10 Shockingly Dark Origins Of Comic Villains

En Sabah Nur was born more than 5,000 years ago in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. His grey-skinned appearance caused his tribe to fear him and they abandoned the baby in the desert. A nomadic group called the Sandstormers killed Nur's original tribe, and their leader Baal took the child as his own and gave him his name. The boy grew strong and intelligent and embraced the tribe’s philosophy of survival of the fittest.

Rama Tut, one of Kang the Conqueror’s many alternate identities, ruled Egypt at the time. Baal took Nur to a sacred cave, where they were trapped by a cave-in. After days of wandering, they discovered Tut’s crashed ship in a tomb. Before he died, the nomad told his son that he believed he was foretold to overthrow Rama. The mutant eventually found his way out and into the hands of Logos, Tut’s Grand Vizier, who was planning to kill the Pharaoh himself. The treacherous adviser kept him hidden as a slave.

Nur took the name Apocalypse and defeated the warlord Ozymandias and his soldiers. Rama Tut had hoped to recruit the mutant to his cause but failed. The Pharaoh tried to use a depowering gun he had used on the time-traveling Fantastic Four on the Egyptian mutant, but it failed and he fled into the time stream.