How do you kill a spirit?

[Joe Acro]

Apocalypse is my favorite Marvel villain. A few years ago, many of you might recall, my favorite villain did something insane and ended up getting killed. I have two questions, but I'll get to the first one later.

When Apocalypse was pulled from Cyke's body, he seemed to be in a spirit form, possibly astral. Cable stabbed him with his psychic staff. How did that kill him? You can't kill someone's spirit, can you? (And no, I don't mean their emotional spirit because that can be killed quite easily.) Couldn't, theoretically, Apocalypse's spirit have just been split into multiple pieces and scattered in the wind?

When I think about this villain's death, I stumble across one question before I ever contemplate how he'd be brought back, comtemplations that lead me to the question above. This one question is:

When the two merged, Apocalypse's suit merged as well and the body morphed into a fusion of them. Yet, when Cyclops is found and En Sabah Nur killed, it looks like Scott's regular body. Where did the aspects of Apocalypse go? Did they just stay in Scott's cellular structure, blended in with his regular form? Did he somehow get rid of Apocalypse's body entirely somewhere in-between The Twelve and The Search for Cyclops? I have absolutely no idea.

[xakko]

It is definitely possible. Killing someone's astral form on the astral plane has been said to do it, in some instances. In others, say, when Mastermind slew Cyclops in a duel through the psychic bond he shared with Phoenix, it merely caused strain near enough to kill a person.

Warwolves destroyed the entire essence of a person when they took over the skin. There wasn't even psychic residue. I think the Dire Wraiths may have done something similar.

Illyana once talked about "slicing" Spiral's "mystic spirit", I believe.

So I imagine it can be done. Does that mean Apocalypse is gone for good? I wouldn't count on it.

As for Cyke removing the Apocalypse aspect of Cyclopalypse, I don't know. Maybe the spiritual essence of Apocalypse somehow altered Scott's DNA to project his power of control of his own molecules, and when he was driven from Scott's mind, that ability went with him. Or Jean fixed everything at a molecular level.

[Uncle Nobs]

The common dogma is that disembodied spirits can continue to exist in all kinds of loosely-defined states of being (Claremont's astral plane, Ditko's Dr. Strange-floaty-shapes-magic-space, etc.). Common dogma also holds that these spirits can be "killed" (thereby releasing them from whatever plane of existence they inhabit and moving them on to the afterlife) or they can be "disrupted" (losing cohesion and weakening until they inevitably gather their energies again).

So my guess is that it will be revealed that Cable merely disrupted Apocalypse's energies, and he's just been taking his time, pulling his psychic/spiritual self back together and looking for the right body to take over.