Apocalypse doesn't just recruit four people and hand them matching uniforms. He finds something each of them needs, offers an answer and turns that answer into a reason to serve…

Apocalypse doesn't just recruit four people and hand them matching uniforms. He finds something each of them needs, offers an answer and turns that answer into a reason to serve him. The first modern Horsemen come together across X-Factor rather than arriving as a finished lineup. Plague becomes Pestilence. Abraham Kieros becomes War. Autumn Rolfson becomes Famine. Warren Worthington is transformed into Death, completing a team whose names tell you exactly what Apocalypse intends to bring to everyone else. Louise and Walt Simonson give them those strange mechanical mounts and heavy armor, so they look like a procession from the end of the world dropped into the middle of New York traffic. The image is grand. The people inside it are much messier. They argue. They resent each other. They have vulnerabilities Apocalypse knows how to press. The first three struggle to work together against X-Factor, and Warren's arrival changes the confrontation because the heroes are suddenly looking at a friend they thought they had lost. The Fall of the Mutants chapters in X-Factor #24–25 put that personal horror beside a citywide emergency. The team has to fight back without forgetting who is underneath Death's mask, while civilians below them are dealing with the consequences of Apocalypse's demonstration. He's selling strength, but there is an awful lot of control involved in the offer. New armor, new names and new powers don't make these people free. The Horsemen work because the spectacle has somebody recognizable trapped inside it. Warren is the clearest example, but he isn't the only recruit Apocalypse has found at a vulnerable moment.