A new trailer for X-Men Apocalypse dropped Thursday morning, and it’s a steady improvement over previous versions we’ve seen. This preview is all about the rise of the title villain, the first mutant, Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac).

Rebirth Apocalypse

After seeing a bit of the character’s origin story (and Isaac without all the make-up and costuming), and what appears to be his creation in Egypt, we see Apocalypse assemble his infamous Four Horsemen. This time around, the quartet is made up of Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Angel (Ben Hardy), Storm (Alexandra Shipp) and Psylocke (Olivia Munn), and their objective is to “cleanse the earth, to the strongest.” Apocalypse is poised to be the biggest threat that the X-Men have faced in their five films.

Take a look at the new trailer:

The trailer also re-introduces us to Professor Xavier (James McAvoy), whose philosophy continues to clash with Magneto’s. Get along with humanity or try to take control of the world before mutants are persecuted and exterminated? In the meantime, Xavier is developing a new group of X-Men, including (and rebooting) Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Jubilee (Lana Condor) who will team up and try the near-impossible task of defeating Apocalypse.

Cleanse the earth

In two-and-a-half minutes, we get plenty of X-Men on X-Men action, including Nightcrawler and Angel sparring in a cage.

NightCrawler

Psylocke and Beast are also shown fighting it out amidst destruction. Munn’s martial arts training has certainly paid off.

Psylocke

And Cyclops takes off his shades to unleash those optic blasts in a fight with Storm.

Cyclops

But can the X-Men, led by Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique (whose role seems to be featured more, now that Lawrence is a major star) defeat Apocalypse? The villain delivers the line “everything they built will fall,” as a scene of him choking out Mystique flashes by.

Jlaw

This latest trailer is all about establishing the new group of X-Men against the backdrop of impending doom. X-Men: Apocalypse is set to be the X-Men film with the highest stakes for its heroes yet, and from what we’ve been shown so far, nobody appears to be safe amid the chaos and calamity created by the most powerful villain Xavier and his students have faced yet.

Apocalypse’s reign is coming soon, as the film is set to premiere May 27. X-Men Apocalypse is directed by Bryan Singer, written and produced by Simon Kinberg and distributed by 20th Century Fox.

About Liam McGuire

Social +Staff writer for The Comeback & Awful Announcing. Liammcguirejournalism@gmail.com