Star Trek's first Klingon played an important X-Men villain

The credits for “X-Men” are unfortunately incomplete (after the end of season 1, the credits would only list the main voices), so sources differ on when the reworking took place. To my ear, though, Colicos voiced Apocalypse in four episodes: “The Cure” and “Come The Apocalypse” in Season 1 and the two-parter “Time Fugitives” in Season 2. Even with his limited time, Colicos had to catch up. some memorable lines:

“I know more about this world than you've even dreamed of! That's why I must destroy it!”

“The old world is passing away. Together we will build a new one in fire and blood! From the ashes of this world I will build a better one!”

“Forward my horsemen and may chaos cleanse the world!”

A personal favorite of mine is in the movie Runaways, when the man looks at Apocalypse in fear and exclaims, “Mutant!” A steely-eyed Apocalypse scowls and declares, “I'm as far out of mutants as they are out of you!”

When “X-Men” premiered, Apocalypse had only debuted in the comics six years earlier; Louise Simonson and Jackson Gies created him in 1986 as a villain for their comic “X-Factor”. Strictly speaking, Apocalypse's first appearance in “X-Men” adapts the one and only thing he was known for at the time: turning X-Men hero Angel into one of his four horsemen with new steel wings.

As the first actor to play Apocalypse when the character was still quite young, Kolikos' voice set the standard—for Blendick, of course, but also for future Apocalypse actors like David Kaye and Oscar Isaac. That voice became a major part of why young X-Men fans (and even some future X-Men writers) remembered Apocalypse, as his dominance in the animated series ensured a continued A-list role in the comics.

Apocalypse's real name, En Sabah Nur, supposedly means “the first” in Marvel Comics. (These three words actually mean “Seven Lights” in Arabic, ie, the dawn.) Just as Apocalypse marked the dawn of the mutant race, every subsequent Apocalypse actor draws on John Kolikos' masterwork to keep the character alive.