Originally Posted by
Sutekh
As I understand it, the person wanting their powers back has to die anyway. The point of the Crucible is that the ex-mutant who wants their powers back has to want it bad enough to be willing to die fighting for it, because the Five can't possibly handle rebirthing every single former mutant who wants their powers back in this way, and setting up a painful 'you better want it *this* much...' Crucible in the way weeds out the not-as-strongly-motivated among them.
Since the term 'flattening the curve' is a thing now, that's kind of what the Crucible is doing. Everyone is gonna want to be reborn with powers (or different powers, or better powers, or a bigger peen, or whatever) *eventually,* but the Five can't possibly do all that at once. The Crucible helps 'flatten the curve' by putting those who aren't so strongly motivated at the back of the line.
And yeah, Apocalypse gets to do the stabbing. Whatever. They *had to die anyway* to initiate the process. Honestly, Selene's probably pissed that Poccy's on the Council and got to volunteer to kill them first, because she at least would have gotten a free lunch out of the deal. "Okay, throw that body on the compost heap. Next up, Sofia Mantega." "Urrrp! Oh gosh, come back tomorrow, I couldn't possibly eat another bite... Unless..., Marius, be a dear and tag in?"