UNCANNY X-MEN #377: The End of the World As We Know It

The X-Men do not feel fine as they take on Apocalypse

Originally Published February 2000

We begin in the modern day version of Ancient Egypt, or as it's known to the people who live there, Egypt. Apocalypse gloats to his Pharaoh-garbed followers and Skrull allies about how after literal centuries of plotting and scheming, including using Sinister to imbue the Living Monolith with the powers of  Alex Summers just for the heck of it, all the pieces are nearly into place.

Which I guess means that, if this has been Apocalypse's big plan all along many eons in the making, all his previous skirmishes with the mutants have been, what... foreplay?

Anywhoozles, the X-Men, plus their reluctant ally and fellow Twelver Magneto, have arrived in Egypt, expecting to be lured into a trap. How surprising then, when Apocalypse plays his deadliest card... springing a trap on them.

Beast, who possesses at least one Doctorate, notes that an Earthquake localized directly under the feet of the enemies of Apocalypse is far too targeted to be a natural phenomenon. Thanks Hank.

Anyway, the Ancient Guys and the Skrulls attack with their weapons. The Egyptians (who of course are all white guys) are like "Die!!" and the Skrulls are like "Murgl Lorni!!" Which I'm sure is something very threatening; I don't read Skrull.

The Agents of Apocalypse set about grabbing for the remaining Twelvies, including Storm and Xavier, who are attacked by Skrulls pretending to be Caliban (now known by his nom de flunky Pestilence) and Famine (just Famine thanks) and the real deals, respectively.

Storm manages to evade capture, but Charles loses this particular game of tag.

Meanwhile, Magneto is distracted by an even more horrifying sight -- his clone Joseph and his mother, Astra, aka the worst person in the world. Fortunately, it's all just an illusion, but it's enough to sucker Magneto in for a pipping.

Lat this be a lesson to all of us: If you see Astra, run the other way 

With nearly all Twelve of The Twelve trapped in his weird goo bubbles, Apocalypse asks his Skull assistant to push the button that summons Bishop because Goddamnit, it's too hard to think of an organic way to get him here. Bishop is surprised to find himself here, as he was in the middle of another adventure, which we can read about in Bishop: The Last X-Man #8, or alternatively, not.

Mass confusion sets in, as Bishop hasn't been seen in a while and may be a Skrull. And speaking of mass confusion, the members of X-Force and Generation X show up looking to party.

Luckily Beasy thought ahead and brought a weed wand that reveals who is a Skrull. Unfortunately, it is not very effective outdoors, so... well, we'll just give it a shot.

Unfortunately, one person who did not get the memo that there are Skrulls about and do not trust any randomly-appearing loved ones is Polaris, who is suckered in by a false image of her long lost Alex. The Skrulls make it a twofer when they also acquire Jean tying to stop Polaris from going with Alex (Skrull or no, going anywhere with a Summers is usually a huge mistake anyway.)

Apocalypse continues to run the table, sending in War, aka Deathbird, who quarrels with her ex-lover Bishop.

Also gotten in short order are Cyclops and Storm, who fall for, you guessed it, Skrulls in disguise. Thus Apocalypse's set is complete, and with no dupes and no need to trade. He tells his soldiers to kill the rest of the X-Men, and turns his attention to the ones who really matter.

With everyone trapped in their Snowglobes of Destiny, Big 'Lypse soliloquys about the true nature of The Twelve and how they all represent this-and-that: the elements, the father, mother and son, the magnetic poles, space and time, and whatever it is the Living Monolith does. There's a certain mythological schema to it all, sure.

Ah, but wait! There's one more player to join the battlefield -- Nate Grey, aka X-Man arrives to say, "Don't forget about me, Nate Grey, aka X-Man!"

That reason? Hair and a jacket, neither of which he has anymore.

Apocalypse is like "Oh don't worry, I wouldn't have dreamed of starting this party without you, Nate Grey." Who could?

Meanwhile back at the mansion, the leftbehinds see that someone has hacked the Xavier Protocols (again! It's almost not worth having those things) from a neighboring town. Luckily, they've deprogrammed Wolverine in the pages of his solo title, and he's ready to go kick some ass.

Further Thoughts:

If you're curious how Wolverine returned to the fold, I am sorry to tell you that that information is strictly confidential and off-limits -- unless you donate literally any amount to my Ko-Fi, where I've got coverage of the relevant issues of Wolverine. Come on folks, I have given you hours upon hours of enjoyment for free over the years -- what's a couple of bucks toward prolonging the magic?

Anyway, it's the dawn of a new millennium baby and that means exploiting a random calendrical occurrence for storytelling! And who better to do that with than the Big Bad of Big Bad Big Bads, Apocalypse? It's taken 4,000 years for his time to come, and he won't wait a minute more than he has to!

For a long time now -- a long long time -- it has felt like we were on the verge of finally getting that big Apocalypse storyline. Somehow, on the fringes of the X-Men series, 'Poc was puffed up to become the ultimate final boss of the franchise. He debuted against X-Factor, then got his talons into the mess that is Cable (and even, after a fashion, Rachel Summers.) He gobbled Sinister up into his mythos. He was nearly -- but not in practice -- the impetus behind Wolverine getting adamantium the first time. And yes, he did lose ignominiously in X-Cutioner's Song but that was because he didn't get a good night's sleep before.

Apocalypse has felt like he's had a seat at the head of the table for so long that it's hard to keep in mind that he's almost never been the bad guy in X-Men. Like I said, he's done all these other things that feel like they're amounting to something, but it's always somewhere off in the future, this mythical confrontation with him. The closest he's gotten to a starring role is in the Age of Apocalypse, the eponymous crossover event in an alternate universe where he won instantly because there weren't any X-Men yet. With that asterisk in his track record, Apocalypse's dominance is a lot more hypothetical -- it probably owes a lot to the X-Men animated series where, because of the way animated series work, he was a continuous presence, usually coming back to make some big stand against the heroes and prattle on about how he is inevitable.

It has felt inevitable that we would eventually get a big X-Men/Apocalypse showdown, and after a solid decade of build w have arrived. Whether it feels like the payoff of a long-simmering storyline or a hastily-tossed together soup of stuff that we just feel the need to obligatorily dispense with at this point in history is up to the individual reader. That having been said, as far as capping off the last several years of X-Men stories... it's fine by me. It feels like a valid attempt at the grandiose, even if it's just missing the verve of the early-mid 90s.

It all kind of serves to highlight how patchwork and improvised the X-Men's world is. As I teased earlier, if Apocalypse really had one big plan set to climax at the dawn of the new millennium (which is actually in 2001, as we learned in Seinfeld) why did he bother making himself known years earlier? And how long had he been working with the Skrulls? After those initial appearances a bunch of shit got tacked onto him -- with the ancient history and the far-flung futures and whatnot -- that made him into this impossibly large figure, almost a white elephant to have in your comics, standing off to the side going "One day I'm gonna rule all of this, you'll see, nyah." We've heard it before -- time to put up or shut up.