If this week’s post title didn’t give it away, spoilers follow for X-Men: Apocalypse.

Happy Tuesday, internet! Over the course of the holiday weekend, my wife and I had the pleasure of watching X-Men: Apocalypse and while the film has received mixed reviews at best, I enjoyed nearly every minute of it.  Save for the overly ornate temple destruction sequence five minutes in. En Sabah Nur apparently didn’t pay much attention to the schematics during construction. It seems a larger design flaw than a two meter wide exhaust port leading to your battle station’s main reactor. At least that was no bigger than a womp rat.

All said and done, I’d see it again just for the Weapon X sequence. Book mark this page and go see X-Men: Apocalypse.

That’s a captivating title for a film. isn’t it? APOCALYPSE! Even if you were not an avid consumer of comic books in high school and preferred having a prom date instead, you need know nothing about the villain to be intrigued. Apocalypse. That word conjures up fascination at best and fear at worst. Mad Max: Fury Road destroyed the box office with a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Comedy films about the end of the world were everywhere for roughly a two year span. Apocalypse. Who isn’t curious about the end of the world, especially when it involves some of comics most iconic ensembles?

Yet I think the title has much more behind it than just the villain for which it is named or the global calamity that is being unleashed at his hands. Apocalypse. Only in our contemporary lexicon is the word associated exclusively with the End of Days. Rather, the Greek word ἀποκάλυψις is a revealing or a disclosure. If we really want to dig into the etymology, it implies being laid bare and stripped naked. Isn’t that what we see happen through the course of the film? Magneto must pass through the chaos both internal and external and the grief of crippling loss both old and new. Mystique must come to terms with the symbol she has become following the events of the previous film. And Jean Grey learns not to fear the great power she has been gifted with. (Dave Crowe over at Den of the Greek wrote a great article examining what the Phoenix Force could mean for the franchise).

And perhaps most importantly, the title villain (who is never named Apocalypse in the film proper) is revealed to be one of the false gods he rages against. While some of my fellow church folk may take offense at the villain’s proclamation that he has been called Elohim, his imprisonment in the prologue takes place in 3600 BCE. The earliest possible date for the birth of the Hebrew people as a practicing religious group is roughly 1450 BCE, give or take two centuries. Highly doubtful he had any interaction with them. En Sabah Nur: a liar about being the god of the Hebrews. Probably lying about the others. The greatest “apocalypse” seems to be that of the false god himself.

Or it may be the set up for the Phoenix Saga. The nerd in me is torn.

How fitting that the villain’s dying words are “At last, all has been revealed.”

Well played, Singer.