The storyline starts with Legion (David Haller), a psychotic mutant who traveled back in time to kill Magneto before he can commit various crimes against humanity.
The death of Professor Xavier leads Apocalypse to attack 10 years sooner than he did in the original timeline, taking control of Earth and altering everything that happened from that point forward.
The group manages to send the mutant Bishop back in time to prevent the murder of Professor Xavier, undoing the entire timeline.
The "Dark Angel Saga" in 2011 revisited the alternate reality once more, leading to an Age of Apocalypse ongoing series launched in 2012 that ran for 14 issues.
Legion (David Haller), a psychotic mutant on Earth and son of Professor Charles Xavier, travels back in time with the intention of killing Magneto (Erik Lehnsherr).
X-Calibre is a team built around Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner), who is sent by Magneto to locate Destiny (Irene Adler), a mutant capable of seeing into the future, so that she can verify Bishop's story.
Gambit (Remy LeBeau)'s X-Ternals consist of Sunspot (Roberto de Costa), Jubilee (Jubilation Lee), Strong Guy (Guido Carosella) and Lila Cheney.
Generation Next consists of a young group of mutant students trained by the husband and wife team of Colossus (Piotr "Peter" Rasputin) and Shadowcat (Katherine Pryde-Rasputin).
The Astonishing X-Men are led by Rogue (Anna Marie Lehnsherr, Magneto's wife) and consist of Sabretooth (Victor Creed), Blink (Clarice Ferguson), Wild Child (Kyle Gibney), Morph (Kevin Sydney) and Sunfire (Shiro Yoshida).
The Amazing X-Men consist of team leader Quicksilver (Pietro Lehnsherr) and Storm (Ororo Munroe), Dazzler (Alison Blaire), Banshee (Sean Cassidy), Iceman (Robert "Bobby" Drake), and Exodus (Paris Bennet).
He lives under the guidance of his father figure Forge, who leads a group of outcasts consisting of Mastermind, Toad, Brute, and Sauron, who attack trains and factories of Apocalypse while masquerading as a theatre troupe.
An alternate AoA reality was presented when Magneto, giving up on Bishop's mission in the final moments, rescued his family from the nuclear explosions alongside some of his allies.
[5] Before the tenth anniversary, the Age of Apocalypse was considered a dead reality that no longer existed—a fact that was frequently mentioned by timeline escapees, such as Sugar Man and Blink.
In the 1996 X-Man Annual, Sugar Man uses a variation on a time machine powered by Nate's psionic force to return to the early years of Apocalypse's rule where he hopes to take control himself.
The one-shot contains the story of how Colossus and Shadowcat left the X-Men to train Generation Next; how Sabretooth met Wild Child; the first appearance of the Silver Samurai; and how the world survived the Human High Council's nuclear attack.
Long time characters Cloak and Dagger, Psylocke, and the Morlocks (including Feral, Leech, Marrow, Skids, and Thornn), who were survivors of Mr. Sinister's experiments, are introduced.
The world, which during the previous appearance had seemed to be on the road to recovery, has once again fallen on hard times, similar to when Apocalypse was ruling, with Sentinels now roaming the streets.
With the life seed destroyed, Dark Beast sneaks over to the portal back to the 616 Marvel Universe and walks in, leaving X-Force stranded in the Age of Apocalypse world.
However, as X-Force also learn that the only way to return to the main reality is to seek the help of Gateway who in turn is kept prisoner in the mysterious floating city known as The Sky, the Sentinels soon arrives at Atlantis forcing the group to abandon the complex.
As Fantomex leads a small team to the place where the Celestial is, the rest of the team invades The Sky to retrieve Gateway, however they are confronted by the Black Legion, a group of psychotic and merciless killers under the service of the Heir of Apocalypse, consisting of Blob, Manphibian, Demon-Ock (a demonic creature with mechanical tentacles), Beta-Red (a female counterpart of Omega Red), Grimm Chamber (a Thing/Chamber hybrid), Iron Ghost (a Ghost Rider/Iron Man hybrid), Orange Hulk (a solar-powered Hulk), White Cloak (a Cloak/Dagger hybrid), Zombie Sentry (an undead version of Sentry) and Venomcap (Captain America bonded with a symbiote).
[7] Meanwhile, unaware of the problems Wolverine and his team are facing in the fortress, Fantomex and his small crew dive into the heart of the deceased Celestial in order to get the life seed they need to free Warren.
[9] In the Marvel Point One one-shot, a new team of anti-mutant humans calling themselves the X-Terminated, pledged to combat the rule of the ascended Weapon X and his minions, after X-Force's attempt to stop the genocidal successor of Apocalypse.
Members of that team were Prophet (William Stryker), Goodnight (a rebuilt Donald Pierce), Deadeye (Zora Risman), Fiend (Francesca Trask), and Horror Show (Graydon Creed).
[13] The X-Terminated later travel to Latveria so they could get the information they need to defeat Weapon Omega, as Doom had apparently managed to create a device capable of storing the Death Seed's powers which they aptly referred to as the "Apocalypse Force" from its host body and empowering it within a new user, however they are approached by the Queen, actually Doom's wife and former member of the Human High Council, Emma Frost, who had her telepathic powers returned to her and was now in league with Weapon Omega.
With the information they gained, the X-Terminated build the device, however, Weapon Omega after being alerted that Jean Grey was hiding out in the city, resolved to hunt his wife down himself, and vowed that if her humanity could not be cured, he would kill her himself.
After managing to avoid Wolverine, who was hunting him down, Nightcrawler eventually tracked down another exile from his world: Dark Beast, however, unbeknownst to them, due to the dimension-hopping activities of various superheroes and villains, the walls in the netherspace have become weak and began to crack.
Unfortunately, the X-treme X-Men did not act quickly enough to save that world, and were forced to make an interdimensional jump, leaving that reality and all its citizens being consumed by the vortex.
[17] Northstar, Hercules, Howlett and Wolverine emerge in San Francisco of the 616 universe, where they find the monster draining the energy from the Dreaming Celestial's chest.
[21] An alternate AoA reality was presented when Magneto, giving up on Bishop's mission in the final moments, rescued his family from the nuclear explosions alongside some of his allies.
It has its differences from the only original storyline, with two of the main ones being the inclusion of Cypher as a prominent character[22] and Magneto marrying Marvel Girl aka Emma Frost instead of Rogue.