The Age of Apocalypse is easily one of, if not the darkest era in X-Men lore as it shows the world in complete war-torn chaos where mutants are being bred and tortured systematically and humans are being shot in the street–and that’s not even the extent of the darkness of this world as even individual characters are altered just enough to suffer excruciating agony, including one classic X-Men villain in particular.
The Age of Apocalypse is a splintered timeline that came to be as a result of alterations made to the original time stream of Earth-616. When Legion, the son of Xavier, went back in time to kill Magneto, he accidentally killed his father instead. With Professor X out of the picture, Apocalypse knew he could rise to power unchallenged–and that’s exactly what he did. When fans are thrown into this alternate reality in X-Men: Alpha #1, Apocalypse had already seized control over the entirety of North America and was putting plans into motion that would assuredly result in him conquering the rest of the world. In that effort, Apocalypse recruited like-minded mutants, and enslaved rebellious ones who didn’t share his vision for the future. Those who were kept captive either offered their genes through forced breeding, or had their DNA taken from them and melded into half-life soldiers known as Infinites that were created by Mr. Sinister and Dark Beast. Some captives did manage to escape from their pens from time to time, however, but only the strongest were able to survive Apocalypse’s world–and one mutant had a disadvantage from the start.
In Factor X #1 by John Francis Moore and Steve Epting, readers are given an up-close-and-personal look at Apocalypse’s top enforcers as they chase down mutants who managed to escape from the pens–and the leader of Apocalypse’s troops is none other than Cyclops. Under the leadership of Cyclops, his soldiers were able to track down the mutants who escaped fairly quickly–and one of the escaped mutants was the classic X-Men villain, Pyro. Pyro has the ability to manipulate fire, and in the main continuity of Earth-616, Pyro has a full suit that allows him to create fire while also protecting him from the flames he was manipulating all around him. Unfortunately, in the Age of Apocalypse, Pyro didn’t have that suit.
X-Men’s Pyro Can’t Use His Powers Without Getting Burned in Age of Apocalypse
In a world where everyone is trying to kill him, Pyro has needed to use his mutant abilities to defend himself–but every time he does so, he gets seriously burned. When readers are introduced to Pyro in this comic, most of his body is already covered in burn scars and fresh wounds that will only add to his mutilation. This means that Pyro has been put in countless situations where he had to choose between being captured/killed, or endure the pain of fighting back–and every time, he chose to fight, at the cost of his own flesh.
While Pyro only appeared in this comic for a few short s, his impact on the wider story is immediately felt. Pyro was a prominent X-Men villain who even received a live-action adaptation, but here, he was simply a mutant trying to survive who couldn’t even use his own inherent abilities without causing himself immense harm in the process–a cruel twist that could have only come from the world of the Age of Apocalypse.
