Back in 1995
Marvel Comics launched a mega
X-Men crossover event titled
Age Of Apocalypse. The project featured many of the greats in the comic book industry including names like
Scott Lobdell, Mark Waid, Fabian Nicieza, Jeph Loeb and
Larry Hama. The event kicked off with a one-shot book titled
X-Men: Alpha and then carried over into the regular X-Books of the time, all of which were actually renamed during the crossover.
X-Calibre replaced Excalibur,
Gambit and the X-Ternals replaced X-Force,
Generation Next replaced Generation X,
Astonishing X-Men replaced Uncanny X-Men,
Amazing X-Men replaced X-Men,
Weapon X replaced Wolverine,
Factor X replaced X-Factor and
X-Man replaced Cable.
The story was based on an alternate timeline where Legion (David Haller), a psychotic mutant travels back in time to kill Magneto but accidentally kills Professor Xavier instead. This in turn causes Apocalypse to accelerate his plans 10 years sooner than he did in the regular Marvel Universe. In doing so Apocalypse is able to take control of Earth and hence altering everything that happened from that point forward. In the story Apocalypse is opposed by several factions of mutant resistance fighters including the largest group led by Magneto. Eventually they send Bishop back in time to prevent Legion from murdering Professor X and putting everything back to the way it was.
The crossover event was so massive that
Toy Biz even launched a line of 5" action figures based on it the same year the comics came out, and continued to make figures based on the characters from the story even into their 6" Marvel Legends line years later.
Now to celebrate next years
25th Anniversary of the event,
Hasbro is dedicating an entire wave of their
X-Men themed 6" Marvel Legends figures to the story line. This past weekend the entire list of figures for that wave were revealed, except for the Build-A-Figure. The wave will include figures of
Dark Beast, Weapon X, Jean Grey, Morph, Nathan Summers, Wild Child and
Sunfire.
Hasbro Marvel Legends X-Men: Age Of Apocalypse Wave
So the question on everyone's mind after this weekends news, who will the
Build-A-Figure for this wave be???
We've narrowed the list down to the 6 most likely candidates to warrant the Build-A-Figure treatment, and put them in the order we feel is least to most likely. Keep in mind this is simply our speculation, as Hasbro has not provided any info for this wave beyond the regular figures being released.
6. Mr. Sinister
Like with most of the characters in this storyline, Mr. Essex here sported a different look from his regular Marvel Universe one. The character sported a lot more red in his outfit and had a different hairstyle. While we do think it would make a cool figure, being the regular Mr. Sinister Hasbro recently released in the line was done so as a regular figure, we feel the chances of this version being a Build-A-Figure are slim-to-none.
5. Colossus
Colossus sported quit a different look in this Universe, but like with Sinister, Hasbro just recently released a Colossus figure which was done as a regular release and not a Build-A-Figure.
4. Holocaust
Holocaust was a very cool character who first appeared in the Age Of Apocalypse storyline. He was originally named Nemesis and was the son of Apocalypse in this timeline. After being badly injured in battle by Magneto, his body was placed in a near-indestructible crystalline exo-armor by Dark Beast and renamed Holocaust . In this exo-armor the character is quit large making him a perfect candidate for the Build-A-Figure treatment. He also had close ties to both Dark Beast and Sunfire, two of the regular figures in this wave. On top of all that, this character's story didn't end in Age of Apocalypse because he was able to escape into the regular Marvel Universe.
Hasbro's First Nemesis Build-A-Figure
The biggest reason against him being the Build-A-Figure for the wave is that Hasbro already did a Marvel Legends Build-A-Figure version of him back in their early days of getting the license from Toy Biz. It was one of the better early figures they did but we certainly wouldn't mind a modern update.
3. Sugar Man
A grotesque character who like with Dark Beast and Nemesis managed to make the crossover from the AoA Universe to the regular Marvel Universe. He is essentially a large head with 4 arms and 2 legs. He's not really super tall but being a big head with four arms does make him kinda wide and therefore would probably make a good fit for the Build-A-Figure treatment. Toy Biz did a 5" version of him back in the day so it would be interesting to see what a mordern 6" Marvel Legends version would look like.
2. Sabretooth
The only reason we have ol' Sabretooth here on a Build-A-Figure list, and more so ranked #2 is because we know we are getting Wild Child as a regular figure in this wave. In the Age of Apocalypse story line Sabretooth and Wild Child went hand-in-hand with one another. Wild Child was always seen riding on the shoulder of Creed and the two were practically inseparable. We don't really feel Sabretooth is deserving of the Build-A-Figure treatment simply because he's not that big of a character, but as we saw with the recent
Demogoblin announcement, that's not always a criteria. Since we know all the regular figures in this wave and its hard to imagine Hasbro would give us Wild Child without Sabretooth, we felt we had little choice but to include him on this list. Of course Toy Biz did give us a Marvel Legends AoA Sabretooth without Wild Child back in the day so who knows, maybe Hasbro just figured we could use that one.
1. Apocalypse
While Hasbro did just recently give us a regular Apocalypse Build-A-Figure for the line, his look in the AoA storyline was quit different from his regular look, and we just can't see an entire wave being dedicated to this story line without featuring a figure of the man himself headlining it as the Build-A-Figure.