the alien Celestials, and used the technology therein to gain control over the molecules of his body. Now calling himself Apocalypse, he came to believe in a philosophy that would later be erroneously referred to as Darwinism, and entered a state of suspended animation until mutants like himself were populous enough to rule the Earth. He emerged briefly in Victorian England to see if the world was ready for him, but his human agent, Mister Sinister, rebelled against him, and he was forced to re-enter his slumber. Upon re-awakening in full, Apocalypse came into conflict with the original X-Men (then organized as the superhero team X-Factor) on repeated occasions. When one of their number, the Angel, lost his wings, Apocalypse granted him an artificial pair in exchange for his servitude; Angel accepted, becoming Apocalypse's Angel of Death, but eventually he rebelled and became Archangel. Later, Apocalypse infected Cyclops's son Nathan with a "techno-organic virus" derived from the alien technology that gave him his powers; as a result, Nathan was sent to the future for a cure, where he became the time-travelling superhero known as Cable. Later still, a time travel episode resulted in a timeline in which Professor X never created the X-Men; in this timeline, the "Age of Apocalypse", Apocalypse ruled the Earth until his death at the hands of Magneto and his X-Men. When the timeline was inevitably restored, so too were all who died in that alternate universe. Apocalypse later attempted to rewrite reality by kidnapping the X-Men and their allies and tapping into their powers wholesale. The plan succeeded, but only briefly, and as an unexpected result of its failure, Apocalypse was bonded physically with the X-Man Cyclops. When the X-Men finally did free Cyclops, Apocalypse was rendered bodiless, and the X-Men took advantage of the opportunity to finally destroy him.\nCategory:SupervillainsCategory:Marvel Comics characters