Story arc · 38 issues
This story takes place on Earth-295, an alternate Marvel universe. After the death of Charles Xavier at the hands of his own son Legion, his friend Magneto gathers a group of mutants to fight against the oppressive reign of Apocalypse.
Creation The Age of Apocalypse story crossover was introduced into the X-Men franchise in 1995 and was later connected to the alternative universe Earth- 295 and later introduced in the mainstream reality of Earth -616. The story arc was created by a group of writers of which included Scott Lobdell , Mark Waid , Fabian Nicieza , John Francis Moore, Larry Hama , Warren Ellis , Jeph Loeb , Howard Mackie and Terry Kavanagh . The story arc lasted from 1995 till 1996 and then continued on to the Earth 616 reality and celebrated its 10th Anniversary in 2005. At 2011 as part of Dark Angel Saga, X-Force travelled to Earth 295. Major Story Arcs Legion Quest After waking up from his coma due to his encounter with the Shadow King, David Haller (Professor X's son Legion ) decided that the best way to help his father's dream was if Magneto had not been around to stand in the way. He travels back in time, taking several X-Men with him and attempts to murder Magneto, while Magnus and Xavier were still helping WWII survivors in Israel. Magneto is saved when Xavier jumps in front of Legion's psychic knife, taking the killing blow for his friend. As Xavier dies, Magneto pledges to carry on his friends dream when suddenly Legion and all the X-Men (except for Bishop ) disappear from existence. In the present, all of Earth 616 is covered in a crystal like form irradiated from the Shi'ar's M'Kraan Crystal . X-Men: Alpha During a genetic culling in Seattle, Magneto's group of X-Men save a mysterious stranger from Apocalypse's Infinites . Following the battle, the stranger (an aged and slightly brain damaged Bishop) accuses Magneto of being the cause of everything wrong being wrong in the world. Meanwhile , Mr. Sinister 's Prelates, Cyclops and Havok destroy one of Beast's experiments (aka Blob ), who was out of control, and Sinister warns Cyclops of his leaving and of the dark times soon to come. At Angel's " Heaven " nightclub, Gambit is trying to find out from Angel how to find Magneto's hideout because Magnus require his skills. At the ruins of the Xavier Mansion where Magneto's X-Men reside, Magneto's wife Rogue is watching the robot Nanny take care of her son, Charles wishing she could touch him. Bishop regains consciousness but is knocked out by Magneto again and begins to rant again. Apocalypse and three of his Horsemen (Sinister, Holocaust and Abyss) discuss Mikhail Rasputin 's (the final Horseman) errors in judgment, his absence and the upcoming "Kelly Pact" with the humans and their plans to disregard it. In London, Weapon X (616's Wolverine ) and Jean Grey track down the Human High Counsel, led by Bolivar and Moira Trask ,to offer their help, using a mysterious package delivered by Sinister. Back at Xavier's Mansion, Rogue touches Bishop to look into his mind and the psychic backlash washes over her and Magneto, showing them glimpse of the real world and how everything should be. In the closing moments, Apocalypse notices Sinister is missing and Magneto calls a meeting for all of the X-Men and their associates while out in space the universe begins to crystallize. X-Men Chronicles The first issue shows Apocalypse's first attack on humanity and the first battle between Magneto's X-Men and Apocalypse's Horsemen ( Gideon , Candra , War , Death , and Sabretooth ). In battle Sabretooth hesitated and he is left behind. Meanwhile back at Wundagore Mountain ,the X-Men's base of operations, Scarlet Witch and Rogue defend the base and the younger mutant children against Nemesis (Apocalypse's chosen son). The X-Men are successful in thwarting Apocalypse's attack on both fronts but at the cost of the life of the Scarlet Witch. The second issue opens with Weapon X and Jean Grey leaving the team following him rescuing her from Sinister's genetic holding pens. Gambit and Rogue begin a romantic relationship but when Wolverine attacks at Holocaust's (formerly Nemesis until his skin was all blown away) behest ,Rogue is forced to make a choice of saving Gambit or Magneto. She chooses Magneto and Gambit is buried under a falling wall. He survives and the battle is won but at the end he leaves the team. Astonishing X-Men Magneto tells all his X-Men what he saw in Bishop's head. Then Blink arrives through a portal and is followed by a blazing out of control Sunfire and it takes the combined powers of Magneto, Storm and Iceman to calm him down. They are followed by one of Apocalypse's Prelates, but Blink closes the portal on him killing him. Later, Rogue is preparing to leave and Gambit tries to talk to her down, and as he tries to kiss her they are interrupted by Blink carrying baby Charles. Nightcrawler and Magneto discuss the various missions that have been assigned. Quicksilver tries to stop Rogue from going to no avail while Morph make jokes and then everyone departs. A team of X-Men (Rogue, Sunfire, Blink, Morph, Sabretooth, and Wild Child ) are sent to Chicago to stop Apocalypse's cullings. Sunfire freaks out as he remembers the killing that he lived through, and Rogue is forced to take his powers to calm him down. At the Mansion, Magneto is holding his sleeping son while Bishop berates him for his less-then-aggressive strategy. He tells Bishop he just wants tonight with his son. Meanwhile, Apocalypse has finally found Magneto's base and plans to handle the matter personally. Back in the battle, Sabretooth has Blink teleport him and Wild Child directly to Holocaust, against her own better judgement and Rogue's fervent wishes. After a brutal battle, Sabretooth finally cracks Holocaust's armor and watches the villain dissipate. However, after Sabretooth falls unconscious due to his own injuries, Holocaust rematerialized in his armor. Wild Child flees the Infinities only to run into Holocaust. Holocaust picks up Wild Child and then reveals himself to actually be Morph just seconds before Sunfire fries them. Rogue and Blink arrive through a portal and Wild Child (since he cant speak) licks Rogue to give her his memories of what has occurred. Meanwhile the real Holocaust is holding a badly beaten Sabretooth over a cliff overlooking a new Infinities processing plant. He gloats about Apocalypse's new army before knocking Sabretooth unconscious again where Creed dreams of the night he and Logan (Weapon X) were on a mission and he saved a young Blink from being killed. As Sunfire flies the rest of the team to Creed's location, Morph continues to crack jokes and sing despite protest from Sunfire. Back at the Mansion, Bishop and Magneto have a tense conversation when Nanny comes in with Charles. The robot then senses major danger and wraps itself around the baby and disappears into the floor (Magneto explains that's her programming to protect Charles). At the Infinities plant, Holocaust is watching as thousands of Infinite soldiers are pumped out of the factory , when all of a sudden a large hump back whale becomes marooned on the plant floor. The whale reveals itself to be Morph and has the entire team hiding inside his mouth. They defeat the Infinities and go searching for Sabretooth. Blink cries out and teleports to him when she sees him tied up to a pole and bleeding. Blink confronts Holocaust directly and after a brief but intense battle she teleports him over a vat of acid and drops him in. In another part of the facility Rogue and the rest of the team are fighting against hopeless odds, with an army of Infinities. Meanwhile Magneto is a captive of Apocalypse (see Amazing X-Men) and is being made to watch his wife's team fight their losing battle. Apocalypse continues to taunt the restrained Magneto until he knocks him out. Back at the plant, Wild Child and Sunfire free the humans being held captive while Morph goes after Blink. He finds her and as the two escape, Holocaust punches through the side of the acid vat and attacks them both. Suddenly "Morph" reveals himself as Rogue and uses her own powers to crack Holocaust armor again just as the real Morph jumps through the roof and becomes a large brick that crashes down on Holocaust. Rogue then lunges at him but he sends her flying leaving a ditch in the ground as she slides. While the rest of the team attacks Holocaust, Morph goes after Rogue, changing into her baby to get her attention. Holocaust then taunts about how Apocalypse found and destroyed the Mansion that the X-Men were in. This gives Rogue all the fury she needs as she pounds on him, landing both of them on a teleporter. Iceman grabs her just as he is about to teleport them both to Apocalypse's stronghold. With Creed saved and the team together again they vow to go after Apocalypse and end his reign. X-Calibre The young mutant Switchback takes a gondola ride down a river cavern where she is left alone. Thinking shes been taken advantage of she is approached by a huge man who tells her that there are "no charlatans here". His name is Cain and he is there to lead her to Avalon . They travel through freezing jungle (which she doesnt notice getting less and less frozen as she goes) then after several days they come upon the paradise of Avalon (616's Savage Land). Back in what was once Manhattan, Nightcrawler is lurking in Angel's private quarters at "Heaven" nightclub to get information on his travel plans to Avalon so he can locate the precog Destiny for Magneto. Angel balks at being used by him, Gambit and Magneto for illicit activities but gives him the information anyway, telling him to go to the east river and ask for Proudstar .At the Xavier Mansion, Magneto orders Mystique t o assist her son, Nightcrawler, in reaching Avalon and assist him in extracting Destiny from there. At the warehouse by the east river, Nightcrawler meets Proudstar and his tribe "the Ghost Dance" which is the first step on the trek to Avalon, called "the Infernal Gallop". When Proudstar accuses Mystique of pillaging the people she ferries to Avalon before delivering them, Nightcrawler grabs his finger and teleports it off his hand. In the background, a young woman sneaks away to Apocalypse's citadel, frying the brain of a guard with a psychic arrow on the way there. The young woman, Danielle Moonstar , approaches Apocalypse and one of his puppets, Dead Man Wade , to tell him of Nightcrawler's trek to Avalon. Apocalypse call for Damask and tell her to take these two, collectively the Pale Riders, and find Avalon and burn it to the ground. Nightcrawler is on a cramped barge with other refugees, while down in Avalon Switchback has arrived an is brought by Cain to meet Destiny. As their fingers touch, Destiny has a painful precognitive flash of Avalon burning and Apocalypse coming. As Destiny collapses from the shock of her vision Switchback, Cain, and Destiny's adopted son Doug Ramsey rush to her side as she screams about Avalon burning. By the east river, Apocalypse's Infinities attack Proudstar's Ghost Dance and despite their best efforts are summarily dispatched. Menawhile on the submarine bound for Avalon, the air conditioning unit has busted and Nightcrawler and the other passengers are choking on their own exhalations. The captain surfaces rather then have everyone perish but warns that the instrumentation is broken and they may not be beyond American Detection Range. When they break the surface the crew realizes that the cargo bay doors are electronically sealed and everyone may have already suffocated to death. They signal a nearby ship who happen to have a torch to cut through the doors and save at least some of the people inside. The new ship's captain, Callisto , offers her own ship to finish the submarine's trip to Avalon. Nightcrawler is on the roof of the sub, having teleported out (barely) when the ship broke air. Above on the Pale Riders' ship, Damask is watching these events unfold while Moonstar is repeatedly cutting Wade and watching his healing factor work. Damask receives a transmission from Apocalypse informing her that he is sending a secondary expedition and that when they arrive in Avalon she is to "kill Avalon". In frustration, she kills Moonstar and tells Wade "And I loved it". Back on the ship, Callisto has taken hold of the refugees to Avalon and they head on their way. She and her crew collect all valuables that the refugees have on them and then when they get to deeper water she orders the cargo doors in the water, dumping every passenger into the freezing cold ocean killing them. The bodies pile up the boat drifts in what is called an Atrocity Zone, small islands in the Atlantic where Apocalypse dumped all the corpses he was creating. Callisto shoots the crewman responsible for letting them drift in to it and tells the rest of the crew to wait for her signal. Unbeknown to Callisto, Nightcrawler has been teleporting around the ship taking out her crew one by one and he then appears on the deck and takes out the remainder of the crew. Callisto is about to shoot Nightcrawler when Mystique shows up and points a gun at her head. Callisto is dead and Mystique and Nightcrawler, mother and son, are having a family reunion. They jump onto the ladder up to Mystique's helicopter and when Nightcrawler asks how she found him, she tells him that she was actually looking for the pirates because they'd killed the last two groups of travelers. On the Pale Riders ship, Wade is still devestated about Moonstar's death and Damask tell him that Moonstar never liked him anyway. Nightcrawler and Mystique arrive at Mystique's Antarctic headquarters and Kurt asks his mother why she won't go to Avalon. When she evades the topic he slaps her and accuses her of everything he had heard about her from the Ghost Dance. She admits that she takes the possessions of her passengers, calls it a tariff, and Nightcrawler tells her she isnt worthy of being in Avalon. Later, they are rowing down the underground river to Avalon and they meet Cain. Mystique asks where Destiny is and when he says she's too old to greet people anymore so he does it. The three of them trek to Avalon, with Cain carrying all the crates they brought and when they reach the edge of the paradise Mystique, who has never actually the end of the journey, is breathless over the beauty of Avalon and of the news the Destiny has a son. As they approach Destiny, Irene is thrilled to see Raven and hopeful that this means she will stay with them. When Mystique says she came to take her back with them, Destiny silently turns and leads them to Avalon Village. She introduced them to Switchback and tells of her vision that they will all die . Meanwhile at the entrance of Avalon, Wade is ready to kill everything as per his order while Damask on the other hand is so taken aback by the beauty she sees and is having seconds thoughts about her orders. In Avalon Village, Mystique and Nightcrawler are telling Destiny about Bishop, Xavier, and the alternate timeline. Destiny is hesitant to leave, claiming that her departure might cause Avalon to be destroyed and telling them that she has much to lose, such as her son. Suddenly a rocket blows up their tent and everyone scrambles to see what happened. Nightcrawler tries to get Cain to fight to protect them but he has a crisis of conscious so severe (his violent nature fighting his fanatical pacifist nature) that it caused an anuerism, killing him. Mystique and Co break out their guns, while on a hill Wade is continuing to shot at them. He asks Damask why she isnt killing anyone and she changes sides, stabbing Wade. This stalls his just long enough for Nightcrawler to teleport his head off his body. Damask tells him that if he wants her help shes willing and together with Mystique and Switchback they stand ready for Apocalypse's invasion. While still standing over Wade's dead body, Switchback suddenly changes positions explaining that its her mutant power to shift herself back down her own timeline a max of 10 seconds, in this case to fix the headache she was getting. Mystique and Switchback head back to the village while Nightcrawler interrogates Damask about Apocalypse's next wave. She tells him she doesn't know as she learns in and rubs his face fur commenting it feels like velvet. Back in the village, everything is on fire and everyone is in pain. They find Destiny and Doug helping other people and Doug and Mystique get into a fight over Doug's mutant status (his translation field covers the area so everyone can communicatie) and how his mother could ever be friends with someone like Mystique. Switchback jumps in and says that all they want is for her to come to America and confirm or deny what Bishop is saying. Suddenly one of the villagers with bio-electric powers goes berzerk killing several others. Before Mystique can kill her, Doug stops her and says that he can read background noise in thoughts and that she has two. At this point, Shadow King reveals him as possessing the girl explaining that he came in with Wade and when he was killed jumped to Switchback (which explained her headache). Mystique shoves Doug out of the way and blasts the possessed girl. Damask tells them that all they did was kill his host and he'll have a new one by now. Nightcrawler asks how does his power work and she explains that he traveling from mind to mind through an adjacent dimension. Destiny stumbles through the carnage and Shadow King approaches her in the guise of a pyrotic mutant named Marcus and berates her life's work as a waste of time. Damask lashes out with her own power, searing psychic knives, which forces Shadow King out of the boy. The boy is released as Doug accuses Nightcrawler and Mystique of causing all the carnage to which he replies that it was inevitable andall they did was move it up the schedule. Suddenly, Mystique is possessed by Shadow King and begins cycling through forms until she stops on Sabretooth, because it was the worst memory he could find in her mind. Using a combination of their powers, Nightcrawler teleports while Switchback uses her power to extend their time between worlds (where they find Shadow King) and Damask destroys his mind with her psychic knives. With his last vestige of power he makes a nearby mutant blast Destiny but Doug jumps in the way and saves her, dying in the process. Destiny agrees to accompany Nightcrawler back to Magneto and help bring down Apocalypse. Gambit & the X-Ternals Jubilee is fleeing from Infinite soldier while carrying stolen medical supplies and as she falls Guido comes barreling through a wall and Sunspot blasts them. Jubilee is gathering up her bundles when Sunspot explodes another grunt above her. When Guido tries to check on her she just yells that shes fine and wasnt scared. The trio sneaks through the city to a human safehouses where they deliver the medical supplies under the watchful eye of the teams human member, Lila Cheney. She tells them that Gambit just got back but wont tell them where hes been. They walk through the underground tunnels (where legend tell of a tribe of mutants that once lived there) they that serve as their base until they come upon Magneto. They almost attack him but Gambit stops them and tell them that they came together and that Magneto needs their help stealing something BIG. At the headquarters of the Madri, a priesthood devoted to Apocalypse, Rictor berates his lackeys for not capturing the X-ternals and helping him get promoted. While the team walks through the tunnels, Guido and Jubilee discuss (sorta) Lila and Remy's dating again while Gambit and Erik have tense conversation about Rogue. Magneto leads them to a hidden chamber in the tunnel dubbed "the Science Chamber" and when they question Magneto's motives he tells them he got his information from Apocalypse's scientific librarian for cataloging and the information is guaranteed. He mentions that she didnt complain about his methods and reasons when he rescued her from an asylum but she says it was a long time ago. The doors open to a room full of scientific wonder jsut before the Madri teleport in. The X-ternals and M
