I was reading the original Horsemen storyline in the 80s X-Factor series and I noticed that all the horsemen including Angel followed Apocalypse because he gave them what they wanted and he brought out the subconscious darker side of their personalities with a drug, rather than making them mindless slaves like you see in the 90s cartoon and X-Men: Evolution. It was more in line with Angel’s transformation in the Wolverine & The X-Men cartoon where Sinister brought out the darker side of his personality.

This aspects seems to have been forgotten in the 21st century X-books. Did writers just get lazy and decided to not give the horsemen motives?

Personifying a characters Darkside is common in fiction. The idea that the part of you that made a bad choice can eventually grow it's own will or that you can embrace it or be taken over by it at any time and behave in a completely different manner when initially it was just the character doing bad things is so frequent a plot that it hurts to think of a scifi or supernatural series that explores psyches and doesnt use that trope.

@koays: True. Through I would argue that brainwashing is an even more common trope in fiction.

@DevilMayehm666: It most definitely is. But Apocalypse's horsemen are almost always treated as having been corrupted more then being brainwashed. With the exception of Wolverine and maybe Polaris (and the fodder Horsemen) it was mostly depicted as a bad choice out of desperation that he used to fuel the transformation during which he had control over them

First of all, you need to understand that everything that involves Apocalypse in the X-comics is one big mess and retcon crisis. So the peripheral aspects would naturally be just as effed up too.

That said, brainwashing of all things in Apoc mythos isn't all that messed up. But Horsemen suffering dual personality disorder wasn't always the case, it seems fresh. Or maybe it's just me not remembering OG X-factor that well.

@adamtrmm: I think the Twelve introduced that concept.

@DevilMayehm666:

Warren seemed brainwashed too in the very beginning.

@adamtrmm: I’m referring about the dual personality aspect.

Warren was having somewhat similar thoughts about humanity before becoming Death. In that he was losing faith in them. It’s brainwashing but not outright mind control.

@DevilMayehm666:

I mean, further thinking about it, I don't even know if calling it DPD is right. It's like the Horseman persona was actually some kind of old one with just some things rewritten and twisted to fit the required Horsemen characteristics. Like Ghost Riders. It's like an inner demon or urge they have to fight. It's kinda illdefined.

Yeah, it was interesting aspect of the original Horsemen that has been long forgotten unfortunately.

Another thing that has been sort of retconned/forgotten/re imagined is Apocalypse's obsession with constantly having Horsemen. He seemed to put that team together for his endgame during Fall of the Mutants, after that, he had other henchmen like Caliban, who he dubbed his "Hellhound", and the Dark Riders, who were originally Inhumans that followed his ideology.

I don't think they were brainwashed.