The mutant known as Apocalypse recruited four superhuman mutants to serve as an elite team of warriors that he called the Horsemen. The Horsemen and took their names from the Biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, War, Pestilence, Famine, and Death, who appeared in the final book of the New Testament, known as Apocalypse or the Book Revelations.

Apocalypse first recruit was Morlock known as Plague, whom he rescued from being killed by the Marauder Harpoon during the notorious "mutant massacre" of the Morlocks. Apocalypse gave Plague her new name of Pestilence.

Apocalypse next enlisted Abraham Lincoln Kieros, a mutant who been severely injured as a soldier during the Vietnam War, resulting in his paralysis from the neck down. Kieros was confined to an iron lung in a Veterans Administration Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. Apocalypse restored Kieros to health and gave him the name War.

Then Apocalypse enlisted an anorexic girl named Autumn Rolfson, to head the mutant power to turn food and to dust. He gave her the name Famine.

Finally, Apocalypse recruited Warren Worthington, at that time a member of X-Factor known as the Angel, from death aboard an exploding plane. Worthington had become suicidal following the amputation of his wings, which should been severely injured during the "mutant massacre." Apocalypse used his advanced scientific knowledge to cause Worthington to grow new wings, which gave him greater speed in flight. The feathers of the new wings were sharp and resembled metal in hardness, and hence they could be used as weapons. Worthington agreed to serve Apocalypse, who gave him the new name of Death and made him the leader of the Horsemen.

Except for Death, the horse and flew through the air by riding special vehicles supplied to them by Apocalypse.

Apocalypse had Death and the other three Horsemen in an attack on New York City that was intended to provoke a war between normal human beings and superhuman mutants. Their attack through Manhattan into chaos. However, the other founding members of the X-Factor battled and finally defeated the Horsemen. Famine was teleport away from the battle to the American Midwest, where she began laying waste to the grain fields until she was stopped by the original Captain America and his allies, Demolition-Man, the Falcon, and Nomad. The members of Power Pack joined in the struggle against the Horsemen in Manhattan. One of the Power Pack members, Starstreak, was in flight while holding onto Pestilence, but was forced to drop her when flying debris shot to close to them. Pestilence's fell to her death. Death battled his former extract her colleagues and was briefly tricked into thinking he had killed one of them, the Iceman. The shock caused Death to renounce his allegiance to Apocalypse.

Apocalypse finally escaped with War and Famine. Death eventually rejoined X-Factor under the name Archangel. In future encounters with X-Factor, the Horsemen's roster had been reconfigured with Caliban joining the team as the new Death. The team also had a new leader for a brief period, in the form of Mr. Sinister who had assumed Apocalypse's visage at the time. However, after a number of defeats, the Horsemen disbanded. Caliban went into hiding in the Morlock tunnels with his intelligence being reduced into that of a child, War somehow reverted into his paralyzed form, while the fate of Famine has yet to be revealed.

Not having abandoned the concept of a team based on the Biblical Horsemen, Apocalypse recently revived the team with four new members: the X-Man Wolverine being Death, the Shi'ar warlord Deathbird being War, Caliban being the second Pestilence, and (presumably) the time-traveling mutant-hunter called Ahab being the latest Famine. This new incarnation of the Horsemen aided Apocalypse in his attempt to achieve an ascension into godhood, but were ultimately thwarted by the X-Men and their allies. Wolverine was freed by Apocalypse's control, but the rest of Horsemen escaped, their subsequent activities unrevealed.