While Apocalypse was born with a mutation that made him a formidable force of nature that couldn’t easily be defeated, he didn’t become the X-Men villain fans grew to know and love until after he received his Celestial power-up–and while the god-tier technology was Apocalypse’s greatest upgrade, one comic proves that it was also his ultimate weakness.
En Sabah Nur aka Apocalypse was born during the time of Ancient Egypt and was raised by a tribe of nomadic warriors who taught him that only the strong survived in this world–a lesson that he would come to know well. Among the plethora of mutant powers Apocalypse has exhibited over the years, his most notable ability is the power to control his molecular structure–something that came in handy when he came across a Celestial ship. Celestials are essentially cosmic scientists who seed life on planets across the cosmos just to see what will happen. When Apocalypse entered a Celestial ship that was left on Earth, he was offered the chance to merge his body with the Celestial tech–which was made possible by his power of molecular manipulation–with the mission of shaping this world into one of strength and superiority. Essentially, this Celestial tasked Apocalypse with doing what he already wanted to do in the first place: create a world where only the strong survive–and the space god gave Apocalypse all the tools he needed to do just that.
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In Gambit and the X-Ternals #1 by Fabian Nicieza and Tony Daniel, readers are thrown into a world where Apocalypse all but completes the task assigned to him by the Celestial–the world of the Age of Apocalypse. In this issue, the world is viewed from the perspective of an offshoot X-Men team led by Gambit known as the X-Ternals. After Magneto–the leader of the main X-Men team in this reality–gets a glimpse at what reality was supposed to look like before the timeline-splitting death of Charles Xavier, he tasks the X-Ternals with traveling across the cosmos to obtain the M’Kraan Crystal as it is the only object in the universe that could potentially restore the altered timeline. When the X-Ternals ask how they are supposed to leap across the cosmos in search of this artifact, Magneto answers by leading them to a secret chamber within Apocalypse’s Citadel–a chamber that held the very Celestial ship that gave Apocalypse his upgrade so many years ago.
The X-Men Can Use Apocalypse’s Celestial Technology Against Him
While the Celestial tech empowered Apocalypse to essentially conquer the planet in the Age of Apocalypse timeline, this Gambit and the X-Ternals issue proves that this technology is also a huge liability. If the X-Ternals got their hands on the M’Kraan Crystal, everything Apocalypse worked so hard for would be lost in an instant–and it would all be because of the Celestial ship. The only way the X-Men could find the M’Kraan Crystal is through the Celestial ship, and without it, the plan to obtain the crystal wouldn’t even be worth thinking of. If the ship never made its way to Earth, it wouldn’t have eventually become a liability for Apocalypse. Sure, Apocalypse wouldn’t have gotten his god-tier upgrade, but his base-level mutation already made him one of the strongest mutants in existence, so never having access to the Celestial ship may actually have been preferable to having it potentially be the reason for his ultimate demise.
Even though this particular issue leaves the success or failure of the X-Ternals open-ended, the fact that they even have a shot at using Apocalypse’s Celestial tech against him in such a definitively crushing way is proof enough that Apocalypse’s Celestial upgrade is also his greatest weakness in the history of his X-Men career.
Next: X-Men’s Most Sinister Villain is Secretly a Hero, & Apocalypse Proves It
