Credits: story by Scott Lobdell, scripted by Mark Waid, pencilled by Roger Cruz, inked by many and edited by Bob Harras.
Cast:Earth 616- Erik ‘Magnus’ Lenscherr, Charles Xavier, Gabrielle Haller, David ‘Legion’ Haller, Ororo ‘Storm’ Monroe, Robert ‘Iceman’ Drake, Lucas Bishop + older Lucas Bishop Earth 295 – Erik ‘Magneto’ Lenscherr, Rogue, Nate Grey, Jean Grey, Scott ‘Cyclops’ Summers, Alex ‘Havok’ Summers, Dr Henry ‘Dark Beast’ McCoy, Logan/Weapon-X, En Sabah Nur/Apocalypse, Holocaust, Warren Kenneth ‘Angel’ Worthington III, Xi’an Coy ‘Karma’ Manh, Piotr ‘Colossus’ Rasputin, Kitty ‘Shadowcat’ Rasputin, Ilyana Rasputin, Irene ‘Destiny’ Adler, Kurt ‘Nightcrawler’ Darkholme, Jubilation Lee, Clarice ‘Blink’ Ferguson, Robert ‘Iceman’ Drake, Remy ‘Gambit’ LeBeau, Pietro ‘Quicksilver’ Lenscherr. Rex, Amahl ‘The Shadow King’ Farouk, Victor ‘Sabretooth’ Creed, Wildchild, Morph, Guido Carosella and the Sugar Man.
Plot: Apocalypse has captured Magneto, Magneto & Rogue’s son and the M’Kraan Crystal fragment. He is villain-splaining and monologuing about how strong he is and how he’s winning and all that, rather than killing one of the most dangerous mutants alive. (I’m sure that won’t be something he regrets) He is on the verge of total victory except for three things. The human council have started their bombing raid, the weapon that Sinister created to kill him is heading his way and just on the outskirts of his citadel, the X-Men have arrived. Nearby, Angel arrives at Apocalypse’s prison to visit Karma, only for her to die in his arms. He flies off and heads towards the citadel, crashing into it’s defences wearing a tunic chock full of bombs. He dies, but the citadel is weakened. The X-Men arrive at the pens and find McCoy, near dead because of his own hubris and he tells them the pens are empty. They’re empty because Cyclops and Jean are leading the former prisoners out and to freedom, with Havok hiding in their number.
At the citadel, Apocalypse learns that the midwest has been bombed by the human council, Magneto is appalled by millions being dead. Just as Apocalypse is about to respond, he is attacked by Nate Grey who buys Magneto enough time to get his helmet back on. Underneath them all, the X-Men arrive at the M’Kraan Crystal. Holocaust arrives and takes on Nate and Apocalypse orders his sea wall defence system to expand out and kill everyone in Europe. Magneto is reunited with his X-Men and Ilyana and Destiny. He asks Ilyana to help and she asks if they’re creating a better word, Magneto falters, only to be interrupted by Bishop who promises there is hope. Apocalypse’s forces advance, but the X-Men are ready to defend the Crystal so Bishop, Ilyana and Destiny can use it to restore the world as it should have been. Above New York the second wave of human dropped bombs are falling and Jean is trying to hold them back.
The Sugar Man jumps into the M’Kraan crystal and Dark Beast finds a way to teleport into it as Nate and Holocaust battle. Ilyana, Destiny, Bishop and Ilyana walk into the Crystal and Colossus races towards it, obivious to anything else. People are hurt, but Gambit gets in his way. As Apocalypse (now thinking of escape and carrying a sliver of the M’Kraan Crystal) makes it to the crystal, he finds Magneto waiting for him, wearing armour he has attracted to his body with his powers. As he delivers a devastating punch to Apocalypse, Guido arrives carrying Charles. Rogue goes after him, using her powers and his to deliver a lethal blow and rescuing her son.
On the bridge heading away from New York, Havok shoots Jean in the back killing her and guaranteeing that the next set of bombs will fall killing millions more. He blasts Cyclops, but is quickly stabbed by an arriving Weapon-X who is there for Jean in her last moments. At the M;Kraan Crystal, Colossus has gone insane with the idea of losing his sister again and runs at the Crystal, killing Kitty in the process as she thinks he’ll stop for her, so she doesn’t phase. Gambit blows up a rock using his powers, injuring Colossus badly enough that he dies, but his sister is there, having got Bishop where he is needed. Using the Crystal, Bishop travels back to 20 years ago in Israel and meets his younger self. He is able to find Legion and stop him before he kills Charles and then uses Legion’s own power to kill him, ending the loop and beginning the process of restoring the timeline, erasing the memories of this experience from Magnus, Charles and Gabrielle.
Back in Apocalypse’s citadel, Nate and Magneto are hammering at Apocalypse, with Nate picking up the dropped sliver of crystal. Then Hol-Son of Apocalypse faces Nate demanding a rematch, Nate fights with him and stabs Hol-Son of Apocalypse and both of them vanish in a flash of energy. Apocalypse then is strangling Magneto, who at his point is not fighting back. He can’t is the reply when asked where, he’s concentrating.
Using his magnetic powers, he rips Apocalypse apart and finds his wife and son, a third wave of bombs are incoming and it seems that the Age of Apocalypse will end in fire, but at the end Magneto is with his family and thinks of his friend and the life changing words of “Any dream worth having, is a dream worth fighting for.”
Notes: The finale of the Age of Apocalypse is here and it’s…. a lot.
The 8 four issue minis have now led back into this book end as they all started at the other end with X-Men Alpha. This is a solid method of setting up an event like this as many of the other stories were relatively self contained and could be enjoyed on their own and in whatever order you wanted. As long as everything was read before you got to this issue, it was all good. So we have the story of the X-Men holding back Apocalypse’s forces so that Bishop can return to the past moments before the death of Charles Xavier. We also get four other characters moved into position for the future and the final battle between Apocalypse and Magneto. It’s a lot.
With a lot of different plots to juggle, Marvel editorial made a wise decision to split the duties, so one person plotted out the story and another scripted it. Lobdell is good at the big picture stuff and he makes sure everyone gets their moment, their time to shine. Waid is good with dialogue, the turn of phrase and witticism and both get to play to their strengths. There’s triumph as Bishop wins the day, but this is mostly tragedy as Colossus and his wife, Jean Grey, Karma and Angel all fall. Then we get the explosive ending as the bombs fall. It operates as the last 20 minutes of a Star Wars film as we keep cutting from plot to plot as the story builds to a crescendo. It doesn’t and after the death of Apocalypse, its more of a contemplating final scene as Magneto waxes lyrical about the impact his friend’s death had on his life, the whole event seems to be a poetic eulogy to this fallen friend, whose absence doomed the world, but redeemed this one man.
Verdict: Writing 4 out of 5 – Plotting and scripting are two different things and both are done very well for the time here. There is hyperbolic action and also quiet moments and it seems fitting that the last words were about Xavier as the world literally burns around the people who fought for the dream of this ghost. Some parts felt a bit forced or rushed, but by and large this was a high quality end to an event that overall was a lot better than I remembered it being.
Art: 4 out of 5 – I was going to give it 5, but the cover bothered me more than I am comfortable with. The action was well show, storytelling was solid and despite several inkers, the art remained consistent enough that I couldn’t always tell when the inker was changed. Everyone looked on model and ultimately the action/emotional beats worked really well. This could’ve been an overstuffed and dishevelled mess and it wasn’t, I really enjoyed the art here.
Overall: 8 out of 10 – With only the epilogue to go, I feel confident calling the Age of Apocalypse a success as was this issue, yes there was the 90’s excesses, but there was also real emotion and lots of cool moments. The moment that stuck with me was the death of Apocalypse. “Fight back!” “I can’t, I’m concentrating.” That was a cool moment and I remembered that it was used almost verbatim in an episode of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and I loved it then too. I’m glad I started this project and with only a couple of posts to go, I’m going to miss it. Still, the 90s had other events.
Next Time: This phase of the clone saga comes to an end.
My Marvel Life 