This Superman wields the greatest power that exists on the planet Earth— and with these jewels I found in Clark Kent's apartment... I can channel his power to destroy this entire planet— and Superman with it!
— Xviar, Who Took the Super out of Superman?
You and your twin primed the machine, but this little baby still needs a lot of fuel. So it's breaking down your dimension. Soon, your reality will collapse into a one-dimensional point in time and space.
— Mr. Mxyzptlk, Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade
"After a million of years of pollution, war, and untold abuses from man— Earth has been simply used up! It's just a contaminated globe of waste material now!"
— Superman, The Immortal Superman
Lieutenant: We have an incoming signal, approaching from Sunward, blueshifted so hard—!
General: Blueshifted?
Lieutenant: It's approaching lightspeed, sir! And it's headed straight for Earth! Please understand, anything of that mass hits Earth at that speed—!
General: The short version, Lieutenant.
Lieutenant: Sir, we are ten minutes away from a planetary extinction event!
General: Blueshifted?
Lieutenant: It's approaching lightspeed, sir! And it's headed straight for Earth! Please understand, anything of that mass hits Earth at that speed—!
General: The short version, Lieutenant.
Lieutenant: Sir, we are ten minutes away from a planetary extinction event!
The guidance system fails. The missile hurtles on past its target towards Wegthor, one of the Moons of Krypton, and its contingent of intrepid colonists...none of whom will survive the nuclear blast! In the first searing flash of heat, 500 men and women are reduced to cinder— a microsecond before the decimation of Wegthor itself!
"There he is... The Positive Man! A destructive force which was once— human! That mind-tape revealed he was once an alien scientist who blew up his planet while creating a doomsday bomb! The explosion transformed him into this terrible menace! Envious of all life, he roams the cosmos jealously, destroying inhabited worlds! [...] It changed its course deliberately, and wiped out that nearby planet! And now it's heading toward Earth again!"
"For while I have indeed, created a working reactor, it is not stable! In fact, it is running out of control! Slowly, inexorably, it is building towards an explosion that would atomize this planet!"
— Doctor Doom, "Superman and Spider-Man"
"I took the remains and modified it into a weapon so powerful, I could wipe every sign of life off this crummy planet. I'm seriously considering that."
"Good evening. My fellow Americans, and citizens of the human race. By now you will have heard that the European Union has fallen to the Empire Threat. We have very view intelligence resources yet, but what's left of the Cabinet agrees that it has returned to the United States. To those who wonder why we have not used the full strength of our deterrent, there's no reason to keep it confidential any longer: We did use it. It failed. I will not lie to you brothers, we do not believe that survival is an option. Not for the military, not for myself. This is not a holding action to get civilians to safety, or a last stand to protect what's left. This is the Twilight of the Human Race. There are no contingencies left. I do not know why this is happening, if this is Judgement for our sins, or the dawn of a new age, which we are simply destined not to be part of. What I do know is that humanity did not go quietly, fighting for existence, right to the last! There will be no further speeches, no more words. There is nothing left to say. I call on all the united remnants of my species to embrace the time they have left, and face it with pride and dignity. This is the epitaph of Mankind. That we were here, and we were not equal to the challenges that the universe threw at us... but that our Fall took nothing away from who we were, and how much we mattered. Goodbye."
— President of the United States, The Right Thing
Access: "And that is where the current problem lies. The Nexus is being destroyed from within. Its walls are buckling, allowing more and more seepage."
Rogue: "Seepage?"
Mon-El: "With the walls weakened, it means that it is easier for entities from other universes to cross over into the Nexus. Seepage."
Access: "Exactly. And it is a portion of the Great Battery that is causing the walls of reality to weaken. Somewhere, in that new universe, on the planet Earth, a malfunctioning fragment of the Battery is acting like a cancer. It's slowly eating away at the Nexus. And if it weakens much more, those walls are going to break."
Invisible Woman: "Not another Amalgam?"
Mr. Fantastic: "Oh no. We wouldn't be so lucky. "Amalgam was the merger of two realities into one. This will be worse. This will be the sudden collision of a multitude of realities striving to occupy the same space and time."
Dr. Strange: "Total, complete destruction."
Rogue: "Seepage?"
Mon-El: "With the walls weakened, it means that it is easier for entities from other universes to cross over into the Nexus. Seepage."
Access: "Exactly. And it is a portion of the Great Battery that is causing the walls of reality to weaken. Somewhere, in that new universe, on the planet Earth, a malfunctioning fragment of the Battery is acting like a cancer. It's slowly eating away at the Nexus. And if it weakens much more, those walls are going to break."
Invisible Woman: "Not another Amalgam?"
Mr. Fantastic: "Oh no. We wouldn't be so lucky. "Amalgam was the merger of two realities into one. This will be worse. This will be the sudden collision of a multitude of realities striving to occupy the same space and time."
Dr. Strange: "Total, complete destruction."
Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr. Raymond Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human Sacrifice. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria!
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr. Raymond Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human Sacrifice. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria!
"For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war, and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They'd built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked. But nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men. On the roads it was a white line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice. And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered and smashed."
—The Narrator, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
"Sic transit mundus."note
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
— T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
— Robert Frost, "Fire and Ice"
Apocalpyse soon
Heading your way.
Ground zero at noon.
Halve a nice day.
Heading your way.
Ground zero at noon.
Halve a nice day.
—Pragmatist, Edmund Conti
Eddie: This was no nuclear war. This...this...
Blaine the Mono: NOPE. IT WAS MUCH WORSE THAN THAT. AND IT'S NOT OVER YET.
Blaine the Mono: NOPE. IT WAS MUCH WORSE THAN THAT. AND IT'S NOT OVER YET.
— The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands
During the first million years of its existence, mankind survived five apocalypses without succumbing to extinction. It endured the Apocalypse of Steel, the Apocalypse of Hydrogen, the Apocalypse of Serotonin, both Apocalypses of Water, the second of which occurred despite certain contracts to the contrary. Mankind also survived the Apocalypse of Grease, which wasn't a true apocalypse, although it wiped out nearly half of humanity by clogging the gears that ran the densely packed underwater cities of Lor, but that's a tale for another time.
— How The World Became Quiet by Rachel Swirsky
I saw a guard, as alone as all the others. What’s happened? I asked him. He was confused, shaking his head. He would not look at me. Something’s happened, he said. Something... there was a collapse... nothing works properly... there’s been a... a breakdown...
He was being very inexact. That wasn’t his fault. It was a very inexact apocalypse.
George: Oh, I get it. When we finish our job, it will be the end of the world.
Chuck: That's just what I said to Sam. And do you know what happened? He looked at me in a very queer way, like I’d been stupid in class, and said, "It’s nothing as trivial as that."
Chuck: That's just what I said to Sam. And do you know what happened? He looked at me in a very queer way, like I’d been stupid in class, and said, "It’s nothing as trivial as that."
— Arthur C. Clarke "The Nine Billion Names of God"
"In the year 2258 the world goes to war and with our level of technology, almost everything is destroyed. Billions die, entire nations vanish in fire, it's a world we cannot afford to let happen."
— Time Traveller, United States of Ameriwank
Live-Action Television
Buffy: This is how many apocalypses for us now?
Giles: Oh, uh, six at least. Feels like a hundred.
Giles: Oh, uh, six at least. Feels like a hundred.
— Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "The Gift"
Buffy. When I saw you stop the world from, you know, ending, I just assumed that was a big week for you. Turns out I suddenly find myself needing to know the plural of "apocalypse".
—Riley, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "A New Man"
Music
Deep inside the Hootsman there lies a secret heart.
Barbarian is a cyborg powered by a neutron star.
For centuries immortal he will quest in time and space;
But now he must make sacrifice to save the human race.
Barbarian is a cyborg powered by a neutron star.
For centuries immortal he will quest in time and space;
But now he must make sacrifice to save the human race.
The only way to save the galaxy,
Is to destroy planet Earth and all Dundee.
Is to destroy planet Earth and all Dundee.
Faster than a laser bullet,
Hootsman flies to Fife.
He detonates his nuclear heart;
Destroys all human life.
Hootsman flies to Fife.
He detonates his nuclear heart;
Destroys all human life.
—Gloryhammer: Apocalypse 1992
Theatre
Oooo, the Polar Cap is slowly expanding
In a million years we'll freeze to death I guess
If the Ice Age hasn't floored us
There's a planet heading toward us
When it hits, we'll be an interstellar mess!
Oh, our continent is crumbling and dissolving
As our rivers wash the topsoil out to sea,
And what land we can retrieve'll
Be devoured by pest and weevil,
And there won't be nothing left for you and me.
In a million years we'll freeze to death I guess
If the Ice Age hasn't floored us
There's a planet heading toward us
When it hits, we'll be an interstellar mess!
Oh, our continent is crumbling and dissolving
As our rivers wash the topsoil out to sea,
And what land we can retrieve'll
Be devoured by pest and weevil,
And there won't be nothing left for you and me.
—Lady Scientist, The Golden Apple, "Doomed, Doomed, Doomed"
Video Games
EATERS have destroyed the entire ecosystem of the planet, which now is in ruins. Now the EATERS will roam the universe in search of victims, repeating their pattern of destruction on each planet they find. Eventually, they'll undoubtedly reach the Earth. And you'll have to live with the knowledge that what lead them there was...you.
—Chimera Beast, "Bad Ending"
"Let All Creation Yield to My Command: Let Blinding White Subsume and Cleanse the Slate."
—Live A Live, "Armageddon Ending"
...societies falling...
...mankind succumbing to its innate flaws...
...humanity wiped out...
...as you powerlessly wait to fade away...
...mankind succumbing to its innate flaws...
...humanity wiped out...
...as you powerlessly wait to fade away...
Web Original
"Shakespeare could never conceived of an apocalypse, at least, not in the way we can conceive it, with environmental or nuclear disaster a very frighteningly plausible reality. But Lear comes close."
Western Animation
The end of the world... Those death metal album covers got it shockingly right!
— Wendy Corduroy, Gravity Falls
