To celebrate X-Men 97 finally returning this week, I thought now would be the best time to take a look back at the second season's big bad previous appearances. Images appear courtesy of Marvel Animation Age and without further ado, here we go!
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Making his debut in X-Factor #5 Apocalypse would become one of the bigger X-Men villains over the coming years. As writer Chris Claremont was using Magneto as his principle foil over in the Uncanny X-Men book, writer Louise Simonson realised their book needed a new ‘big bad’ which lead to the eventual creation of Apocalypse.
His origins would eventually be revealed as En Saban Hur, the first mutant. He can be traced back to early Egyptian times and he is seen as an ongoing threat in the distant future. As with most X-Men characters, his comic book history is that convoluted and confusing even monthly reader would no doubt struggle to remember all of it, so let’s just skip right passed that and begin with his animation history.
He would make his debut in 1992’s X-Men: The Animated Series. Marvel had spent the better part of a decade hearing ‘no’ from every network they pitched to for an animated X-Men show. Margaret Loesch was the head of Marvel Productions at this time and despite her popularity in the industry, she was told time and time again that superheroes did not make for good Saturday morning content. This seemed to change following the massive success of Warner’s Batman movie and perhaps just as critical, Loesch herself became the head of the newly minted Fox Kids Network. Creating a new children’s block, she put her job on the line with her boss Jamie Kellnar and X-Men was finally commissioned in February 92 for a fall 92 release.
Realizing they had an incredible amount of work to do and very little time in which to do it, Eric Lewald was hired as the showrunner/story editor and along with Producers Will Meugniot and Larry Houston, was assigned to create a show that was essentially to be the best of the then 30 year history of The X-Men in 13 episodes. With a meagre budget due to Marvel’s dire financial situation in the 1990s, X-Men was Marvel’s first attempt at animation in nearly a decade and they desperately wanted to get it right. While Houston and Meugniot were massive fans of the comic book and were involved in the previous failed attempt at animating The X-Men in the Pryde of The X-Men pilot, Lewald confessed little knowledge of the team and trade paperbacks for back issues were not readily available in 1992 but he, along with his wife Julia, Mark Edward Evans and Michael Edan learned what they needed to learn and in an all but unheard of move at the time, crafted a serialised story for these 13 episodes. Realising that The X-Men were not traditional superheroes and a villain of the week affair was ill suited to the team, the writers crafted a season which would introduce our team and the vast majority of the bigger villains with The Sentinels, Magneto, Sabertooth, The Juggernaut and the point of this piece, Apocalypse all making their debut in this season.
I personally had no idea who any of these characters were at the time. I was a fan of Spider-Man, Batman and Superman as an 8 year old, but my earliest X-Men memory is watching Saturday morning show Live And Kicking here in England on September 24, 1994. Brief snippets were shown, the main one being the shot of Wolverine slashing his claws in front of the fence from the opening credits. From that moment on I knew I had to see this show… I never missed an episode from then on. Asking me for my opinion on who/what I was looking forward to seeing from X-Men lore was a pointless question in 1994 as this show was my introduction to all of them bar Magneto, who I had seen in a single episode of the 70’s The New Fantastic Four cartoon.
Apocalypse would make his debut in The Cure, which sees the team learn that a scientist in Muir Island has developed a cure for the mutant condition. With the team solidly against the removal of their powers, Rogue, longing for the ability to touch another person flies to Scotland herself to obtain said cure. With this being The X-Men, there are more than a few interested parties seeking the cure, including new guest star Angel who funded Dr Adler’s research to remove his wings and returning guest star Cable who wants Adler dead for his hand in developing a collar that suppressed mutant abilities that the Genoshan government then used to enslave mutants. Despite having a full roster of characters and multiple villains to introduce, X-Men always found room for a mutant guest star.
Apocalypse is very much the villain behind the scenes in part one as we eventually learn the cure is nothing of the sort, it is used as a device to turn mutants into slaves for Apocalypse. He reveals to Mystique that he wishes to cleanse the world of the weak and replace it with a new, stronger species. He has no time for humans or mutants.
Rogue eventually decides against the cure after realising her mutant powers are needed by the world after she rescues Jean from certain death following a multi mutant showdown with Cable, Pyro and Avalanche. As she leaves she meets Angel, who agrees to undergo the cure treatment, eventually becoming Archangel, Apocaylpse’s newest Horseman.
The story continues in Come The Apocalypse in which Apocaylpse reveals himself to the world and The X-Men meet him head on at Stonehenge. The episode is probably best remembered for that shot of Rogue but in reality is still an interesting tale. Apocalypse flees after his Horsemen are defeated when Rogue essentially drains the evil from Archangel, leaving the story wide open for his return.
Having recently rewatched the episodes, I found them to be very enjoyable. (I was surprised at looking back on my reviews on Marvel Animation Age how none plussed I seem about some of these episodes… I can probably only account that to how much of a difficult job it was creating that website!) With older eyes one can be more appreciative of budgetary concerns leading to some horrible animation and ugly, ugly backgrounds. It is amazing how much better X-Men ’97 looks even with such similar designs based on the advancements of colouring and animation. Oddly, comparing Batman: The Animated Series to it’s newer cousin in Batman: Caped Crusader and the original is superior in every visual contest.
Apocalypse’s powers are well displayed here and the shape shifting/sizing makes him appear as a threat… I do not know the reason why they went for a light purple/blue colour scheme over his much more intimidating dark blue/black from the comics, but it doesn’t work. The facial design is fairly menacing but the colours here simply doesn’t. The show rarely deviated from the look of the book so I am unsure why the purple/blue colour scheme was selected but light purple does for make for a scary figure.
Thankfully, the voice acting more than makes up for the visual. John Colicos was cast here and he is utterly fantastic. His dialogue is utterly megalomaniacal, and it completely fits… other actors could’ve faltered here with the grandiose of the role or sounded utterly silly but shooting for the moon in such a ludicrous fashion was the right call here. It could’ve come across as absurd but doesn’t. Colicos is still my favourite voice for Apocalypse, he sadly passed away in 2000.
Apocalypse would return numerous times over the course of the original 76 episodes. Season two would see feature him in the very clever Time Fugitives episodes in which both Cable and Bishop return. Cable and Archangel are both in ongoing feuds with Apocalypse throughout the show. The story actually opens in 3099 AD which sees Apocalypse still fighting Cable before his timeline looks to be wiped out by a butterfly effect of Bishop’s time travel adventure in season one’s Days of Future Past. Cable is poised with the impossible choice of having to let Apocalypse destroy another past timeline in order to save his own.
In the present day we see an unnamed scientist working with The Friends of Humanity, a mutant hating political party are spreading anti mutant hysteria via the form of a new virus which Grayton Greed screams to anyone who will listen that the virus was caused/carried by mutants. Bishop returns from the future to stop the spread of the virus as he and Forge deduce that saving President Kelly has still not stopped the war between humans and mutants that wipes out most of both species. Bishops attempts to stop the virus are ultimately futile as he and The X-Men are killed while fighting Apocalypse at the end of part one, causing Cable to intervene.
Apocalypse himself isn’t featured too much in either of this excellent two parter, he is once again behind the scenes. Part two essentially retells much of the same story as part one but from Cable’s point of view. A clever idea which no doubt helped the budget, with the central character Cable being torn between stopping Bishop but helping Apocalypse.
Again, looking at my review on MAA… I was very harsh towards these episodes, watching them for this retrospective gave me a newfound appreciation. Cable managed to save both time lines by infecting Wolverine with the virus, whose healing ability developed the antibodies needed to suppress the now defunct virus. Clever stuff. I admit, in my youth to not enjoying the majority of time travel tales but they have grown on me now in my old age.
Apocalypse’s feud with Archangel would continue in Obsession, as we see Worthington consumed with his inability to defeat Apocalypse. Blindsided by vengeance he spends his fortune researching how to finally kill him. It eventually transpires Apocalypse has duped him (shapeshifting again, a sneaky one this Apocalypse!) in an effort to draw Archangel out to finally be rid of him. Apocalypse flees once again here, after his own sentient ship betrays him. Another strong Apocalypse appearance… he is not meant to be used as a villain of the week and the show managed to keep him an intimidating threat by sparse usage, rather than having him sent off to jail and return again in a few episodes. It was also joyus to see a rare Beast spotlight episode.
The show was originally supposed to conclude at episode 65, which was a fairly high number then. (It would be decades before any Marvel animated show reached that number, sadly, most of them aren’t even worth watching.) Lewald wanted to go out with a bang, as he explains in his book, the ridicously recommended Previously On X-Men: The Making of An Animated Series.
“Big story, trouble project. While some fans love this 4-parter, perhaps for the every mutant and the kitchen sink approach, non stop action and betrayals of betrayals, I don’t think we did our best on this one. Since I’m responsible for the stories, this ones on me.
Some background… this was supposed to be the series finale. As such, Sidney Iwanter requested that we “go out with a bang. A real battle royale” Our aim was to not only to touch base with all the major players of the past seasons, but to tie up several stories with a resulting change in The X-Men. We were going to lose Storm (Death or Departure), Jean and Scott (just married, off to have a family), Jubilee and Xavier. Pyschlocke and a few others (Bishop, Shard, Archangel) were going to join and take their places. We built up our usual personal stories to fit this plan – personal scenes with Storm, Jean and Scott, Pysclocke etc – to set up the big-deal changing of the guard in the last scene. As always we had laced these emotional stories throughout the overarching mega plot involving multiple villains. Well, most of the way through building this 88 minute story, in the middle of the script stage, word came down from Fox: They wanted 5 more episodes after these. This would not be the season finale: the composition of The X-Men would not change. Oh, and there’s no time to set it aside and come up with something new. Adjust it.
So, out went all our characters scene with Storm, Jean, Scott and Psylocke – and it shows in the final product. The complex Apocalypse plot to obliterate existence through an attack on time itself (The Axis) allowed us to use everybody, but without the human stories we’d built, it became more and more scenes of similar fighting, revealtions and betrayals. This plot and action heavy type of storytelling is what we’d sworn not to do, but it’s what we found ourselves with after the forced shift. Ideally I should’ve found ways to reinvent the story with new human/character scenes and a new emotional progression, but either through lack of skill or time (a couple of days?) I feel I came up short.”
The story definitely feels like a lot of it was thrown together to fit all the characters in but the most interesting part is the opening in the distant future in which Cable tries to destroy Apocalypse resting chamber at it’s point of origin to end Apocalypse’s immortality. Upon finally having Cable at his mercy after seemingly decades of feuding, Cable remarks that the fight against evil is not over.
Cable: Go on! Take your best shot! You’ll never win!
Apocalypse: Never win, insect?
Cable: Go on! Take your best shot! You’ll never win!
Cable: The world won't stomach your evil forever!
Apocalypse: Evil? I am not malevolent. I simply AM! Which soon will be more than I can say for you. But then again, I am given pause to wonder. Is it possible you are correct, mutant? I have been battling your kind for thousands of years. I ought to have triumphed long ago. But what if, like tortured Sisyphus, I cannot win? Ever. What a cruel joke. Am I doomed to struggle with such filth, until the end of time? Perhaps my new found power can show me the answer.
Pondering if he can ever triumph in the enternal battle of good and evil, Apocalypse travels to the Axis of Time in hopes of learning if he can ever truly win. His plan eventually climaxes to kidnapping all physics throughout the universe. Again, the two middle parts are essentially plot fodder of finding reasons for all the major villains including Magneto, Sinster, Sabertooth and Mystique to team up while giving The X-Men and a host of guest stars, Cable, Bishop, Shard, Pysclocke and Angel something to do. It’s perfectly watchable, but there are much better stories to be found in the show.
Apocaylpse is defeated when Cable, Magneto and Wolverine free all of the kidnapped physics and banish Apocalypse from the Axis where he has lived for hundreds of years. With his Lazarus chamber now destroyed and moving back into time, Apocalypse had no means of regeneration and simply ceased to exist… which sort of makes sense, as long as one doesn’t think too hard. I could see him being in a position where eventually he will age and die, but straight away? Probably not.
The story serves it’s purpose as a massive Royal Rumble for mutant affairs, but would’ve been a weak finale in my mind.
Oddly enough, it’s not even the final Apoclypse story. Those final episodes are admittedly a weird bunch. Rather than wrapping up long running stories from it’s previously introduced characters, they feature the debt of Cannonball, an (admittedly excellent) origin episode for Mr Sinister, a silly, kiddy fairytale and curiously, the return of Apocalypse. We see the Apocalypse cameo in which he saves Fabian Cortez in Sanctuary pay off as Cortez searches for a new vessel in which Apocalypse’s spirit (apparently the after effect of Beyond Good and Evil?). It’s a bloody weird episode which is best memorable for it’s ending… after failing to find a suitable vessel, Cortez himself is essentially tricked into taking Apocalypse’s place in the avoid and Apocalypse gains his new body in Cortez. Annoyingly enough, this brief, brief visual of Apocalypse is the best he ever looked in the show.
And that was that. The team does not know of his return and he is not mentioned in Graduation Day, the shows finale. Overall I think they did an excellent job with Apocalypse. It certainly made me a fan of the character and through his appearances he was never defeated enough to be diluted as the shows big bad. A worthy translation in my opinion. I don’t think they’ve topped it yet.
Next: Teenage kicks.
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Making his debut in X-Factor #5 Apocalypse would become one of the bigger X-Men villains over the coming years. As writer Chris Claremont was using Magneto as his principle foil over in the Uncanny X-Men book, writer Louise Simonson realised their book needed a new ‘big bad’ which lead to the eventual creation of Apocalypse.
His origins would eventually be revealed as En Saban Hur, the first mutant. He can be traced back to early Egyptian times and he is seen as an ongoing threat in the distant future. As with most X-Men characters, his comic book history is that convoluted and confusing even monthly reader would no doubt struggle to remember all of it, so let’s just skip right passed that and begin with his animation history.
He would make his debut in 1992’s X-Men: The Animated Series. Marvel had spent the better part of a decade hearing ‘no’ from every network they pitched to for an animated X-Men show. Margaret Loesch was the head of Marvel Productions at this time and despite her popularity in the industry, she was told time and time again that superheroes did not make for good Saturday morning content. This seemed to change following the massive success of Warner’s Batman movie and perhaps just as critical, Loesch herself became the head of the newly minted Fox Kids Network. Creating a new children’s block, she put her job on the line with her boss Jamie Kellnar and X-Men was finally commissioned in February 92 for a fall 92 release.
Realizing they had an incredible amount of work to do and very little time in which to do it, Eric Lewald was hired as the showrunner/story editor and along with Producers Will Meugniot and Larry Houston, was assigned to create a show that was essentially to be the best of the then 30 year history of The X-Men in 13 episodes. With a meagre budget due to Marvel’s dire financial situation in the 1990s, X-Men was Marvel’s first attempt at animation in nearly a decade and they desperately wanted to get it right. While Houston and Meugniot were massive fans of the comic book and were involved in the previous failed attempt at animating The X-Men in the Pryde of The X-Men pilot, Lewald confessed little knowledge of the team and trade paperbacks for back issues were not readily available in 1992 but he, along with his wife Julia, Mark Edward Evans and Michael Edan learned what they needed to learn and in an all but unheard of move at the time, crafted a serialised story for these 13 episodes. Realising that The X-Men were not traditional superheroes and a villain of the week affair was ill suited to the team, the writers crafted a season which would introduce our team and the vast majority of the bigger villains with The Sentinels, Magneto, Sabertooth, The Juggernaut and the point of this piece, Apocalypse all making their debut in this season.
I personally had no idea who any of these characters were at the time. I was a fan of Spider-Man, Batman and Superman as an 8 year old, but my earliest X-Men memory is watching Saturday morning show Live And Kicking here in England on September 24, 1994. Brief snippets were shown, the main one being the shot of Wolverine slashing his claws in front of the fence from the opening credits. From that moment on I knew I had to see this show… I never missed an episode from then on. Asking me for my opinion on who/what I was looking forward to seeing from X-Men lore was a pointless question in 1994 as this show was my introduction to all of them bar Magneto, who I had seen in a single episode of the 70’s The New Fantastic Four cartoon.
Apocalypse would make his debut in The Cure, which sees the team learn that a scientist in Muir Island has developed a cure for the mutant condition. With the team solidly against the removal of their powers, Rogue, longing for the ability to touch another person flies to Scotland herself to obtain said cure. With this being The X-Men, there are more than a few interested parties seeking the cure, including new guest star Angel who funded Dr Adler’s research to remove his wings and returning guest star Cable who wants Adler dead for his hand in developing a collar that suppressed mutant abilities that the Genoshan government then used to enslave mutants. Despite having a full roster of characters and multiple villains to introduce, X-Men always found room for a mutant guest star.
Apocalypse is very much the villain behind the scenes in part one as we eventually learn the cure is nothing of the sort, it is used as a device to turn mutants into slaves for Apocalypse. He reveals to Mystique that he wishes to cleanse the world of the weak and replace it with a new, stronger species. He has no time for humans or mutants.
Rogue eventually decides against the cure after realising her mutant powers are needed by the world after she rescues Jean from certain death following a multi mutant showdown with Cable, Pyro and Avalanche. As she leaves she meets Angel, who agrees to undergo the cure treatment, eventually becoming Archangel, Apocaylpse’s newest Horseman.
The story continues in Come The Apocalypse in which Apocaylpse reveals himself to the world and The X-Men meet him head on at Stonehenge. The episode is probably best remembered for that shot of Rogue but in reality is still an interesting tale. Apocalypse flees after his Horsemen are defeated when Rogue essentially drains the evil from Archangel, leaving the story wide open for his return.
Having recently rewatched the episodes, I found them to be very enjoyable. (I was surprised at looking back on my reviews on Marvel Animation Age how none plussed I seem about some of these episodes… I can probably only account that to how much of a difficult job it was creating that website!) With older eyes one can be more appreciative of budgetary concerns leading to some horrible animation and ugly, ugly backgrounds. It is amazing how much better X-Men ’97 looks even with such similar designs based on the advancements of colouring and animation. Oddly, comparing Batman: The Animated Series to it’s newer cousin in Batman: Caped Crusader and the original is superior in every visual contest.
Apocalypse’s powers are well displayed here and the shape shifting/sizing makes him appear as a threat… I do not know the reason why they went for a light purple/blue colour scheme over his much more intimidating dark blue/black from the comics, but it doesn’t work. The facial design is fairly menacing but the colours here simply doesn’t. The show rarely deviated from the look of the book so I am unsure why the purple/blue colour scheme was selected but light purple does for make for a scary figure.
Thankfully, the voice acting more than makes up for the visual. John Colicos was cast here and he is utterly fantastic. His dialogue is utterly megalomaniacal, and it completely fits… other actors could’ve faltered here with the grandiose of the role or sounded utterly silly but shooting for the moon in such a ludicrous fashion was the right call here. It could’ve come across as absurd but doesn’t. Colicos is still my favourite voice for Apocalypse, he sadly passed away in 2000.
Apocalypse would return numerous times over the course of the original 76 episodes. Season two would see feature him in the very clever Time Fugitives episodes in which both Cable and Bishop return. Cable and Archangel are both in ongoing feuds with Apocalypse throughout the show. The story actually opens in 3099 AD which sees Apocalypse still fighting Cable before his timeline looks to be wiped out by a butterfly effect of Bishop’s time travel adventure in season one’s Days of Future Past. Cable is poised with the impossible choice of having to let Apocalypse destroy another past timeline in order to save his own.
In the present day we see an unnamed scientist working with The Friends of Humanity, a mutant hating political party are spreading anti mutant hysteria via the form of a new virus which Grayton Greed screams to anyone who will listen that the virus was caused/carried by mutants. Bishop returns from the future to stop the spread of the virus as he and Forge deduce that saving President Kelly has still not stopped the war between humans and mutants that wipes out most of both species. Bishops attempts to stop the virus are ultimately futile as he and The X-Men are killed while fighting Apocalypse at the end of part one, causing Cable to intervene.
Apocalypse himself isn’t featured too much in either of this excellent two parter, he is once again behind the scenes. Part two essentially retells much of the same story as part one but from Cable’s point of view. A clever idea which no doubt helped the budget, with the central character Cable being torn between stopping Bishop but helping Apocalypse.
Again, looking at my review on MAA… I was very harsh towards these episodes, watching them for this retrospective gave me a newfound appreciation. Cable managed to save both time lines by infecting Wolverine with the virus, whose healing ability developed the antibodies needed to suppress the now defunct virus. Clever stuff. I admit, in my youth to not enjoying the majority of time travel tales but they have grown on me now in my old age.
Apocalypse’s feud with Archangel would continue in Obsession, as we see Worthington consumed with his inability to defeat Apocalypse. Blindsided by vengeance he spends his fortune researching how to finally kill him. It eventually transpires Apocalypse has duped him (shapeshifting again, a sneaky one this Apocalypse!) in an effort to draw Archangel out to finally be rid of him. Apocalypse flees once again here, after his own sentient ship betrays him. Another strong Apocalypse appearance… he is not meant to be used as a villain of the week and the show managed to keep him an intimidating threat by sparse usage, rather than having him sent off to jail and return again in a few episodes. It was also joyus to see a rare Beast spotlight episode.
The show was originally supposed to conclude at episode 65, which was a fairly high number then. (It would be decades before any Marvel animated show reached that number, sadly, most of them aren’t even worth watching.) Lewald wanted to go out with a bang, as he explains in his book, the ridicously recommended Previously On X-Men: The Making of An Animated Series.
“Big story, trouble project. While some fans love this 4-parter, perhaps for the every mutant and the kitchen sink approach, non stop action and betrayals of betrayals, I don’t think we did our best on this one. Since I’m responsible for the stories, this ones on me.
Some background… this was supposed to be the series finale. As such, Sidney Iwanter requested that we “go out with a bang. A real battle royale” Our aim was to not only to touch base with all the major players of the past seasons, but to tie up several stories with a resulting change in The X-Men. We were going to lose Storm (Death or Departure), Jean and Scott (just married, off to have a family), Jubilee and Xavier. Pyschlocke and a few others (Bishop, Shard, Archangel) were going to join and take their places. We built up our usual personal stories to fit this plan – personal scenes with Storm, Jean and Scott, Pysclocke etc – to set up the big-deal changing of the guard in the last scene. As always we had laced these emotional stories throughout the overarching mega plot involving multiple villains. Well, most of the way through building this 88 minute story, in the middle of the script stage, word came down from Fox: They wanted 5 more episodes after these. This would not be the season finale: the composition of The X-Men would not change. Oh, and there’s no time to set it aside and come up with something new. Adjust it.
So, out went all our characters scene with Storm, Jean, Scott and Psylocke – and it shows in the final product. The complex Apocalypse plot to obliterate existence through an attack on time itself (The Axis) allowed us to use everybody, but without the human stories we’d built, it became more and more scenes of similar fighting, revealtions and betrayals. This plot and action heavy type of storytelling is what we’d sworn not to do, but it’s what we found ourselves with after the forced shift. Ideally I should’ve found ways to reinvent the story with new human/character scenes and a new emotional progression, but either through lack of skill or time (a couple of days?) I feel I came up short.”
The story definitely feels like a lot of it was thrown together to fit all the characters in but the most interesting part is the opening in the distant future in which Cable tries to destroy Apocalypse resting chamber at it’s point of origin to end Apocalypse’s immortality. Upon finally having Cable at his mercy after seemingly decades of feuding, Cable remarks that the fight against evil is not over.
Cable: Go on! Take your best shot! You’ll never win!
Apocalypse: Never win, insect?
Cable: Go on! Take your best shot! You’ll never win!
Cable: The world won't stomach your evil forever!
Apocalypse: Evil? I am not malevolent. I simply AM! Which soon will be more than I can say for you. But then again, I am given pause to wonder. Is it possible you are correct, mutant? I have been battling your kind for thousands of years. I ought to have triumphed long ago. But what if, like tortured Sisyphus, I cannot win? Ever. What a cruel joke. Am I doomed to struggle with such filth, until the end of time? Perhaps my new found power can show me the answer.
Pondering if he can ever triumph in the enternal battle of good and evil, Apocalypse travels to the Axis of Time in hopes of learning if he can ever truly win. His plan eventually climaxes to kidnapping all physics throughout the universe. Again, the two middle parts are essentially plot fodder of finding reasons for all the major villains including Magneto, Sinster, Sabertooth and Mystique to team up while giving The X-Men and a host of guest stars, Cable, Bishop, Shard, Pysclocke and Angel something to do. It’s perfectly watchable, but there are much better stories to be found in the show.
Apocaylpse is defeated when Cable, Magneto and Wolverine free all of the kidnapped physics and banish Apocalypse from the Axis where he has lived for hundreds of years. With his Lazarus chamber now destroyed and moving back into time, Apocalypse had no means of regeneration and simply ceased to exist… which sort of makes sense, as long as one doesn’t think too hard. I could see him being in a position where eventually he will age and die, but straight away? Probably not.
The story serves it’s purpose as a massive Royal Rumble for mutant affairs, but would’ve been a weak finale in my mind.
Oddly enough, it’s not even the final Apoclypse story. Those final episodes are admittedly a weird bunch. Rather than wrapping up long running stories from it’s previously introduced characters, they feature the debt of Cannonball, an (admittedly excellent) origin episode for Mr Sinister, a silly, kiddy fairytale and curiously, the return of Apocalypse. We see the Apocalypse cameo in which he saves Fabian Cortez in Sanctuary pay off as Cortez searches for a new vessel in which Apocalypse’s spirit (apparently the after effect of Beyond Good and Evil?). It’s a bloody weird episode which is best memorable for it’s ending… after failing to find a suitable vessel, Cortez himself is essentially tricked into taking Apocalypse’s place in the avoid and Apocalypse gains his new body in Cortez. Annoyingly enough, this brief, brief visual of Apocalypse is the best he ever looked in the show.
And that was that. The team does not know of his return and he is not mentioned in Graduation Day, the shows finale. Overall I think they did an excellent job with Apocalypse. It certainly made me a fan of the character and through his appearances he was never defeated enough to be diluted as the shows big bad. A worthy translation in my opinion. I don’t think they’ve topped it yet.
Next: Teenage kicks.
