There must always be four.

By Jesse Schedeen

Marvel's latest X-Men crossover, The Apocalypse Wars," kicked off today in the pages of Extraordinary X-Men #8. Warning: this article contains spoilers for Extraordinary X-Men #8!

This crossover will focus on the three-way conflict between the original Apocalypse, his heir, Archangel, and his teenage clone, Genesis. This issue laid the groundwork by pitting the X-Men against Sugar Man, the grotesque villain from the Age of Apocalypse universe who crossed over to the regular Marvel Universe to continue his experiments. It seems Sugar Man has managed to clone hundreds of new mutant embryos that are safely isolated from the roaming Terrigen Mist cloud that's been devastating the mutant race lately.

Colossus and his group of trainee X-Men were unexpectedly dragged 1,000 years into the future during the fight. And when the rest of the X-Men followed them, they found that their allies had aged several months (or possibly even years) in the span of a few minutes. The real shock, however, came when the X-Men encountered Apocalypse's Four Horsemen in the 31st Century: The new Horsemen lineup is comprised of four familiar faces, but only one of them is actually a mutant. The transformed Colossus has been joined by Venom, Deadpool and Moon Knight. This Deadpool is probably the same version readers are familiar with (he is immortal, after all), but we're guessing Venom has found itself a new host over the years. And we're guessing that's not Marc Spector under the Moon Knight cloak.

Colossus is just the latest in a long line of X-Men to be corrupted by Apocalypse's advanced technology. Other X-Men who have temporarily served as Horsemen include Archangel, Wolverine, Gambit, Sunfire and Polaris. Don't be surprised if those transformations come into play as this Apocalypse-heavy crossover unfolds over the next several months.
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