Perhaps the most bleak timeline the X-Men have faced, The Age of Apocalypse marked a turning point in how we view our favorite characters, both of past and present, and brought future favorites to the fore.

In this timeline, mutants rule. Evil mutants, though. Well, we cannot get them all. As you probably have guessed, Apocalypse is the leader, who led a horde of evil mutants to enslave pretty much all of North America. It began in a familial enough way: Legion, Professor X?s son, journeyed back in time to kill his father, a la Oedipus Rex. Well, actually, Legion went back in time to kill Magneto, Xavier?s arch enemy. Legion ment well, he wanted to make life better for his father by ending Magneto?s war on humanity twenty years before it started; at least that what he said to Bishop later on in the timeline. So, Legion aimed a psychic blade straight at Magneto?s heart. And Xavier sacrificed himself. Believe me, Legion was more than a little miffed to find his father dying in his arms instead of Magneto. This did, however, change history. Magneto, seeing his best friend die to save his meager life, changed for the better. He dedicated his life to Xavier?s ideals. It seems to me that no matter what happens, some one always follows these ideals.

As a result of Charles premature demise, no one was there to stop Apocalypse on his self-promoted rise to power. Apparently, North America is as far as the Ancient Egyptian wanted to dominate, because Big A built humongous barriers around North America, and that includes Canada up to the complete snow, the US, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and a couple more islands. These perimeter barriers were tall and looming enough to prevent everyone from excaping. Then he divided up (huh?) his vast lands among his generals. Big A controlled a line of land running from Florida up through the top East of Canada. His personal island is New York City, the apparent center of mutant activity in every timeline. Abyss runs the southwest, including New Mexico, Arizona, Mexico. Sinister owns the Midwest and lower Canada. Mikhail is his neighbor to the immediate west, and Holocaust owns the west Canada and West US states. The badlands are to the extreme north by the Wall of Apocalypse, where scattered mutant resistance hideouts are located. And the lives of our X-Men in this screwed up future were scattered and completely different, almost. If you read closely, you will notice that a few things remain no matter how things go. Like Xavier?s dream.

Gambit, instead of being a rogue master theif and Jack-of-all-trades, became the latter-day Robin Hood, leading his merry men, called the X-Ternals, on a crusade against Apocalypse by literally stealing from Apocalypse and giving to the less fortunate good guys. The group consisted of Jubilee, Strong Guy, and Sunspot. It was the X-Ternals who travelled to the Shi?ar to gather the M?Kraan Crystal for Magneto to use against Big A.

Another group of freedom fighters was The Resistance, as close to the 616 X-Men as we?re gonna get. This was Mag?s X-Men; which included Storm, Rogue, Banshee, Angel, Iceman, Jean, Sabertooth, Polaris, and Colossus; united with Weapon X (Logan, who else!) and Cyclops, now Sinister?s formally devoted son instead of Xavier?s. Hank was sadistic in this time, a complete takeoff from his usual fuzzy self. He loved torturing his subjects with very painful genetic experiments, which is why he was called Dark Beast. Well, that and the fact that his furry coat is a shade of mottled black/blue that is anything but inviting. Some of the experiments involved that old familiar Sinister theory of Jean and Cyke?s genes forming the perfect mutant. Jean was in his Genetic Pens. Again, how this was done is still a little fuzzy to me, but I know that it was run by Dark Beast and Sinister himself. This created Nate Grey, the X-Man. One of our favorites today. Her husband (LOGAN!!!) eventually broke her out. Oh yeah, he lost a hand in the process. Cyclops still harbors feelings for her in this timeline and they seem to be linked by some kind of psyonic force as in the 616 reality, although it is not as strong as it would have been if Logan weren?t her ?true love?.

In the climactic end to this saga, Magneto sent Bishop back to stop Legion from killing Xavier by using the power of the M?Kraan the X-Ternals retrieved. It still baffles me how amazing Magneto?s psychic powers must be to realize that this is the determining factor for all mutant history, but I digress. Bishop made sure that Legion?s psychic blade was plunged into his own heart instead of Xavier?s. So, in essence, Xavier saw his future son die right in front of his own eyes; and yet he was completely unaffected by the sight. As this was being done, Magneto finally slew Apocalypse and ended the tyranny of the generals. All?s well that ends well, right? Well, we did get four new cool characters out of this menagerie. Nate Grey slipped back with Bishop to become X-Man, and was featured in his own series. And we kept the three best evil ones we didn?t have in 616: Dark Beast, Holocaust, and Sugar Man.

In a side note, a few things are different for no apparent reason. Magneto was a great father to his son, Quicksilver; married Rogue, and had a son by her whom he named Charles in memoriam. At this time though, I cannot remember exactly how he managed this, but when I find out you will be sure to know.