The Age of Apocalypse was a comic book storyline. It was a major event in the Marvel Universe, mostly affecting mutant titles like the X-Men. It garnered much critical acclaim for Marvel Comics.

Storyline

Legion (David Haller), an extremely powerful psionic mutant and the son of Professor Charles Xavier and Israeli diplomat Gabrielle Haller, traveled back in time with the intention of killing Magneto, who was once Xavier's best friend but had become the greatest nemesis of the X-Men. However, when Legion was on the point of killing Magneto, Xavier interspaced himself between the two of them, and Legion killed Xavier instead. Consequently, Legion ceased to exist, since his father, Xavier, died before Legion was fathered. Because of Xavier's sacrifice, Magneto came to believe in his dead friend's dream of peaceful co-existence between humans and mutants. However, Apocalypse, a mutant alive for centuries who believed in "survival of the fittest," monitored the fight between Legion, Magneto, and Xavier and began his genetic war ten years before he did so in the real timeline. Thus, by the time that Magneto founded the X-Men in this timeline, Apocalypse had already established himself as a major power. Apocalypse would come to rule all of North America; New York City was renamed Apocalypse Island and the Statue of Liberty was replaced by a statue of Apocalypse. He also initiated a worldwide genocidal campaign of "cullings" in which millions of humans died; the surviving humans lived on in the parts of Europe and Africa which weren't devastated by nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the disturbance of the timeline has led to a crystallization wave of the M'Kraan Crystal that is heading toward Earth...

Characters and affiliations

Mutant heroes

• X-Men: led by Magneto out of the ruined Xavier mansion, which never became a school in this universe; divided into two teams:
  • Astonishing X-Men (Uncanny X-Men in normal continuity): Rogue (leader), Morph (Changeling in normal continuity), Blink, Sunfire, Sabretooth, Wild Child
  • Amazing X-Men (X-Men in normal continuity): Quicksilver (leader), Iceman, Exodus, Dazzler, Storm, Banshee
  • former X-Men include Jean Grey, Weapon X (Wolverine in normal continuity), and Wanda Maximoff (deceased; Scarlet Witch in normal continuity)
  • X-Men allies: Bishop, Charles Lehnsherr (infant son of Magneto and Rogue), and Nanny , Charles' robotic babysitter
• X-Ternals (X-Force in normal continuity): Gambit (leader), Lila Cheney , Jubilee, Strong Guy, Sunspot
• X-Calibre (Excalibur in normal continuity): Nightcrawler, Mystique, Destiny, Switchback (no counterpart in normal continuity)
• Generation Next (Generation X in normal continuity): Shadowcat and Colossus (leaders), Husk, Chamber, Skin , Know-It-All (M in normal continuity), Mondo , Vincente
• Forge's band of outcasts: X-Man (Cable in normal continuity), Toad, Soaron (Sauron in normal continuity), Brute (Sunder in normal continuity), Mastermind, Sonique (Siryn in normal continuity)
• Weapon X (Wolverine in normal continuity) and his companion Jean Grey

Other anti-Apocalypse forces

• The "X-Universe" heroes: Ben Grimm and Suzie Storm (Thing and Invisible Woman in normal continuity), Bruce Banner (The Incredible Hulk in normal continuity), Matthew Murdock (Daredevil in normal continuity), Tony Stark (Iron Man in normal continuity), Donald Blake (Thor in normal continuity), Gwen Stacy, Victor Von Doom (Doctor Doom in normal continuity)
• Human High Council: Emma Frost, Bolivar Trask , Moira McTaggert -Trask, Brian Braddock (Captain Britain in normal continuity), Mariko Yashida
  • Gateway and Carol Danvers (the Council's allies/agents)
  • Sentinels

Apocalypse's agents

• Four Horsemen of Apocalypse: Holocaust/Nemesis, Abyss, Mikhail Rasputin (brother of Colossus), Sinister
  • Former Horsemen: Death (Maximus the Mad in normal continuity), Candra , Gideon
• Mutant Elite Force: Cyclops, Havok, Beast (known later as "Dark Beast" to delinate him from "our" Beast), Northstar, Aurora, the Bedlam Brothers , Sam Guthrie (Cannonball in normal continuity), Elisabeth Guthrie
• Madri (duplicates of Jamie Madrox, who is the Multiple Man in normal continuity)
• The Brotherhood of Chaos (Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in normal continuity): Arclight, Box (Madison Jeffries), Vanessa Carlysle (Copycat in normal continuity), Spyne , Wendigo
• Domino and her companions, Grizzly and Caliban
• Pale Riders (Danielle Moonstar, Damask (the Black Queen of London's Hellfire Club in normal continuity), Dead Man Wade (Deadpool in normal continuity)
• Shadow King
• Rictor
• Wolverine (not the same as Wolverine in normal continuity, who is called Weapon X here)
• Sugar Man
• Quietus
• Rex , Apocalypse's majordomo

Neutrals

• Avalon (the Savage Land in normal continuity): inhabitants include Cain (Juggernaut in normal continuity) and Douglas Ramsey (Cypher in normal continuity)
• Heaven: A nightclub run by Angel whose employees include Karma and Scarlett MacKenzie
• John Proudstar (Thunderbird in normal continuity)
• Polaris (a prisoner in the pens where Sinister held mutants)
• Rossovich (Omega Red in normal continuity)

The only major mutant character missing in the Age of Apocalypse is Psylocke, but she appears, with virtually no alteration from her mainstream counterpart, in Age of Apocalypse #4.

At the end of the Age of Apocalypse story arc, Bishop traveled backwards in time to prevent the Age of Apocalypse from ever occurring. This occurred simultaneously with a nuclear exchange between the Human High Council and Apocalypse. Most characters were killed by the nukes, but the fate of the remaining survivors is unclear: presumably, they were erased from existence. However, some characters escaped the Age of Apocalypse into the Earth 616 continuity. Nate Grey (an alternate version of Cable), Holocaust (one of Apocalypse's horsemen), Beast, Sugar Man, and Blink surivived. Nate Grey joined the X-Men for several years but later "died" by disseminating into every life on the planet, and Holocaust remains at large. Beast and Sugar Man, however, were sent 20 years into Earth 616's past. This allowed for major retconning that explained that Beast had a hand in the creation of the Morlocks and why Mr. Sinister initiated the Mutant Massacre. Sugar Man gave genetic technology secrets to the Genegineer of Genosha, allowing this small nation to become powerful by enslaving mutants.

Blink escaped into the multiverse itself: she joined and leads the reality-hopping team of heros known as the Exiles. Her counterpart on Earth 616 has been dead since the Phalanx Covenant story arc.

After the Age of Apocalypse

In 2005, Marvel published an Age of Apocalypse one-shot and mini-series to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the popular event.

The one-shot features stories set before the events of the crossover, similar in focus to the Chronicles of the Age of Apocalypse issues: the one-shot contains the story of how Colossus and Shadowcat left the X-Men to train Generation Next, how Sabretooth met Wild Child, the first appearance of the Silver Samurai, and that the world survived the Human High Council's nuclear attack.

See Age of Apocalypse (limited series) for details of the mini-series.

External links

• Age of Apocalypse FAQ
• Age of Apocalypse guide
• Age of Apocalypse role-playing game
• Age of Apocalypse summary
• "It Only Hurts When I Sing"