Here is an archive of all the past top five lists I've one over the years.

For a character whose whole hook is the "survival of the fittest," the X-Men villain Apocalypse sure has died a lot in the comics. Here are his top five best deaths...

HONORABLE MENTION

I didn't initially count X-Factor #68 (by Jim Lee, While Portacio, Chris Claremont and Scott Williams) since Cyclops clearly even notes that he is not sure that Apocalypse is dead, but is more concerned about dealing with his dying son...







So I never really considered that a "death," but fair enough, I guess it should count as an honorable mention, at least (it is also worth noting that in Uncanny X-Men #294, Cyclops seems to think he DID kill Apocalypse, right as Apocalypse was returning).

5. Apocalypse decides to end it all

After one of his dumbest plots (wait, turning Gazer, Sunfire, Polaris and GAMBIT into his new Horsemen didn't work out? How could that be? In fact, I think that should be a future Top Five - the top five dumbest Apocalypse plots - feel free to e-mail me what you would pick for his dumbest plots at bcronin@comicbookresources.com and maybe I'll do that list sometime), Apocalypse ended up deciding to kill himself in X-Men #186 (by Peter Milligan and Salvador Larroca) by throwing himself into the engines powering his...flying Sphinx.







In the back-up story in that issue, however (by Milligan, Casey Jones and Vince Russell), we learn that the Celestials essentially won't LET him die, because he owes them...



Here's the question, though - did he die there at all? The pages mention him regaining his strength, but future stories treat him as essentially dying here, so I guess the idea is more that he will be resurrected later on, but it is far from clear. But when Uncanny X-Force debuts a couple of years later, it's treated as though Apocalypse WAS killed here (and then resurrected as a child), so I think it is fair to count this as a death. It's a pretty weak one, either way, hence it being the fifth out of five.

4. Cable Fulfills His Life's Mission

A clever approach to the X-Men crossover storyline The Twelve (which was about Apocalypse twisting an old prophecy into his own bid to use twelve powerful mutants in a convoluted scheme to become omnipotent) was that Cable was finally given the chance to fulfill the mission that sent him from the future to the present - he was finally allowed to actually KILL Apocalypse.

First, though, Apocalypse was trying to transfer his consciousness into the powerful mutant body of Nate Grey, but Cyclops ended up taking Nate's place in X-Men #97 (by Alan Davis, Mark Farmer and Terry Kavanagh)...











After Cyclopalypse escapes, we eventually have the four-part The Search for Cyclops by Joe Harris, Tom Raney and Scott Hanna, where Jean Grey and Cable manage to split Apocalypse from Scott Summers and then Cable kills Apocalypse with his "psimitar"...





3. X-Force Makes a Painful Decision

The first storyline in Rick Remender, Jerome Opena and Dean White's Uncanny X-Force was about whether they should kill the newly incarnated Apocalypse, who is just a young boy at this point in time. Wolverine, Psylocke, Archangel, Fantomex and Deadpool get together to decide that they should kill him, even if he is "just" a boy. However, when it comes time to actually do it, Psylocke determines that they cannot kill a boy just because he likely WILL later become a villain. There is some debate between the team...













Awesome moment (we later learn that Fantomex clones the boy and artificially ages him while raising him in a virtual reality program with an idyllic boyhood to see if he made the right decision the first time or can nurture outdo nature? - so far, at least, this clone of Apocalypse has not turned evil).

Go to the next page for the top two!

2. Stryfe (and Archangel) Gets His Revenge

X-Cutioner's Song as a whole was a bit of a mess (as it was thrown together pretty quickly with writers who had only recently begun writing their respective titles and now suddenly were writing a sixteen-part epic) but Fabian Nicieza gave a few cool moments to the death of Apocalypse. First he has Stryfe get revenge on Apocalypse in X-Force #17 (art by Greg Capullo and Harry Candelario) in an awesome fight sequence...











Then Apocalypse has a few plots in the other books as he helps save Charles Xavier's life. He is very weak, though, and in X-Men #16 (by Nicieza and Andy Kubert), Apocalypse's own minions decide to finish him off...





This leads to a great death sequence in X-Force #18 (by Nicieza, Capullo and Candelario) where Archangel doesn't even give Apocalypse the dignity of a quick death...





Ouch.

1. The Age of Apocalypse is Over

I typically don't count alternate reality stories for lists like this (otherwise, every character that ever existed at Marvel has had multiple deaths during various issues of What If...?), but I think that the Age of Apocalypse stands out so much as THE most famous storyline involving Apocalypse and his death in the storyline was so memorable that I figure I really can't NOT count it.

The death occurred in the final part of the Age of Apocalypse, which was X-Men Omega by Scott Lobdell, Mark Waid and Roger Cruz (plus eleventy billion inkers).

To set the scene, Magneto has learned that his reality only exists because of a time anomaly. He helps the X-Men known as Bishop go back in time to fix the anomaly while he also fights his final battle against Apocalypse (while Nate Grey, X-Man, also fights his battle against Apocalypse's son, Holocaust). Meanwhile, nuclear bombs are about to come raining down on Apocalypse's now unguarded citadel (as his force fields were destroyed earlier) as the clock ticks down...

Cue the drama...











Tremendous stuff.

Okay, that's the top five! Agree? Disagree? Let me know! And feel free to write in to bcronin@comicbookresources.com with ideas for future top five lists!