-- Age of Apocalypse FAQ, Part 2 --


Q.  What's with all the facial tattoos?
A.  Contemporary fashion, presumably.  There's no apparent correlation
between any character's tattoos and his/her status in Apocalypse's
regime -- Havok has one where Cyclops does not, and while Jean Grey
might have gotten hers in Apocalypse's slave pits, Polaris never
received anything similar during her stay.

Q.  How did Rogue give birth a son, if she automatically absorbs
anyone's psyche and powers on contact?  
A.  Good question.  One possibility is that baby Charles was a test-tube
baby, not impossible given Magnus' grasp of technology.  Another is that
Rogue's power only works on skin-to-skin contact, so that a very careful
delivery could keep the baby safe from Rogue's powers.  (Note, by the
way, that X-Men Alpha established that Charles does not have an immunity
to Rogue's absorbtion powers, logical though this may seem from a
geneticist's perspective.)

Q.  In that case, how was the kid conceived in the first place?
A.  According to X-Men Chronicles #2, Magneto could cover his own body
in a bio-magnetic field that prevented Rogue's skin from actually
contacting his when he touched her.  Presumably he got a lot of practice
before he and Rogue conceived their son.

Q.  In Astonishing X-Men #1, Apocalypse calls Rex a mutant.  In another
issue, he calls him a human.  Which one is it?
A.  Ah, you've discovered one of the little perks of these crossovers: 
the fact that not all the writers are aware of the nuances of each
other's stories as they're written.  Considering, though, that
Apocalypse made it a point not to allow any humans into his retinue,
it's likely that the "human" quote was intended as an insult.  It's
questionable whether the last panel in Astonishing #2, page 11,
depicting Rex levitating a couple inches off the ground as Apocalypse
shouted at him was drawn to depict his (minor) mutant powers, or if
Madureira did it simply for dramatic effect.  Since Rex never demonstrates
any powers elsewhere, though, this is as good a guess as any.

Q.  How come Rogue never knocks anyone out when she makes skin-to-skin
contact with them in the crossover?
A.  Another good question.  The best bet is that Magneto has taught her to
use the magnetic powers she absorbed from Polaris to buffer her mutant power
the same way Magneto uses his to touch her without being absorbed at
all.  The annoying quirk is that she still copies her victim's psyche
and memories, and completely absorbs their powers, but never renders
them unconscious.  Chalk it up to a whim of Scott Lobdell's.

Q.  Is Nightcrawler's last name Wagner or Darkholme in the Age of
Apocalypse?  I'm finding references to both.
A.  Nightcrawler's real name is commonly accepted as Kurt Wagner.  The
Age of Apocalypse Nightcrawler took his mother's (Mystique's) surname
after he learned of her relationship to him, which presumably occurred
much earlier than it did for our timeline's Nightcrawler.  As a result,
some X-Men probably knew him as Wagner before he became Kurt Darkholme,
so they slip up on occasion.  

Q.  What's this business with Banshee reprogramming the Sentinels with
harmonics in Amazing X-Men #2?  Has Fabian Nicieza been taking lessons
in computer hacking from Geordi LaForge, or something?
A.  Don't blame Fab for this one, although he himself does take the
responsibility for the rest of the issue.  The harmonics bit was an
editorial decision, to replace Fabian's original decision to have the X-Men
talk the Sentinels out of attacking them with a logic trap.  We would have 
preferred the latter idea, ourselves.

Q.  How come Dazzler's light holograms can talk?
A.  It's likely Magneto taught her to rebroadcast sound as sound as well
as light, a little enhancement of her natural mutant powers.  If you
don't like this explanation, another racx'er suggested that she isn't
actually talking, but simply making a light projection of the word
balloons you see over her holograms. Pick whichever one you prefer.

Q.  If Theresa Cassidy is Banshee's daughter, who's that old guy she's
with in X-Man #1?
A.  Since we're never given a name -- or even a term of affection -- for
this man, he's probably just her surrogate father in this timeline.  In
our timeline, Theresa Cassidy didn't find out Banshee was her father
until she was a teenager; she was raised in Ireland by her cousin, Black
Tom Cassidy.  The old man in X-Man #1 doesn't bear any resemblance to
Black Tom, though, so the most likely explanation is that Black Tom was
killed by Apocalypse's cullings (or perhaps joined his cause somewhere
along the line), and Theresa was raised by this man instead, who took
her across the Atlantic during Apocalypse's European cullings before the
takeover of North America.

Q.  Is Know-It-All from Generation Next really M?
A.  Yes, although there's no actual evidence to back this up in the
Generation Next issues.  A response by the editors to a letter in
Generation X #5 says that Know-It-All is indeed Monet, so we're going to
take their word for it.  The only problem is that Know-It-All's real name
is given by Chamber in Gen Next #1 to be Claudia, but some xbookers are of
the opinion that this was a pun based on M's real name being Monet. (The
artist, get it?)  

Q.  How did Havok kill Cyclops in X-Men Omega, if they're supposed to be
immune to each other's powers?
A.  Major, MAJOR writer's gaffe.  Next?

Q.  What's this about Mr. Sinister having served Apocalypse for over a
century? 
A.  This was a revelation for the rest of us, too.  But it goes
a long way toward explaining Sinister's heretofore unexplained motives
in massacring the Morlocks.  If Sinister was serving Apocalypse for this
long -- and this would include our timeline as well, since the Age of
Apocalypse only began twenty years ago -- then the Morlock massacre
could be seen as simply another one of Apocalypse's "survival of the
fittest" programs.  

This also explains why our Sinister has always been interested in Scott
Summers' and Jean Grey's DNA.  It's likely the natural-born Nathan
Summers from our timeline was intended to serve the same purpose as the
Age of Apocalypse's genetically-spliced Nathan Summers, as a failsafe in
case Apocalypse's campaign ever conflicted with Sinister's own agenda. 
Exactly what that agenda is, we still don't know, but Sinister says in
X-Man #4 that he and Apocalypse "once shared a mutual interest -- the
evolution of the Homo Superior.  But where I was poised to bring life up to
the next rung on the genetic ladder, he now embraces only death."
Hopefully, our timeline's Sinister will be more explicit about this as time
goes on.

Q.  Why is it that Logan can't seem to go three issues, in any timeline,
without having to slice a few dozen cyborgs down to size?
A.  Because it's easier to pass the Comics Code when you let a guy who's
equipped to slice and dice everything in his path do it to machines
rather than real people.  Less mess, y'know.

Q.  What's with Emma Frost's new hairdo, and why's she working with the
Human High Council?
A.  Presumably the stitches and half-shaved head were a lobotomy
intended to remove Emma's mutant telepathic powers.  Without those, the
Human High Council had no qualms about letting her into their ranks,
since she no longer practically qualified as a mutant.

Q.  How about Brian Braddock, then?  Isn't he a mutant too?
A.  Not exactly; he's a hybrid of a human mother and a father who came
from a dimension known as Otherworld.  His powers only developed in our
timeline because he used to wear an amplifying costume to bring them
out.  For a long time, he was powerless without it, and presumably the
Age of Apocalypse Braddock was never  given this costume.

The problem here, though, is that he was blasted by Magma in Weapon X #1
with no apparent damage, but when Pierce stabbed him in Weapon X #4, he
died.  The  explanation then becomes that Brian's powers -  or at least
his invulnerability  - were latent within him, but as issues of Excalbur
pointed out some time ago,  his powers are dependent on his proximity to
Great Britain.  When Pierce killed  him, the zepplins were already
halfway out over the Atlantic Ocean, and thus his powers, latent or not,
would have disappeared.

Q.  Haven't I seen Abyss somewhere in our timeline before?
A.  You've almost certainly seen his powers before; at least half a
dozen mutants and non-mutants in our timeline have exibited the same
internal-interdimensional-portal powers Abyss has.  But again, the
trend in the Age of Apocalypse crossover is to give parallel characters
the same names they have/had in our timeline, to avoid confusion on the
reader's part.  He was designed as a brand-new character by Fabian
Nicieza, and as far as this FAQ is concerned, that's exactly what he is.

Q.  What about the rape scene involving Legion and Gaby in Uncanny X-Men
#321?  Did he rape her or didn't he?  Did she have Legion's son?  Is
their son Exodus?  Maybe it's Legion himself?
A.  One at a time.  The overwhelming consensus on rec.arts.comics.xbooks
is that the rape actually did take place off-panel; all the references
are there, from Xavier picking up her cries for help to the torn clothes
she had afterward.  Whether there's a child from this unholy union is a
question we have to wait to answer.  No one knows what Exodus' origin
is, so without any evidence to support this theory the FAQ keeper is
going to discard this possibility for the time being.  And although
Legion has already been reported as the son of Xavier and Gaby, it's
entirely possible for the writers to retcon him into being his own son
as a result of this scene.  Genetic probability defies this possibility,
but that's never stopped our dear X-writers before.

Q.  Is John Proudstar from X-Calibre #1 the same person as Warpath in
X-Force? 
A.  Nope, Warpath is James Proudstar, John's younger brother.  John was
the original Thunderbird, who in our timeline died on his second mission
with the X-Men in Uncanny X-Men #95.

Q.  Hey, I just realized -- where's Psylocke in this whole mess?
A.  We have no idea.  Betsy Braddock seems to be the only major
X-character never mentioned in the Age of Apocalypse, which is
surprising since her brother Brian (sans his Captain Britain powers)
figures prominently in Weapon X.  There is some speculation that she was
used by Sinister to create his Brain Trust in Factor-X, but most readers
seem to generally agree that she was just an unfortunate early casualty
of Apocalypse's cullings.  This would certainly explain Brian's
monomaniacal determination to drop every nuke in Europe on North
America.

Q.  Why do you keep referring to yourself in the plural?
A.  We are a FAQ-keeper.  We need to maintain an air of dignity, or else
you might ignore everything we say and start developing your own crazy
theories about what really happened in these comic books.

Q.  How'd Morph cross over from the Animated Series into the Age of
Apocalypse? 
A.  Morph isn't really a new character to either timeline.  The Morph
from the Animated Series was based on a character named Changeling, from
the double-digit issues of Uncanny X-Men, who had basically the same
powers.  (Like everyone else, though, his powers got upped considerably,
courtesy of Magneto's rather intense training.)  He died some time ago
in our timeline, but in the Age of Apocalypse he's apparently fine and
dandy, along with a new face and a new costume to replace the purple-
headpieced thing Quicksilver was complaining about in Astonishing X-Men #1.

Q.  What the hey is an Alpha mutant?
A.  The crossover writers never explicitly define the qualifications for an
Alpha mutant, although it's clear that just about anyone who was an X-Man
in our timeline qualifies.  Weapon X #3 records one of the Apocalypse's 
cyborgs saying of Logan, "Check out the protein curve on the sensor
readings.  This joker ain't no flatscan -- he's a mutant!  And an Alpha
class to boot!"  What exactly the protein readings had to do with anything
is questionable, although it's likely that the cyborg was only using these
to establish that Logan was a mutant.  From everything we've seen, a mutant
isn't an Alpha class based on their actual mutant powers -- Logan's healing
factor would barely be on par with Havok's plasma blast -- but on how
well they know how to use them and how much of a threat they should be
considered.

Q.  How did Cyclops blast of Weapon X's hand, if Logan's bones are
indestructable adamantium?  And why didn't his hand grow back, if he has
such a great healing factor?
A.  While the details of this part of the fight was never elaborated on in
the comics, it's a fact of anatomy that the bones of the hand and wrist are
extremely small.  Cyclops could have easily used enough force to blast these
bones right off Logan's arm without actually destroying the bones
themselves.  (The adamantium in Logan's arm could have protected him from
any damage below the wrist, as long as the hand was the only part Cyclops
actually shot.)  

As for Logan's unconquerable healing factor, the AOA Collector's Preview
quoted Andy Kubert as saying that the attachment was placed over Logan's
wound before his healing factor could regenerate his hand.  It's also
possible that the adamantium on his remaining bones would have prevented
the hand from growing back on properly, necessitating the attachment.

Q.  What was Destiny talking about when she said in Omega that only she,
Illyana, and Bishop could go into the M'Krann Crystal, because they
alone had no counterpart in the other timeline?
A.  In our humble opinion, Destiny was lying through her teeth.  The
reason for arguing this is that the strike force of X-Men Quicksilver
was proposing at the time would have messed up the past a lot more than
she would have liked, and would increase the risk of some of them being
trapped in the past.  Besides, twenty years ago Destiny was still alive in
our timeline, and Destiny also knew full well that Bishop would meet his
younger self when he exited the Crystal.  And even if she was referring to
the other timeline's present instead of it's shared past, there's the
fact that Morph and Blink didn't have counterparts either and thus could
have travelled with Bishop.  

Q.  How did Magneto know anything about the M'Krann Crystal?
A.  When Magneto used Rogue to learn of Bishop's memories of our
timeline, he also picked up his memories of the X-Men's recordings of
the original adventure with Phoenix into the Shi'ar galaxy to stop the
M'Krann Crystal from destroying all reality.  On a longshot hope that
the Crystal, identified as "the Nexus of All Realities," would provide
him a way to reach back in time before Xavier was killed, he sent Gambit
& Co. to recover it for him.

Q.  Without Phoenix, why _didn't_ the universe get destroyed?
A.  D'Ken didn't have Lilandra's opposition to taking over the Shi'ar
Empire, so he was able to tap the energies released by the Crystal for
his own purposes, and they only started growing out of control later.

Q.  So what happened to the crystalization wave we saw in LegionQuest
and X-Men Alpha?
A.  Gambit and the X-ternals #3 covered this, barely.  When Gambit
offered his gift to the M'Krann Crystal (his unrequitted love for Rogue)
in exchange for a shard of the Crystal, it freed itself from the power
taps D'Ken had placed on it.  Apparently the Crystal was able to use it
presence across all times and realities to negate the crystalization
wave in both its own timeline and in ours.

Q.  Speaking of cosmic destruction, why didn't Galactus eat the Earth by
now if the Fantastic Four, et al., weren't around to stop him?
A.  This is probably one of the trickiest questions of the whole
crossover, since it doesn't directly relate to the X-books at all.  The
X-Universe limited series proves that the Fantastic Four and the
Avengers never existed in this timeline, due to the fact that Apocalypse
apparently initiated his takeovers before they could be founded.  This
leaves two likely possibilities:  that either Apocalypse or Magneto's
X-Men had enough power by themselves to stop Galactus from destroying
Earth, or the M'Krann crystalization wave managed to nail him before he
even got close to Earth.  It's also conceivable  that D'Ken's new Shi'ar
Empire was able to destroy him when he threatened one  of their worlds,
but since no one's been able to do this ever in our timeline, this is
rather doubtful.

There's been a whole series of similar questions on the newsgroup
concerning various related past events in Marvel history, that would have
been dramatically affected by the absence of our timeline's X-Men,
Fantastic Four, Avengers, etc.  This FAQ isn't going to deal with these
issues, partially because they're not relevant to the crossover per se, but
mostly because we're not nearly well-versed enough on non-X-Men history to
answer any of them.  Just work under the assumption that it was all taken
care of somehow as a consequence of Apocalypse or Magneto's actions, or even
one of the other Marvel characters before they were killed in AOA.

Q.  How in the heck did Sabretooth survive that disembowelment Holocaust
gave him in Astonishing #3?
A.  Ah, you've hit on our second-biggest peeve about this whole
storyline.  Logically, no, there is now way even Sabretooth's
Magneto/Apocalypse-enhanced healing factor could possibly regenerate the
skin, muscles, internal organs and approximately three quarts of blood
he would have lost from that wound.  Fortunately for Marvel, logic's
never stopped them before.  Presumably Apocalypse did some serious
mucking about with Sabretooth's genetic structure while he was a
Horseman, enabling him to regenerate necessary life-providing body parts
from, say, air molecules or spare bone marrow.  This also can be used to
explain his super-human strength, which in our timeline was never high
enough to enable him to lift small boulders as he did in Astonishing #2.

Q.  So what's your first-biggest peeve?
A.  That would be X-Men Omega.  We already covered how Legion must have
been able to use his time-travel power to uniquely rewrite history
instead of creating an alternate timeline as per traditional Marvel
spec.  The best explanation we've seen yet for what happened when
AlterBishop stopped Legion from killing either Xavier or Magnus was
provided by Paul O'Brien:

  Legion dies because he's being consumed by the energies he
  built up to kill Xavier - as Bishop says.  The Alter-X Bishop
  ceases to exist because his history has no longer happened -
  the Alter-X reality never existed after all.
  
  The reason why nobody has any memories of Legion's activities
  is because it never happened - including the bits that transpired
  _before_ he killed Xavier.  What Legion was doing was a violation
  of spacetime.  With Legion out of the way, spacetime reformed itself
  in the original form, so the entire sequence in the past never
  happened (as far as the people in that time are concerned), and
  those people who were being held in the past by Legion's powers
  were restored to their own time.

Again, this all makes more sense when you remember Marvel's already
violated every convention concerning time-travel that they'd ever
established when LegionQuest was published.  Just take it all in stride.

Q.  What's the official theme song of the Age of Apocalypse?
A.  I'm glad you asked.  This would by our own "Ode to Alter-X", sung to
the tune of R.E.M.'s "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I
Feel Fine)" --

  That's great, it starts out with Mystique -
  Destiny?  That's questionable,
  And ain't Legion a vegetable?
  Time-travel gone sour, David's got a new power,
  X-Men are back in time, screwin' up the timeline,
  Xavier and Magnus, he's _not_ Erik,
  Bobby, Bishop, Storm, Betsy -- all lost their memories.
  X-men try to stop him, represent the sacred dream
  In a plot device extracted from some "Star Trek" shows,
  Legion kills his daddy in a hurry
  When he's aiming for Magneto's head.

  Team's all gone and Bishop's stranded back in the past.
  Look at that bald head!  Fine, then,
  Uh-oh, Magneto's founded all the X-Men now
  But this'll do, they're heroes, save the world.
  World serves Apoc'lypse, look at all the mutants,
  Tell me, do you think they're gonna fix it all all right?  Right.
  This mad, psychotic, knock-down drag-out fight has Marvelites
  Feeling pretty psyched.

     It's the end of X-books as we know it,
     It's the end of X-books as we know it,
     It's the end of X-books as we know it,
     For this plotline.

  Just four months?  Get a move on,
  Dozens of things to be doin'.
  Sinister returns, listen to his lab burn,
  Lookin' for a mutant clone he created, escap-ed.
  Cyclops doing villany, Havok's green with envy.
  Now Magneto sends out Gambit, the X-terals,
  Gen Next and Darkholme, uh-oh, this means
  No fear - Rogue is here!  Got a son, ain't that wierd?
  Holocaust, the Infinites, and Sentinels to boot.
  Off to kill the whole world, off to kill the X-Men -- 
  Will you buy this time?

     It's the end of X-books as we know it,
     It's the end of X-books as we know it,
     It's the end of X-books as we know it,
     Just one more time.

  Little Blink is still alive,
  Beast has got a nasty side,
  Polaris?  Her brain's fried --
     VIC'S A GOOD GUY??
  Weapon X, Jean Grey,
  Morph is here, but what the hey.
  Braddock's gonna drop the nuclear bomb -- BOOM!
  It's an asymptotic, true chaotic retconned mess,
  Right?  'Night.

     It's the end of X-books as we know it,
     It's the end of X-books as we know it,
     It's the end of X-books as we know it,
     They've lost their minds....


Q.  So you're a cynic?
A.  Just where the Marvel editorial offices are concerned.

Q.  What if I suddenly realize there's another unanswered question that
ought to go in this FAQ?
A.  Foreward 'em to the FAQ-keeper at m-blase@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu, and
we'll make sure they get in here.

Q.  Whom should I thank for the helpful answers provided here?
A.  Most of the cast and crew of rec.arts.comics.xbooks, really.  The
whole newsgroup's spent the five months this crossover took to blow over
debating the various inconsistencies and unanswered questions about it,
and we really couldn't have pulled this thing together without them. 
Give 'em all a pastry next time you're around.


  -- End of Part 2 --