X-Men '97 showrunner: Apocalypse fits animation, struggles in live-action

"Apocalypse is like the ultimate Mutant bad guy," says Larry Houston, who directed all 76 episodes of the original X-Men: The Animated Series and serves as executive producer on Marvel's follow-up, X-Men '97. "When we did Apocalypse in 1992, we wanted to establish that this guy is so powerful and so unbeatable that the only way you defeat him is to out-think him," Houston adds.

In Marvel lore, Apocalypse—born into slavery as En Sabah Nur in Ancient Egypt—is the first-ever Mutant. His control over his own body at an atomic level lets him shapeshift, regenerate, grow to massive size, wield super strength and be effectively immortal. Paired with technology from an abandoned Celestial spaceship, he becomes a genocidal force bent on remaking the world in his image.

Eric Lewald says animation lets the show give Apocalypse the scale he needs. "He's so great in animation because you can give the scale," Lewald notes, adding that live-action faces practical limits: "you have a lot of scenes with like a 5-foot-10-inch guy...

Egypt

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