APOCALYPSE

 

APOCALYPSE

Real Name: En Sabah Nur

First Appearance: X-Factor (Vol. 1) #5, June 1986

Powers: Apocalypse is one of the first Earth-born mutants. His mutation originally consisted of superhuman strength, megamorphic capabilities, longevity, and energy discharges. He possesses Class 100 superhuman strength, superhuman agility, endurance, reflexes, and invulnerability. He can withstand a tremendous level of physical assault. As a megamorph, he can alter the molecular structure of his body in anyway in order to change his shape and form.

Apocalypse has an extremely long lifespan due to his status as an External. Externals are mutants who, in addition to having powers from their active x-factor gene, are gifted with near-immortality. An External’s immortality manifests at the point of their first mortal death. Externals apparently can die at the hands of another External’s powers, the Legacy Virus, or the destruction of their astral forms.

After becoming a techno-organic cyborg merged with Celestial technology, Apocalypse incorporated his mutant powers into those modifications. The mechanical aspects of his body are equally controllable by his powers, enabling him to transform his hands into giant drills or vise grips, stretch his arms, legs, or torso to great lengths, grow wings and/or jet booster engines in order to fly at supersonic speeds, and manifest projectile or energy weapons of various types out of his own skin. Apocalypse can also transform into human forms, completely hiding his cybernetic parts. He is capable of teleporting instantaneously from one location to another. His cybernetics contain sub-spatial accesses, allowing him to tap into vast storages of raw energy from his Celestial technology, amplifying any of his abilities to even greater levels. Apocalypse's costume is actually part of his body, and he can alter its appearance at will. He can also levitate himself telekinetically has demonstrated some level of telepathic skill.

Despite his External status, he is unable to exert his accumulated power levels indefinitely, requiring him to spend decades at a time in rejuvenation chambers or transition into a new form. The various techno-organic viruses in his body have added a polymorphic capacity to his DNA to make it highly adaptable to take that new form. He does this either by taking possession of a living host or mixing his blood with raw materials, using his T-O virus to re-write existing genetic codes to reincarnate himself with all his powers and memories from existing sources of living or dead tissue over a period of time.

Apocalypse is an extraordinary genius possessing knowledge of genetic engineering, technology, and various areas of science that is advanced beyond humanity. He is also a master strategist.

TIMEQUAKE

 

The "TimeQuake" storyline from What If? (Vol. 2) #35-39, March-July 1992.

This was a phenomenally important storyline for the Marvel Universe, as it served as a sequel to Avengers West Coast (Vol. 1) #61-62, and ultimately helped lead into Avengers Forever (Vol. 1) #1-12. It was also the first time Pharoah Rama Tut/Scarlet Centurion/Immortus/Kang the Conqueror's real name was revealed: Nathaniel Richards II.

AWC #42-62 was all about Immortus prepping the Scarlet Witch, our reality's nexus being, to serve as a host for accumulated temporal energy from multiple alternate realities which he destroyed and then gathered said energy for his masters, the Time-Keepers. He failed when Wanda rejected the temporal energy, and so the Keepers forced him to act as the repository for that energy, leaving him powerful, but immobilized and stored in Limbo.

TimeQuake dealt with the Time-Keepers apparently seeking additional temporal energy by arranging the death of four key nexus beings of different alternate parallel realities, leading to the destruction of those realities and, ultimately, all of existence. TimeQuake parts 1-4 followed Uatu the Watcher helplessly observing these four realities as the Time-Keepers attempted to manipulate events to ensure the deaths of these nexus beings, while a third party called the Whisperer intervened to prevent the Keepers' plot, and acquire agents of his own. By the end, 3 out of 4 of the nexus beings were saved which caused the Time-Keepers to fade from existence. The Whisperer was revealed to be Immortus himself, still flush with power and nowhere near as helpless as the Keepers believed as they foolishly stored him in Limbo, which he controls entirely. Immortus then became a wave of temporal energy and threatened to rewrite reality.

TimeQuake pt. 5 had the Watcher team up with the Time Variance Authority to stop Immortus by revisiting his origins and giving him (as Nathaniel Richards II, before he discovered time travel), a type of injection which made him incompatible with the temporal energy, thus preventing him from ever becoming a temporal wave. The plan worked, but the Time-Keepers then re-appeared and were revealed by the true Time-Keepers to be the Time-Twisters, who reverted back to nurturing pods as the Time-Keepers regained dominance and took them back to the Citadel at The End of Time.

It was a remarkably complex story, especially the last chapter, tying together a number of time-based groups and entities (all of whom first appeared in “The Mighty Thor” series) like the Time-Keepers, the Time-Twisters, the Time Variance Authority, and He Who Remains.

THE WATCHER

 

THE WATCHER

Real Name: Uatu

First Appearance: Fantastic Four (Vol. 1) #13, April 1963

Powers: Uatu is a member of the Watchers, a vastly powerful, ancient extraterrestrial race who untold eons ago undertook the task of passively observing the phenomena of the universe.

As a Watcher, Uatu possesses vast mental, physical, and energy-manipulating powers. He is telepathic, able to scan the mind of virtually every known form of sentient life and to project his thoughts into any brain. He could alter his appearance at will, assuming any guise he so choose. This is apparently a mental/psionic capacity, and not a physical shape-shifting ability like that of the alien Skrulls. Uatu can convert his body into some form of energy in order to "teleport" through space at hyper-light speeds (presumably, he traversed warp space to do so).

He can also psionically manipulate energy in the electromagnetic spectrum. The limits of this capacity are not known: It’s probably on the same basic level as such Earth gods as Odin and Zeus or such alien races as the Elan. He is seemingly immortal (although degrees of maturity are evident), having bolstered the limits of his life force with "delta-rays". Originally, it was assumed that an explosion that dispersed all of his bodily molecules thousands of miles would prove fatal.

His clairvoyance allows him to observe events occurring throughout our dimension or other dimensions and, like each Watcher, he had a multi-dimensional viewing apparatus set up on his lunar home that allows him to view other Watchers' realities, for context.