The Horsemen of Apocalypse are a team of supervillain characters appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.
The Horsemen of Apocalypse are first mentioned in X-Factor #10 (Nov. 1986), and make their full appearance in X-Factor #15 (April 1987) where they were created by writer Louise Simonson and artist Walt Simonson.
The first comic-book characters of this name were an unrelated team of aliens from the race known as the Axi-Tun that attacked Earth in ancient and modern times. They appeared in Giant Size Fantastic Four #3 (Nov. 1974).
The group consists of four individuals (usually mutants) that have been genetically altered and mentally conditioned to serve the ancient mutant, Apocalypse, either willingly or forcibly. They are enhanced or endowed with new abilities, and are always given the same titles based upon the biblical Four Horsemen Death, Famine, Pestilence (replacing the biblical Conquest), and War. While Apocalypse has empowered other individuals to do his bidding, the Four Horsemen remain his elite minions, always playing a key role in his plans.
Before Apocalypse assembled his first modern incarnation (according to date of real world publication) of Horsemen, it was revealed that there were other, lesser known groups of Horsemen.
The original Four Horsemen were all Apocalypse's biological children, whose names reflected their mutant abilities. Thousands of years ago, they resided on a sentient island called Okkara where mutants have created an advanced society. To celebrate their births, their maternal aunt, Isca the Unbeaten forged the Scarab, a sword in four parts. Eventually Okkara was attacked by an enemy wielding the Twilight Sword which divided the sentient island into two creatures, Krakoa and Arakko, and Apocalypse and his first horsemen fought the invaders. To stop the onslaught, Arakko and the strongest mutants of the land, including Apocalypse's wife Genesis and the Four Horsemen, went beyond the breach and sealed it from the other side.