DEEP DISH THEMES:
By The Slice:

ORIGIN: The story of Apocalypse began in 3000 BC Egypt during the First Dynasty. Born gray-skinned (although Apocalypse's skin color is sometimes depicted as flesh colored or dark skinned) and blue-lipped with natural facial markings, in the settlement of Akkaba, he was abandoned as an infant, but found by a band of desert nomads, the Sandstormers, whose leader, Baal, saw the child's potential power, and raised him as his own, naming him En Sabah Nur. He was taught in the philosophy that the tribe lives and dies by: survival of the fittest.

Nur and Baal were the only Sandstormers to survive on the day that General Ozymandias with his army, destroys the Sandstormers' tribe, as they found refuge in a sacred cave before it collapsed. Baal eventually died from lack of nourishment after weeks of deprivation, but before he did, he admitted to Nur that he had believed him to be a savior foretold in ancient prophecies who was destined to overthrow the pharaoh Rama-Tut. The young Nur vowed to take revenge on the pharaoh and claim his destiny. He hid himself as a slave in Tut's city, where he has visions of Egyptian gods who revealed his great destiny. The pharaoh Rama-Tut, in actuality an earlier incarnation of Kang the Conqueror who had come back in time to locate the young Apocalypse and take him under his wing, tried to convince Nur to join him, but the young mutant savagely attacked the pharaoh only to be taken down by the conqueror's futuristic weapon.

Nur survived, and tried to rescue Nephri, Ozymandias' sister, who had become attracted to the mysterious slave, but Nur was ultimately rejected by Nephri for his inhuman appearance, and she turned to her brother for protection in her panic. Heartbroken by this final rejection, En Sabah Nur's prodigious mutant abilities fully emerged in his enraged state, and he renames himself Apocalypse. Rama-Tut flees the former slave's rampage, while Nur uses his advanced technology to enslave and transform his former tormentor, Ozymandias, into a blind seer made of living stone, who would forever chronicle Apocalypse's future destinies. Fifty years later, Nur revisits Nephri, now an elderly Egyptian Queen on her deathbed, and mocks the loss of her beauty and vitality, in contrast to his own unchanged appearance, despite the passage of time.



PROS: To be perfectly fair, this is the only Apocalypse figure to get made before special powers and traits were a thing and it's somewhat hard to represent his power set without the elasticity that those things provide. With the shift towards characters being more specialized and a lower point total, this Apocalypse could see a bit more usefulness than even when it premiered, though. It has a really long dial which you just don't see these days. Leadership has become an even more important power to pack on your team since you have more characters than actions a lot of the time anymore, and he has it front loaded. Perplex mid-dial will come in handy no matter what team you're playing. Perplex is just one of those kinds of powers. He also has a dial full of damage reducers. I cringe to think of using an Apocalypse figure like this, but if anything, he can be used as Mastermind fodder for a higher point figure while batting clean-up. NO Apocalypse should ever be put into that kind of role, but game play-wise, it isn't a bad use for him.

CONS: There's really no way to really put lipstick on this pig of a character. It certainly has things going for it, but it's in no way representative of what an Apocalypse figure should be. Let's start out by looking at his defense values. He tops out at a 15 defense. A FIFTEEN!!! My brothers and I used to justify the terrible defense as him being too indifferent to lesser beings' attacks and just letting them hit him instead of attempting a defense, but I think we were just kidding ourselves. They were just bad defense values and that's that. He also has a printed two damage for two thirds of his dial...if this truly was the survival of the fittest, he'd be finishing in last place.

THEME: Well, he's too many points to fit into Duhg's Army. That is usually a go to for me when I have characters that only have generic keywords and one of the applicable keywords to go on that team. They stopped giving characters the Mutant keyword YEARS ago (Mutations and Monsters being the last set in 2007) so it's an option, but an extremely limited one. That leaves either a Warrior keyword theme team that ISN'T Duhg's Army or the Past keyword to build with. Personally, I love playing figures that have the past keyword and an Egyptian theme to them. Pairing him with figures like Sphinx, Living Mummy, Iron Pharaoh, or similar characters make for a fun and unusual team that usually has more symmetry than you would expect.



PROS: This was our first taste of a appropriately powered Apocalypse. He has three separate special powers that between them give him EIGHT different standard powers and allow him to potentially ignore pushing damage on his attack special. From these powers he gets Phasing/Teleport, Plasticity, Shape Change, Incapacitate, Mind Control, Penetrating/Psychic Blast, Regeneration, and Toughness. I remember having to play against him when he was new to the game and when Feat Cards were far more prevalent. He was VERY hard to take down when you couldn't Outwit him or when he was getting all kinds of bonuses, and/or had the Protected feat on him to avoid one attack. He was a veritable one man army and he still holds up in modern games. If anything, he has a TON of outwit on his dial, and with the shorter ranges that you see these days, he shines bright with his massive 10 range and double targets. The ability to attack from such a range let alone Outwit from that range is golden these days. If anything, he may be even BETTER than he was back then.

CONS: The only thing that I wish that he had was some kind of move and attack ability. He has a plethora of abilities, but he either has to rely on being TK'd around to get where he's going or just plan out his moves more carefully. Apocalypse usually isn't the type to get his hands dirty often as he usually employs others to do his fighting for him, but when he does have to do it, he usually gets in there and hits hard. This figure can definitely hit hard, but he lacks the ability to "Get in there" to do his thing. If only Indomitable was a game mechanic back then...he would have likely had that ability to at least offset his lack of move and attack by being able to move up one turn and attack the next. He could set up his shots and pick opponents off carefully and methodically. He DOES have his attack special that gives him essentially the same thing, but it's conditional and not always going to work.

THEME: This time around we're faced with mostly the same keyword dilemma that his Xplosion version had. He has only a few generic keywords to choose from, and they are almost the same as his previous version. He just traded in the Warrior keyword for the Ruler keyword. I might go the same route as before, though, and choose the past keyword. This time around he's going to be more of the focal point of the team, though. With these kinds of stats and powers, this Apocalypse is the center piece of the team. Maybe grab a bunch of lower cost figures to act as tie-up and human shields while this Apocalypse lays waste to them. I don't know why, but I find it funny to use a mess of Newsboy Legion characters to fill in the points on the team. I just picture this Apocalypse offering up the puny humans to the enemy as he cuts swaths through them. Survival of the Fittest, after all...



PROS: I'll be honest. I've never used this figure. Though I knew what he did at one point, my review of him here will be like me re-discovering him. Looking first at his "First Mutant" trait, it gives him TRAITED Shape Change, Plasticity, and immunity to Incapacitate. That's a whopping 18 clicks of Shape Change...many of which are combined with other heavy damage reducers. The trait also makes it so his powers and combat abilities cannot be countered. Moving on to his movement special power, it's a little wonky, but it allows you to swap a figure on your team with a character on your opponent's team once per game. You could have a character that is nearly defeated and swap it out with an opponent's near full health figure and swap them. Sure, the opponent's new figure gets to heal by one, but it could be a MAJOR momentum swinging move. His defense power is pretty straightforward. It gives Apocalypse Invulnerability and Mastermind. Mastermind is great on a figure like this given that his trait makes his powers unable to be countered. Minion figures could keep him attacking for quite some time. Barring some fodder, Invulnerability will still be paired with that traited Shape Change. Last but CERTAINLY not least, Apocalypse's damage special power gives him Outwit. It also gives Apocalypse penetrating damage to anybody that has a power countered...note...it does NOT have to be countered by Apocalypse...it just checks to see if it is countered at all. Even if this is your one source of Outwit, it allows you to Outwit something else on the character besides a damage reducer and you can still cause just as much damage to that target. Looking at the stats of his dial, they are about what you would expect from a 500 point colossal figure. As far as his standard powers go, he has a lot of ways to hurt you. He employs Super Strength, Penetrating/Psychic Blast, Pulse Wave, and even some Blades/Claws/Fangs going for him. He's a versatile piece for such a giant target.

CONS: Speaking of giant target, he is just that. With only three clicks of any sort of move and attack power, he is going to take a bit of planning to get in place to be of optimal use. In the meantime, he is going to take shots from ALL OVER the place. Luckily he will get two defensive rolls (Most of the time) if he's on the top portion of his dial in the form of Shape Change and Impervious, but should the opponent be dealing penetrating damage or have Battle Fury, he's going to be down a way or two to get out of taking damage. This figure would be 100% worth his points if he featured some Multi-Attack, but that's not something that is standard on colossal figures anymore. I could still see you getting a lot out of him, but I'm a bit leery still. You could get even more out of him if he had multiple starting lines instead of just HAVING to plunk down 500 points every time you play him. If there was even a 300 point option, it would be so much more economical!

THEME: For large point games, I would love to play him on a 1,000 point Horsemen of Apocalypse team featuring him and his Four Horsemen. You would get him and then split the other 500 points among the Horsemen themselves. I would try to make sure that I had an actual representation of each of the four (Famine, Pestilence, War, and Death). Unfortunately, the way the Additional Team Ability is worded, you wouldn't be able to use it until one character was KO'd on the team, but it's not essential to team building. I would really want to use the Nemesis (Either one) on this team but he is really not good. the sculpt is just SOOOOO good, though. Oh, well...sometimes you have to do what you think is cool...not what you think is going to win!



PROS: Well, no sooner had I said something about wanting a way to play the big Apocalypse at other point values for budgetary purposes than they came out with this 300 point version. You've lost 200 points so obviously he isn't going to be as good as the 500 point one, but he's still got some great things going on. This version has a trait called Eternal Schemes which is like a four square field around him that allows you to place an action token on any opposing character within four squares of Apocalypse if they use Outwit after actions resolve. I would love to play him and the Trinity of Sin team base Phantom Stranger on the same team and REALLY punish people for using Outwit. Apocalypse could even carry him around! Back to the figure, though...his damage special power allows him to use Telekinesis and Shape Change. The Telekinesis I don't really see as much of a boon (I'll get into that in a minute), but the Shape Change will once again provide him with that extra layer of defense that is needed. Perhaps the biggest thing that this Apocalypse has going for him is the dial that is chock full of move and attack powers. On his 13 click dial, eight of those clicks sport either Charge or Running Shot. This is a hands on Apocalypse that can get around and do some damage. He tends to get a bad rap as realmser Department H will point out in his review, but I think that's just from people that don't really take a deep look at things when they're evaluating the overall picture.

CONS: The biggest loss between the 500 point one and this Apocalypse is his ability to be Outwitted. It's a big difference since giants and Colossals tend to be such lightning rods. Onto that Master Manipulator damage special power that he has...again, the Shape Change is great, but the Telekinesis seems wasted to me. Sure, I could move teammates around with it, but why would I use my 300 point piece to move around a figure that is almost CERTAINLY less points than he is? I'll concede the fact that point value doesn't necessarily indicate whether a figure is worth sending out that might not be able to cover that kind of ground themselves, but you'll likely never see anybody use this power for that. The second part of the power will RARELY ever come up...maybe if you play him with Mr. Mxyzptlk it will come up more often, but otherwise you'll probably just rather attack with Apocalypse instead of trying to pull off fancy repositioning tricks (Unless your strategy depends on it, that is).

THEME: This is the Apocalypse that I would likely reach for when I'm looking for a good mid-range Horsemen of Apocalypse team. He is a little easier to fit into a team that is 500-700 points and you won't feel like ALL of your points are tied up into a massive figure. You could even play him, 200 point Nemesis, and two other Horsemen for the remaining 200 points of a 700 point team and maybe even get to fit in that ATA. A +1 to attack would fit this guy quite nicely. (Of course, I don't know ANYBODY that would turn down a bonus to their attack given the option to have it).



PROS: Yet ANOTHER Apocalypse that I have never played...Wow...I have a horrible track record of playing Apocalypse figures! I'm of a split mind when it comes to this figure (See the other half of that split in the cons section). His two biggest tricks are his trait which allows you to play the Horsemen of Apocalypse ATA regardless of the amount of characters that you have on your team. This means that you could load up your team with Horsemen or even just play Apocalypse should you be using one of his other keywords as the source of your theme team. It doesn't matter because he removes the prescribed four characters that you need to activate the ATA. His other big trick (Pun intended) comes when he gets his movement special power and can morph into one of his two colossal versions (gxG03 or gxG07) and it extends his life by several clicks. There's no way to change back, but at the point you can change, you're pretty close to KO anyway and will be glad to have those extra clicks of life. Not to be forgotten about is his damage special power that he has on his top two clicks of life that give him both Outwit and Perplex. Perhaps with a Perplexed up defense value, it will help mitigate his shortcomings on defense. He is altogether a different and fresh take on Apocalypse.

CONS: The thing that worries me about this piece is his "Bare" defense on the top of his dial. Stealth definitely isn't what it used to be, and he has ZERO damage reducers to start out with...just Mastermind. I love Mastermind. It's a great power. It just loses some of it's appeal if it can be Outwitted. That's a little bit too risky for me to have somebody that could take most of the wind out of this guy's sails in just one shot. Depending on the size of said shot and the conditions of the field at the time of the shot, he could potentially be taken out in one hit. It would have to be a helluva hit, but it's possible. These days he also has to contend with Precision Strike. No Mastermind for him if he comes up against one of the 500+ figures that have been given that power since it's creation.

THEME: This is perhaps the best options for a Horsemen of Apocalypse theme team. For one, he is the most economical figures that has the keyword. Secondly, he has that trait going for him so you can play him AND all four of the Horsemen (Or more...or less if you choose) without having to focus on having the prescribed number of them on your team or still on the map. That's the biggest problem with that ATA...if you use it and have exactly four characters, you're gold...if ONE of them gets KO'd, you no longer meet prerequisites and are just out of luck. With this guy around, you sidestep the number of them that are required and you just get a +1 to attack all game (As long as Apocalypse is still around that is). He is definitely the most team friendly version of this character.

KEYS TO THE KINGDOM

Now that we have had a little glimpse into the aspects of all the different Apocalypse figures, let's take a quick look at his keywords and I will tell you my number one picks to use for each keyword theme available (Named keywords are bolded):

Mutant: mu059 Apocalypse
Past: mu059 Apocalypse
Warrior: xp088 Apocalypse
Ruler: mu059 Apocalypse
Armor: wkM-002 Apocalypse
Future: wkM-002 Apocalypse
Horsemen of Apocalypse: wkM-002 Apocalypse

WHO NEEDS KEYWORDS?!

In this section, I'm going to list some possible theme teams that you could play Apocalypse on that are definitely comic accurate but don't require keywords and provides links using Comic Vine and/or Wikipedia to tell you more about them. Unfortunately, using these teams mean you are going to forego keyword bonuses, but every once in a while Judges might let you slip by with one of these teams:

The Alliance of Evil
Clan Akkaba
Dark Riders
Externals

This wraps it up for Deep Dish Themes: Apocalypse edition. Thank you to Mikkisaur for the nomination and thank YOU for reading! Feel free to post what you think about the article and feel free to nominate a character for an upcoming edition of Deep Dish Themes. Join me on 5/25 when I can hardly CONTAIN myself in Deep Dish Themes: Wildfire (As nominated by garrus vakarian)

m&m is STILL the best apoc in the game IMO. long range, outwit, and great values to boot. he can take a hit, evade a hit and you might need multiple outwits to shut him down. he doesn't move and attack cause apoc(and other villains like him) don't come at you. you come at them and they kick your butt. until they make a better one, m&m is the one i'll reach for.

WHY DIDN'T WE GET ONE IN UNCANNY X-MEN?! YOU WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN AN AoA CHASE VERSION AT LEAST!!!!

Here, here! Another fig that is not only way overdo for a remake, but has never had a really good representation, in mho.

Great write up.

I had fun with that second Apocalypse. I gave him Trick Shot (since RCE isn't the only prereq; you can use it with plasticity) and teamed him up with inexpensive stealthy "Mutant" keyword characters. It worked well as I recall. Of course, stealth was more useful back then (fewer ways to see through it). Still, it encouraged people to come close, so Pocky could hit people with a heavy object. Or if they stay away, he'll shoot them with his 10 range.

Isn't Dark Angel supposed to be Apocalypse reincarnated into Archangel's body or some crap like that?

Cool article. I've never really used any Apoc's so it was interesting to read the strategies for using them. I do plan on using the new Dark Angel, so based on UniqueLoginNamor's comment, maybe my streak of not using Apoc will soon end.

Not quite. He is apocalypse's successor. He has an undeniable urge to continue apocalypse's mission. Comics am I right?

Well, there you go....

I conveniently have the M&M Apocalypse being shipped to me as we speak
That whole set was filled with gems

Great write up!

Always wanted a 'Pocky. Great read. He always seemed to job in all the comics I read though. He was based in the old 90s cartoon and man he had the best lines and delivery lol "I am as far beyond mutants as they are beyond you... I am eternal!" indeed

Great write up, I agree on all points, that dang ATA with the convention piece is ridiculous. My favorite has to be the original though just because MACE FISTED!