Real name: En Sabah Nur
Occupation: Mutant warlord
Group affiliation: None
Base of operations: Mobile
First appearance: X-Factor #5 (in shadow, 1986), X-Factor #6 (fully seen, 1986)

Height: Variable
Weight: Variable
Eye color: Blue
Hair color: Black

Powers: A mutant, Apocalypse possesses extraordinary strength. Also, he can alter his body's atomic structure at will, levitate himself telekinetically, survive for weeks without food and water, and recover rapidly from injuries that would prove fatal to most mutants and humans. His physical form eventually grows too aged and enfeebled to contain his vast energies, requiring him to transfer his consciousness into a succession of host bodies.

Weapons: None

Born into slavery at the dawn of civilization, the mutant warlord also known as En Sabah Nur lives by a merciless philosophy: Survival of the Fittest. Only through conflict and strife will the weak be culled from the strong, and only the strong deserve to survive. War. Plague. Pestilence. These are his tools. And with them, he means to rule the world!

History: Apocalypse was born nearly 5,000 years ago, in ancient Egypt. Ugly and malformed, he was abandoned to the harsh desert. But Baal, leader of a roving band of Sandstormers, recognized the child's potential power. Baal raised the youngster as his own; he named him En Sabah Nur, "The First One." As Nur grew, he surpassed his fellow tribesmen in intelligence and strength. Hated and feared for his inhuman appearance and strange abilities, he hardened his heart. Nur held fast to the tribe's defining principle: Only the fittest, tested by hardship, would and should survive.

Egypt was ruled by Pharaoh Rama-Tut -- not a god, as most believed, but a man, rescued by Baal's tribe from a crashed starship. A time traveler from the far future, he later would come to be known as Kang the Conqueror. After ascending to power in Egypt, Rama-Tut massacred Baal's tribe, and enslaved and tortured the survivors in an unsuccessful attempt to learn his ship's location. Knowing Apocalypse had been born in ancient Egypt, Kang had traveled back in time to become master of the most powerful being on the planet. Toward that end, he offered to make Nur his heir if the mutant would swear loyalty. But Nur defeated Rama-Tut, who escaped to the future.

As Apocalypse, Nur has plotted ever since to conquer the planet through the instigation of war and conflict, whereby the strong would defeat and destroy the weak.

Re-emerging in the present day, Apocalypse turned his attention to X-Factor -- a team consisting of the original X-Men, Professor Charles Xavier's inaugural class of mutant adventurers. Apocalypse rescued the high-flying, heroic Angel from suicide and manipulated the misguided mutant into serving as his Horseman of Death. Warren Worthington eventually broke free of Apocalypse's influence, recognizing the dark scar Nur had left on his soul. Apocalypse later unleashed a techno-organic virus on the infant son of Scott Summers -- a.k.a. Cyclops, cursed with uncontrollable optic blasts. Otherwise, Apocalypse knew, Nathan Summers would grow powerful enough to defeat him when he reached adulthood. Raised 2,000 years into an alternate future, Nathan matured into Apocalypse's mortal enemy: the telepathic, telekinetic freedom fighter called Cable.

To secure a new host body, Apocalypse sought to siphon the awesome energies of "The Twelve" -- mutants of incredible power, destined to alter the course of human history. This time, it was Wolverine who fell into the warlord's grasp. The feral X-Man fought his teammates ferociously as the Horseman Death, but broke free from Apocalypse's control. However, Wolverine and his fellow Horsemen had served their purpose. Taking advantage of the distraction afforded by their actions, Apocalypse collected the mutants he required to carry out his plan: Cyclops, Phoenix, Cable, Professor X, Storm, Iceman, Magneto, Polaris, Bishop, Sunfire, the Living Monolith and Mikhail Rasputin.

The Twelve were linked to a machine that would channel their awesome energies into Apocalypse, allowing him to absorb the body of X-Man -- a time-tossed teenager possessed of vast telepathic and telekinetic power. As his teammates fell around him, a powerless Cyclops shoved X-Man out of the draining circuit, merging with Apocalypse to create a new evil entity. But the telepathic Phoenix -- Summers' wife, Jean Grey -- detected her husband's psyche inside the composite being and prevented the X-Men from destroying it. Cyclops was presumed dead by most of his teammates; only Cable and Jean refused to believe he had perished. Investigating rumors and hearsay, they helped him reassert his mind over Apocalypse. With Jean's help, Cable exorcised the warlord and shattered his essence.