Apocalypse
Real name: En Sabah Nur
Occupation: Conqueror
Identity: The general populace of Earth is unaware of Apocalypse's
existence.
Legal status: None
Other aliases: (former) Set (not to be confused with the primeval demon
of that name or the Egyptian god Seth), Huitxilopochti, Sauru, Kali-Ma
Place of birth: Egypt
Marital status: Unrevealed, presumed unmarried at present
Known relatives: Stryfe (adopted son, deceased)
Group affiliation: Employer of Apocalypse's Horsemen, former employer of
the Alliance of Evil
Base of operations: Mobile, formerly a sentient starship created by the
Celestials
First appearance: (in shadow) X-FACTOR #5, (fully seen) X-FACTOR #6
History: Apocalypse was born nearly five thousand years ago in Egypt as
a member of the Akkaba clan. Even as an infant, he inspired fear. Ugly
and malformed, he was abandoned by the tribe to die in the harsh desert
sun.
The baby was found by a roving band of feared desert raiders known as
the Sandstormers. Most of them, too, thought the infant should die.
However, their ruthless leader, Baal, somehow recognized the potential
power in the child. He named him En Sabah Nur ("The First One") and
raised him as his own son.
As En Sabah Nur grew, he surpassed the other tribesmen in intelligence
and strength. Everyone in the tribe except for Baal hated and feared him
for his inhuman looks and great abilities. Nur did not understand their
fear, but hardened his heart against it. Moreover, he believed in the
principle that Baal and the tribe lived by, that only the fittest,
tested by hardship, would, and should, survive. On the day of his tribal
rite of passage into manhood, the seventeen-year-old En Sabah Nur killed
three armed warriors of the tribe using only his bare hands.
At this time Egypt was ruled by Pharaoh Rama-Tut. On the day of En Sabah
Nur's rite of passage, Baal explained to him that Rama-Tut was no god,
as most believed, but a man, who had arrived in a strange vessel. Years
ago the tribe had stumbled upon the time-traveler's crashed ship, taken
the injured man back to their camp, and nursed the injured and
temporarily blinded man back to health. One night he wandered away,
taking with him objects the tribesmen had brought from his vessel. Weeks
later, his sight restored, Rama-Tut returned, wielding weapons of
devastating power and leading the Egyptian army. He massacred the tribe
and enslaved the survivors. Although he tortured them, no one revealed
the timeship's location.
In actuality, Rama-Tut was a time traveler from the far future who would
later become known as Kang the Conqueror. Kang knew that Apocalypse, one
of the most powerful mutants who ever lived, and the one who was
destined to rule the wor ld, had been born in ancient Egypt. Hence,
Rama-Tut had gone back in time to find Apocalypse as a child, raise him,
and thereby become the master of the most powerful being on the planet.
On the day of his rite of passage, Baal brought the young Nur to a
sacred cave whose entrance became blocked by a cave-in, trapping them
underground. After a week of wandering without food or water, they found
the remnants of Rama-Tut's timeship within an underground Egyptian tomb.
Baal told Nur that he believed him to be a conqueror whose coming was
foretold in ancient prophecies, and that Nur was destined to overthrow
Rama-Tut. Then Baal died from lack of nourishment, and Nur, whose mutant
physiology kept him alive, vowed to take vengeance on Rama-Tut and claim
his destiny. Four weeks later he finally made his way back to the
surface.
Nur became a slave, but eventually he had a vision of the Egyptian death
god Seth, who urged him to become a conqueror. It was at this moment
that Nur first manifested his superhuman powers. Eventually, at a time
when many time-traveling super-heroes, including the Fantastic Four, the
West Coast Avengers, and Doctor Strange arrived in Rama-Tut's Egypt, the
Pharaoh finally came face to face with En Sabah Nur. Rama-Tut offered to
make him his heir if he would swear his loyalty, and then tried to kill
him when Nur refused. Nur defeated Rama-Tut's warlord Ozymandias and
Rama-Tut, who finally escaped back into the future, eventually to take
on the identity of Kang.
From then on Apocalypse plotted the conquest of the planet through
bringing about wars and conflict, in which the strong would defeat and
destroy the weak. Over the centuries he was worshipped by many
civilizations under a variety of names. Mutants, he was certain, would
one day rule the world, with him as their leader, and so he waited. Most
of what Apocalypse did during these centuries is as yet unknown.
At the time of the Crusades, Apocalypse arranged for the warrior Bennet
du Paris to activate his latent mutant powers for the first time.
Renaming him Exodus, Apocalypse made him his servant but later cast him
into a deathlike trance when Exodus rebelled against him. In 1859,
Apocalypse awoke from centuries of hibernation in an underground chamber
in London. It was then that he first met Dr. Nathaniel Essex, who
believed that through selective breeding of humans, he could bring about
the rapid evolution of superhuman mutants. Apocalypse offered to
transform Essex into a long-lived superhuman being himself to give him
the time to further his research, but at a cost: his servitude. Essex
accepted, and Apocalypse transformed him into Mister Sinister. However,
the Askani, a clan of rebels against Apocalypse two thousand years in
the future, transported Scott Summers and Jean Grey-Summers, also known
as Cyclops and Phoenix, to 1859. There they prevented Apocalypse from
assassinating Britain's Queen and Prime Minister.
Apocalypse, temporarily weakened by a virus with which Sinister had
infected him, went back to waiting for the proper moment to reemerge. It
came a century later, when in a short time the world became populated
with a new race of superhuman mutants. Apocalypse first reappeared as
the employer of the Alliance of Evil, a team of mutants who battled the
original X-Factor. X-Factor was a group comprised of the original
members of the X-Men. Subsequently, Apocalypse began recruiting a team
of mutant agents he called his Horsemen. Apocalypse rescued Warren K.
Worthington III, alias the Angel, from death and manipulated him into
serving him as the Horseman named Death. Worthington's wings had been
amputated, but Apocalypse used his advanced genetic engineering
techniques to give him new wings with metal-like feathers. Eventually,
however, Worthington forsook Apocalypse and returned to X-Factor, and
then to the X-Men.
Later, Apocalypse infected the infant son of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor,
Nathan Summers, with a techno-organic virus, having recognized that if
this child grew up he would be powerful enough to defeat him. The Askani
once again stepped in and brought the child to their own time period,
two thousand years in an alternate future. In the present day Apocalypse
continues to conspire to rule humanity. In the alternate future in which
the Askani live, Apocalypse has finally ascended to power. He became
aware of the young Nathan's presence in that time, but only succeeded in
kidnapping a clone of the child which the Askani had created. Not
knowing this second child to be a clone, Apocalypse ceased his hunt for
the real Nathan. Raised under the tutelage of Apocalypse, the clone grew
up to become the terrorist Stryfe. By this time Apocalypse had to
transfer his mind and powers into host bodies in order to stay alive.
Since his current body had grown old and feeble, Apocalypse planned to
transfer his consciousness and power into Stryfe's.
As for the real Nathan, the Askani leader Mother Askani transported
Cyclops and Phoenix to this future time. There, Summers and Grey raised
Nathan into adolescence. After so many millennia of menacing humanity,
the elderly Apocalypse finally perished in combat with the teenage
Nathan, who would grow up to become the warrior Cable.
In an alternate timeline Apocalypse succeeded in taking over America in
the twentieth century. In this alternate timeline Professor Charles
Xavier died at the hands of his own son, Legion, long before he would
have formed the X-Men. As a result, Apocalypse led mutaXavier died at
the hands of his own son, Legion, long before he would have formed the
X-Men. As a result, Apocalypse led mutantkind in conquering North
America, reducing its human population to slaves. This is the alternate
time period known as "The Age of Apocalypse." However, in this reality
as well, Apocalypse was
Height: Variable, usually 7'
Weight: Variable
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Black
Strength level: Since Apocalypse can increase his strength by drawing on
outside energy sources, his strength is potentially incalculable.
Known superhuman powers: Apocalypse is a mutant who possesses superhuman
strength which he can augment by psionically drawing on outside energy
sources. Apocalypse can alter the atomic structure of his body at will
in order to change his form. He can even increase his size by taking on
additional mass from a presumably extra-dimensional source. Through his
ability to alter his form, Apocalypse can give himself virtually any
superhuman physical power. Apocalypse's "costume" is actually part of
his body, and he can psionically alter its appearance at will. He can
levitate himself telekinetically.
Apocalypse has an extraordinarily long life span that has already lasted
thousands of years. He can survive for weeks without food or water and
can rapidly recover from injuries that would prove fatal to normal human
beings. In the future, however, his physical form will eventually grow
too aged and enfeebled to contain his vast superhuman energies. Hence,
he will transfer his consciousness and powers into a succession of host
bodies, abandoning each one when it too grows too old to contain his
power.