Apocalypse's History
Apocalypse, known to others by his birth name "En Sabah Nur", was born in 8000 B.C. (claiming to have been worshiped by several ancient civilizations over his many lives, being called Elohim, Shen, and Ra, among other names), and is the firstborn of the mutant race, as he rules the world in Akkaba of prehistoric Egypt. According to Moira, wherever Apocalypse was, he always had four primary followers that he would bestow powers to, and wherever he ruled, it would eventually end in a cataclysm or an apocalypse of some sort. Throughout his reign, he had helped grow and eventually destroy many cities and civilizations before recorded history. Due to this, he started to believe himself to be a god; he thought that he was untouchable, and able to kill at a whim.
A young Apocalypse is first seen.
In prehistoric Egypt, a young En Sabah Nur is seen in using his powers to construct a pyramid while a vast crowd of people bow before him, chanting his name while his Horsemen look on.
Apocalypse begins transferring his consciousness.
While performing a transferal of his essence into a new mutant's body, one with instantaneous healing, his worshipers betray him and set forth the destruction of his pyramid. The Four Horsemen ensure Apocalypse still survives the ordeal even as the monument is collapsed, killing the followers while keeping En Sabah Nur entombed for millennia.
In the original timeline, Apocalypse remains dormant in his tomb. It is unknown if a modern cult developed around him, or is it certain if the Sentinels detected him or not.
Following the 1973 incidents that revealed mutantkind to the wider world, a group of Egyptians started the Cult of En Sabah Nur (or Ashir En Sabah Nur, according to Moira MacTaggert) and discovered where his resting place lied in Cairo. As Moira investigated them in 1983, she saw En Sabah Nur awaken at the ruins, killing the cultists.
En Sabah Nur decides to explore the modern day world, and while roaming Cairo, he sees street thief Ororo Munroe use her weather control powers to steal food. The shopkeepers go to threaten Ororo, before being interrupted by the intervention of Apocalypse. After miscommunication due to En Sabah Nur speaking outdated dialects, he eventually kills the men chasing Ororo by using sand to punch through the sides of their necks and literally melting the last into a wall.
Ororo takes En Sabah Nur to her house. Once he sees a television, touching it enables Apocalypse's powers to connect to all broadcasts in the world, making him learn modern languages and how mankind evolved the previous millennia. Believing that without his presence, humanity has grown weaker, he decides to destroy it in order to rebuild society from his point of view. He enhances Ororo's powers to turn her into the first of the new Horsemen.
Apocalypse and Storm then go to Berlin seeking Caliban, a mutant broker who knows the location of other Homo superior. Caliban refuses to concede information without getting paid and draws a gun on En Sabah Nur, who proceeds to use his powers to disintegrate it. Caliban's enforcer Psylocke then extends a sword and her psi-katana upon Apocalypse to protect her boss. Impressed, En Sabah Nur goes on to enhance Psylocke and turn her into a Horseman, and she replies by taking her to a powerful mutant. Angel, a former cage fighter who went into drunk depression after injuring his wings fighting Nightcrawler, becomes the third Horseman as Apocalypse replaces his wings with metal ones, renaming him "Archangel", "my Angel of Death".
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Apocalypse vows to destroy and rebuild the entire world.
After recruiting the trio, Apocalypse arrives together with them to a steel plant factory in Poland, where Erik Lehnsherr, also known as "Magneto", wants to kill his former co-workers for causing the death of his wife and daughter. Apocalypse kills the workers by fusing them to the ground, and teleports with Magneto to Auschwitz Concentration Camp, where Erik had seen his powers awaken 40 years prior. After some encouragement from En Sabah Nur, who tells Erik that Earth's magnetic field and ground metals can be exploited by Magneto's powers, Erik proceeds to destroy the ruins, finally giving him some closure, and promptly agrees to join forces with the ancient mutant (who further enhances Erik's already immense mutant powers), becoming his fourth and final Horseman of the Apocalypse, Apocalypse proclaiming that "everything they've built will fall".
As Apocalypse gathers his Four Horsemen and gives them special armor, Erik is contacted telepathically by Charles Xavier through Cerebro. En Sabah Nur notices the communication and uses his powers to take over Xavier's mind, and by extension Cerebro. Apocalypse forces military around the world to launch Earth's entire nuclear arsenal into space so it cannot be used against him. After Havok destroys Cerebro with his powers, Apocalypse and the horsemen teleport to the X-Mansion to kidnap Xavier. Havok's attempt at attacking Apocalypse ends hitting a generator and causes a massive explosion that destroys the mansion, with everyone inside except for Havok only surviving due to Quicksilver's intervention.
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Apocalypse destroys almost all of the city of Cairo, killing thousands.
Xavier is brought by En Sabah Nur to Cairo and forced to broadcast a threatening message to all the human race on the behalf of Apocalypse. Without En Sabah Nur knowing, Xavier also revealed his location in a hidden telepathic message to his student Jean Grey. En Sabah Nur destroyed most of Cairo to rebuild his pyramid, and ordered Magneto to stand outside it using his powers to control Earth's magnetic poles, causing widespread destruction across the planet and mass casualties. Meanwhile, inside the pyramid En Sabah Nur would transfer his consciousness to Xavier's body, as the telepath's powers would allow him to "be everywhere, be everyone".
Apocalypse strangles Mystique.
The X-Men arrive during the process, and Nightcrawler interrupts the transferal by teleporting Xavier out of the pyramid, much to Apocalypse's frustration, but not before Professor X loses his hair. As Apocalypse steps outside the pyramid, he witnesses Angel's death, calling him useless, before being repeatedly punched in the face by Quicksilver, who uses his super speed to not be noticed; however, En Sabah Nur is uninjured and soon adapts, trapping one of the speedster's feet to the ground, before breaking Peter's arm and leg. As Psylocke comes closer, he requests for her to execute Peter. Instead she strikes En Sabah Nur on the neck, and seeing it is not his Horseman, he proceeds to attack and strangle the mutant, revealed as a disguised Mystique.
Apocalypse battles all of the X-Men at the same time.
He orders Xavier to reveal his location, and the telepath goes on to attack Apocalypse at the Astral Plane. Although Xavier is able to overpower him at first, enough so that Apocalypse releases his grip on Mystique, En Sabah Nur quickly gains controls and finds Xavier's hideout. However, his attempt at getting there is interrupted by Magneto, who, seeing the errors of his ways and refusing to let his former friends die, switches sides. While the X-Men fight Apocalypse, Jean ventures into the astral plane and learns from Xavier that Apocalypse is physically weakened after centuries in the same body. Jean and Magneto join forces and dismantle Apocalypse's armor, with Jean tapping into the Phoenix Force.
Once the Phoenix Force was unleashed, En Sabah Nur screamed in immense pain as his frail true form is exposed, Magneto pierces him with a tremendous torrent of high-speed metal projectiles, Cyclops fires his laser beam. Realizing he is outmatched, and in immense pain, En Sabah Nur attempts to teleport away; however, Storm, shocked by her leader's harsh words towards Angel following his death and his brutality towards Mystique and Quicksilver, also switches sides and uses lightning to prevent him from leaving. As a dying En Sabah Nur looks up at the Phoenix Force, he proclaims that "all is revealed" to Jean Grey. He then finally accepts his death as his fate, after which Phoenix incinerates him into dust, finally ending the threat for good.
