“Age of Apocalypse” is a comic book crossover storyline published in the X-Men franchise of books by Marvel Comics. Although occurring in the alternate universe of Earth-295, it has often had ramifications in the universe of Earth-616, the main Marvel Comics universe.
Legion (David Haller), a powerful psionic mutant on Earth and son of Professor Charles Xavier, travels back in time with the intention of killing Magneto. He believes Magneto’s death will allow Xavier to achieve his dream of human/mutant equality. But Legion travelled to a time when Magneto and Xavier were still friends. So Xavier dies trying to protect Magneto. Legion vanishes, and a new timeline is created. The only person aware of how history has changed is Bishop, a time travelling mutant who followed Legion.
Because of Xavier’s sacrifice, Magneto comes to believe in his late friend’s dream of peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants. Apocalypse, an immortal mutant villain, was monitoring the fight. He chooses this moment as the perfect time to begin his world conquest, which didn’t happen in the regular Marvel Universe for another ten years.
Magneto assembles the X-Men just as Apocalypse begins his war. Despite the X-Men’s struggles, Apocalypse conquers all of North America, and initiates a worldwide genocidal campaign of “cullings” that kill millions of non-mutant humans. Meanwhile, the changes in the timeline result in a destructive crystallization wave created by the M’Kraan Crystal.
To download issues 1-24
To download issues 25-48
