X-Men #182

Publisher
Marvel
Year
2006
Month
4
LastChanged
8/19/2006 10:23:00 PM
The Blood of Apocalypse

The Messiah
Riddles of the Sphinx
Summary

  Gazer floats in space, thinking this is better than waiting to die of radiation poisoning. He sees a streak of light heading toward Earth, and it takes him with it.

  Ozymandias (see Cable 34) asks Apocalypse why he doesn't just kill every human, but Apocalypse ignores him. He tells him to prepare the prisoners, and to clean himself, because he smells. Then he talks to Gazer, saying he rescued him from space, and now he's got a chance to make something of himself. He sets him in an arena against Foster, to battle to the death; whomever wins becomes War.

  Pestilence is in the World Health Organization lab in DC, swallowing every plague she can find there. Apocalypse orders her to Africa, fertile ground to test her.

  Ozymandias waits impatiently while Gazer and Foster tentatively fight each other with ancient Egyptian axes. Foster then gets into it, felling Gazer; he readies the killing blow, but then Ozymandias stabs him in the back. He tells Gazer he owes him, now. He's evidently planning a coup against Apocalypse.

  Apocalypse knows his next Horseman will be difficult to convince, but he's confident of his powers of persuasion. Ozymandias asks if he's considered his suggestion, to let Pestilence kill humanity without mercy. Apocalypse says he has no mercy, but a purpose.

  Aspen: Sunfire lies legless in bed (Rogue III:10); Kuzuya is the underworld boss who rescued him, and now he wants to give him prosthetic legs. He's interrupted by Apocalypse, who tosses his men out the window and makes Sunfire an offer: he wants to save mutantkind and will make him powerful again, to help. Sunfire asks what he wants in return; Apocalypse just smiles.

  Westchester: Rogue sits in a tree with Pulse, saying she doesn't know what Mystique told him, but she's happy with Remy. Pulse says Mystique is antiquated, still thinking marriages should be arranged, and he just agreed to meet Rogue. He asks if they can just be friends, and he touches her; she warns him about her powers, but he says not to worry. She notices something odd about his eyes, and that her power isn't kicking in.

  Mystique and Remy spar in a boxing ring; she says Pulse has a field around him that disable mutant powers, and burglar alarms. Remy asks if she thinks Rogue is shallow enough to leave him just because of that; Mystique asks Remy if he loves her enough to give her a chance of real happiness.

  Apocalypse has Gazer in his machines, painfully transforming him. He says he could have chosen someone stronger, but using Gazer takes daring, brilliance, arrogance, and only the arrogant would declare themselves a Messiah, and plan to fight the X-Men.

  Alex returns to the mansion, confusedly saying he's lost Lorna, he thinks she's dead, and a green monster and the Leper Queen attacked. Rogue gets Bobby off him, and then Scott sees Apocalypse's Sphinx descent from the sky and hover over the mansion.

  Note: Previous Wars have been Abraham Lincoln Kieros, the Hulk, and Deathbird. Previous Pestilences have included the Morlocks Plague and Caliban.

Summary

  Sunfire is chained to a wall; he hears screams down the hall, no longer quite human. He realizes he was a fool to trade his freedom for this.

  In his lab, Apocalypse explains to Gazer that the pain is necessary, "the fire in which your new warlike soul is forged." Then he has Ozymandias prepare the next Horseman

  Sunfire's swears to fight it till it kills him; Ozymandias tells him he'll scream and cry, like all the rest. Sunfire punches him out and then drags himself along the hallway, toward the fresh air and away from the smell of blood. Then the screaming starts again; Sunfire knows he's lost his legs, but does that make him any less a man? Can he leave that poor soul to his fate?