Warren Worthington: (Arch)Angel Appreciation 2024

[From The Shadows]

Warren is getting some much needed focus in Giant-Size X-Men (2024) #1

https://aiptcomics.com/2024/04/05/ex...-x-men-2024-1/

THE AVENGING ANGEL LOSES HIMSELF IN A DANGEROUS MAZE OF THE MIND!

A mysterious card has lured the dashing Warren Worthington III, A.K.A.. ANGEL of the X-MEN, to a quiet New York City street…where he will undergo a torturous trial unlike any he’s ever faced before! A brand-new villain has it out for mutantkind – and aims to start by knocking Angel out of the sky! PLUS: Includes MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #68 by Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio and Ron Wilson – a classic Angel-and-Thing team-up tale of daring, drama, doom…and disco?!

These previews have actually been disappointing to me. The general consensus will decide on whether I pick it up. I also would not want Candy to be wiped away for Jean. Her looking so sad and pathetic, just meh.

[K7P5V]

I posted this in the Iceman thread as well. Bobby outsmarts Warren into thinking he killed him, snapping Warren out of Apocalypses hold in the OG X-Factor.

Truly ingenious. Before PAD, X-Factor at its best (IMHO):

[Thievery]

These previews have actually been disappointing to me. The general consensus will decide on whether I pick it up. I also would not want Candy to be wiped away for Jean. Her looking so sad and pathetic, just meh.

Yeah, they look pretty boring actually.

The Angel/Archangel stuff doesn't look very interesting. Just going off of the panels, it looks like Warren will have to choose correctly whether or not he has been a hero or villain. It looks like the same kind of story that Warren has been getting since X-Force. I'm really coming to hate how that comic turned the Archangel character into a villain and a supposed mistake. The Archangel story is what made this character, it wasn't a mistake.
Not saying for sure that this story will say that, but it does look that way.

I really don't like the way that Candy is dressed to look like Jean. She really looks like nothing but a rebound character there. I know that the idea that Warren would pick Jean over Candy has been suggested a lot in the comics. Just from reading the old X-Factor comic you could say that's likely true. But, damn, couldn't Warren finally just move on from Jean. Just because he was interested in her in the O5 days doesn't mean that he has to be in love with the woman forever. Hopefully the dialogue in this comic won't suggest that Warren would be lying to himself if he tries to say that he loved Candy.

There have been theories kicking around forever that Warren picked Betsy as some kind of cheap stand in for Jean. I've never really understood them. The two characters didn't have much in common besides being telepaths. And, damn, not everything has to be about Jean.

EDIT: As for the Iceman story involving Archangel. I never really cared for the idea that it was killing Iceman that made Warren snap out of the mind control. It felt generic and a hokey to me. I know that a lot of others like it, though.

[Hakka84]

I don't have much to bring to the discussion. At this point we're hanging until Giant is out. I'm trying to stay positive, for now. No amount of negativity from your part, Thievery, will bring me down! *fists up*

Seriously speaking, I can see your points so I understand you and why you're feeling negative.

About my last post. I think perhaps I didn't explain myself much, or perhaps it's just my view on the whole Angel/Archangel. I'll try to elaborate on the "dichotomy" thing.
What I meant is that, other than in Uncanny X-Force, Warren has been either the hero or the villain - perhaps even both in the same issue. But we never saw Warren deal with it. It's either "I can't control Archangel" or he transforms in the facet the plots needs the most (the feather-wings or the sharp-mental). But he was never given the time or panel space to ponder what it means to him to be both Angel and Archangel, and which of the two he fundamentally wants to be. Because to accept he doesn't want Archangel means he has to find a space for the Angel in the X-Men and in the dangerous X-World he lives. I don't think Warren can afford to ditch Archangel. But Archangel is a villain.
Other than the scene in Warren's mind we saw in Uncanny X-Force (that panel in which he-as-Angel is pinned to the wall and Archangel stands in front of him), he never really confronted what it means to be both the Angel and the Archangel and how to keep both.
Not sure I managed to explain myself.
It's just... for all the authors since UXF banged on the "Archangel is Warren's evil persona; every time Warren seems to have ridden of him, the next time we'll be back to square 1", we never had Warren in person to dwell on what this means. And that's what I would want. Warren out in front of the two facets and choose (and possibly accept that there's no turning back, that he must stop fighting Archangel).
A path he crossed in X-Factor, when he slowly attempted to reclaim his life and build a new Warren for himself after his Horseman time, but he hasn't crossed since Uncanny X-Force and the Archangel's return.


About Candy. Considering that both she and Betsy have a tag on their chest, like in those alcoholics anonymous groups (I think?), my hope for now is that he'll be forced to face all of his past lovelife and grow from there, in a sort of "meet all the women who had been part of me for a while". Considering how none of his romance ended well (Husk is the only one with whom he parted ways in good terms), it makes sense that a villain who plays on psychological-based scenario could use Warren's lovelife as a field/test.

I refuse to believe Nocenti will crap on Candy. Jean has been long gone, Warren stopped caring for her "like that" in the 90s, and nowaday Jean is already fought between Scott and Wolverine, editorially speaking it would make no sense to resume another unrequired love with her as the object.

Oh man, I rambled here. Hoping at least what I wrote made some sense. ^^"
What I hope to find in Nocenti's story is him

[LoganAlpha30X33]

Or the baddie is just try to torment Warren with those that he's loved and lost, nothing about trying to help him move on or anything like that.

[Hakka84]

Or the baddie is just try to torment Warren with those that he's loved and lost, nothing about trying to help him move on or anything like that.

She will definitely not help here Warren in the least - on the contrary. I meant that the lovelife is a sore spot for Warren, IMHO, and a villain would have an easy game in throwing Warren in a scenario where he has to face all the people he loved and lost and generally how bad/unlucky he is at romance.
Imagine a villain taunting Warren with "all you want is settle down with a woman you love but all of them either left you or died in your arms" (or, yeah, you left them because you were scared, see the "I leave before they leave me/I'm the one to leave so they don't leave me first" quote of his).
Wait. Charlotte is missing. Hoping she's in another page! D:

[Master of Sound]

Surely hope Warren gets more than just a one-shot in new era. It is about time he gets a good story. Marvel has not done much good with him the recent years.

[Til]

Surely hope Warren gets more than just a one-shot in new era. It is about time he gets a good story. Marvel has not done much good with him the recent years.

Yeah, so far it's looking rough for the new era. It seems like X-Factor is our last hope of seeing him in a book. I very much doubt he'll be in Wolverine, Phoenix or Storm. Technically it's possible he could be in NYX, but I think that's going to be all younger mutants.

[Hakka84]

Surely hope Warren gets more than just a one-shot in new era. It is about time he gets a good story. Marvel has not done much good with him the recent years.

I already expect that Giant will be the sop (?IDK, that's the word wordreference offers) for Warren's fans in another era in which Warren will be missing.
I'll be happy to be proven wrong, but I have this feeling and until I read Warren mentioned as a main-stay in a team, I won't believe it.

[Thievery]

I don't have much to bring to the discussion. At this point we're hanging until Giant is out. I'm trying to stay positive, for now. No amount of negativity from your part, Thievery, will bring me down! *fists up*

Seriously speaking, I can see your points so I understand you and why you're feeling negative.

About my last post. I think perhaps I didn't explain myself much, or perhaps it's just my view on the whole Angel/Archangel. I'll try to elaborate on the "dichotomy" thing.
What I meant is that, other than in Uncanny X-Force, Warren has been either the hero or the villain - perhaps even both in the same issue. But we never saw Warren deal with it. It's either "I can't control Archangel" or he transforms in the facet the plots needs the most (the feather-wings or the sharp-mental). But he was never given the time or panel space to ponder what it means to him to be both Angel and Archangel, and which of the two he fundamentally wants to be. Because to accept he doesn't want Archangel means he has to find a space for the Angel in the X-Men and in the dangerous X-World he lives. I don't think Warren can afford to ditch Archangel. But Archangel is a villain.
Other than the scene in Warren's mind we saw in Uncanny X-Force (that panel in which he-as-Angel is pinned to the wall and Archangel stands in front of him), he never really confronted what it means to be both the Angel and the Archangel and how to keep both.
Not sure I managed to explain myself.
It's just... for all the authors since UXF banged on the "Archangel is Warren's evil persona; every time Warren seems to have ridden of him, the next time we'll be back to square 1", we never had Warren in person to dwell on what this means. And that's what I would want. Warren out in front of the two facets and choose (and possibly accept that there's no turning back, that he must stop fighting Archangel).
A path he crossed in X-Factor, when he slowly attempted to reclaim his life and build a new Warren for himself after his Horseman time, but he hasn't crossed since Uncanny X-Force and the Archangel's return.


About Candy. Considering that both she and Betsy have a tag on their chest, like in those alcoholics anonymous groups (I think?), my hope for now is that he'll be forced to face all of his past lovelife and grow from there, in a sort of "meet all the women who had been part of me for a while". Considering how none of his romance ended well (Husk is the only one with whom he parted ways in good terms), it makes sense that a villain who plays on psychological-based scenario could use Warren's lovelife as a field/test.

I refuse to believe Nocenti will crap on Candy. Jean has been long gone, Warren stopped caring for her "like that" in the 90s, and nowaday Jean is already fought between Scott and Wolverine, editorially speaking it would make no sense to resume another unrequired love with her as the object.

Oh man, I rambled here. Hoping at least what I wrote made some sense. ^^"
What I hope to find in Nocenti's story is him

I understood what you were getting at with the Archangel/Angel stuff. I just think that we have seen more of it than you do. It was addressed in Astonishing X-Men. Warren didn't want to be Archangel, Betsy talked him into it. In X-Men Disassembled Warren didn't want to be Archangel and Betsy forced it onto him, before Nate sent the team to the Age of X-Man universe. It was what looks like to be the moment that ended Betsy/Warren for good.
I guess that we just read whether Warren is dealing with Archangel personality differently.

For this comic, I was really hoping that we would get a story that didn't look to deal with Angel/Archangel or his past romances. I was hoping that we would get something new. We still could, I guess, if there is more to the story than the preview suggests that we will.


This comic might have been a good story to explain the character for new readers, but at the cost of this comic I doubt that any new readers will be buying this one.

I've pre ordered the comic already, and even the preview won't stop me from getting it. I want to support the character, even if the price of the comic is obscene.

Surely hope Warren gets more than just a one-shot in new era. It is about time he gets a good story. Marvel has not done much good with him the recent years.

Yeah, so far it's looking rough for the new era. It seems like X-Factor is our last hope of seeing him in a book. I very much doubt he'll be in Wolverine, Phoenix or Storm. Technically it's possible he could be in NYX, but I think that's going to be all younger mutants.

I already expect that Giant will be the sop (?IDK, that's the word wordreference offers) for Warren's fans in another era in which Warren will be missing.
I'll be happy to be proven wrong, but I have this feeling and until I read Warren mentioned as a main-stay in a team, I won't believe it.

I'm pretty sure that Warren won't be showing up in the new era. We actually aren't even sure that he will be alive, or when this comic takes place. It could be before Dark X-Men.

I've always been one of the people that believes that a character shouldn't be used if a writer doesn't have a good plan for the character. That way the character isn't wrecked or damaged by a bad story.

But, I have to be honest, I'm getting pretty sick of either not seeing the character or seeing him repeat the same old stories. If Angel isn't around in the new status quo I might use this as a reason to stop reading comics and spend my money on something else.

The only comic that I have seen that I am really interested in from the new batch of X-Men comics is Uncanny X-Men. I'll try the one that the Moon Knight writer is writing. X-Force looks like crap to me, and I may not try it at all. It just doesn't look like X-Force, in my opinion.

I have to get my comics by mail these days. The only ones that I actually look forward to besides some of the X-Men ones are the Moon Knight and Scarlet Witch ones. Spider-Man is good, but I don't really look forward to it.
I get Venom and Immortal Thor, but I haven't opened a copy of either of those two in months. I don't know why I still pay for those two damn books, lol.
So maybe it's just time for me to move on.

[Hakka84]

(...) I have to get my comics by mail these days. The only ones that I actually look forward to besides some of the X-Men ones are the Moon Knight and Scarlet Witch ones. Spider-Man is good, but I don't really look forward to it.
I get Venom and Immortal Thor, but I haven't opened a copy of either of those two in months. I don't know why I still pay for those two damn books, lol.
So maybe it's just time for me to move on.

That's how I was feeling around Uncanny X-Force era. I was buying Fantastic Four and X-Men (in Italy the title was a container for both X-Men and Uncanny, so you had the two in the same floppie) but I did read only Uncanny X-Force, the rest I was buying out of habit "to not have holes in the collection". And, as I already told, Johnny Storm's and Warren's concurrent demises was the last straw that made me realise it was time to move on.
I think this is your "move on" moment too. You can stick here for some Warren discussion, and whenever something interesting for Warren or Warren-sights happen, you will know and keep up to date with the bird.
Translation= don't leave us, even if you stop buying comics. ç__ç

Edit OT: I too have been following Venom for a while. But I stopped after King in Black (which I liked!). I wasn't much convinced by the new direction post KiB, but the moment Venom went to Dylan is the moment I found myself not looking forward/not interested, and I gave up. Venom is Eddie (I'm in the "Eddie and Venom soulmates as seen in Vol 3" camp, I can't accept anything else.

[Thievery]

That's how I was feeling around Uncanny X-Force era. I was buying Fantastic Four and X-Men (in Italy the title was a container for both X-Men and Uncanny, so you had the two in the same floppie) but I did read only Uncanny X-Force, the rest I was buying out of habit "to not have holes in the collection". And, as I already told, Johnny Storm's and Warren's concurrent demises was the last straw that made me realise it was time to move on.
I think this is your "move on" moment too. You can stick here for some Warren discussion, and whenever something interesting for Warren or Warren-sights happen, you will know and keep up to date with the bird.
Translation= don't leave us, even if you stop buying comics. ç__ç

Edit OT: I too have been following Venom for a while. But I stopped after King in Black (which I liked!). I wasn't much convinced by the new direction post KiB, but the moment Venom went to Dylan is the moment I found myself not looking forward/not interested, and I gave up. Venom is Eddie (I'm in the "Eddie and Venom soulmates as seen in Vol 3" camp, I can't accept anything else.

I think that it may be a while until I move on. I've subscribed to some more comics than I actually realized. I bought some Bloodhunt tie ins that I forgot about. I also subscribed to Uncanny X-Men. So I guess that I am going to be here for sometime. Well, unless Uncanny is bad. Then I guess that I will have to leave those comics unopened when they come through the mail. Yuck.
I also bought that Heir of Apocalypse miniseries. I can say for sure that I am looking forward to that. At least right now I am.

So I'm not leaving yet. Hopefully something else that I like comes along while I'm still reading. Hopefully something involving Archangel.

If I do stop reading, I doubt that I would continue to post here. I don't want to make comments about how the comics that I'm not reading are bad. I see enough of those already.

As for the Venom comic, yeah, it's been a little rough lately. I didn't care for the Dylan as Venom idea. I didn't mind Flash having it, nor do I have a problem with the idea of Widow having it for a short time. I'd actually liked Liz Allen when she was a support character for a while, but now she has a symbiote also.
This might sound strange, but I think that I might wait and see what JDW does with Venom when he becomes the editor of that comic before I actually pull the plug on it.

[Til]

The X-Men Monday with Ann Nocenti came out, and I have to admit, I'm a bit nervous. From what she said, it seems to me that she doesn't have a high opinion of Warren. Especially the part about him viewing women/his exes through a chauvinistic lens. It comes out in less than a month, so we don't have too long to wait to see how it turns out for him. Also, I had a sad laugh at the fact that she had pitched for multiple different characters but they were all being used, so eventually she landed on Warren. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for our boy.

[Thievery]

The X-Men Monday with Ann Nocenti came out, and I have to admit, I'm a bit nervous. From what she said, it seems to me that she doesn't have a high opinion of Warren. Especially the part about him viewing women/his exes through a chauvinistic lens. It comes out in less than a month, so we don't have too long to wait to see how it turns out for him. Also, I had a sad laugh at the fact that she had pitched for multiple different characters but they were all being used, so eventually she landed on Warren. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for our boy.

Yeah, Nocenti didn't really seem all that thrilled to be writing Angel. I thought the same thing when the comic was first announced. Even in that first interview she seemed to have settled on Archangel because he was one of the few characters available. Could be another situation like with Dark X-Men. Oh well.

Congrats on getting your question answered.
I'm a little surprised that is how Angel would view his role on the X-Men, though.
He did lead the team for a while. He was also co-leader of X-Force. That seems like more than a wing man to me.

I understand that Warren usually has bad break-ups with his girlfriends, and usually they are his fault, but I've never really read the character as a chauvinist.

The idea that he is a clueless and uncaring billionaire also feels a little strange.
X-Corp wasn't a good comic, but Warren was trying to use his wealth to benefit people who were not very fortunate. I guess that I will have to reread the book to see if I missed anything.

I think the comic may take place before Dark X-Men, seeing as there were characters talking about mutants being put in camps.

[Til]

Congrats on getting your question answered.
I'm a little surprised that is how Angel would view his role on the X-Men, though.
He did lead the team for a while. He was also co-leader of X-Force. That seems like more than a wing man to me.

The way I look at it is that he hasn't been on the main X-Men team since Utopia, and even then that was when "everyone" was on the main team, and Cyclops would just use whoever was needed for any given situation. You'd have to go back even further to find when he was on it as a fixed roster. So even though he's been on side teams and other things like X-Corp, it's not like with the other O5 who find themselves at the center of the action far more frequently. Not to mention characters like Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Shadowcat, etc. Him thinking that he's not one of the main players anymore makes sense to me.

I understand that Warren usually has bad break-ups with his girlfriends, and usually they are his fault, but I've never really read the character as a chauvinist.

Neither have I. I was actually shocked when I read that part of the interview.

The idea that he is a clueless and uncaring billionaire also feels a little strange.
X-Corp wasn't a good comic, but Warren was trying to use his wealth to benefit people who were not very fortunate. I guess that I will have to reread the book to see if I missed anything.

I think this is a symptom of modern day political leanings. As far as I remember, Warren has never been portrayed that way historically. But in Legion of X, Spurrier did write the new Black Knight as having a similar view of Warren. If I remember the couple panels where Warren had dialogue correctly, he seemed more concerned with using Black Knight for monetary purposes. So maybe that's how writers are going to characterize him now? Nocenti seemed to think that being a billionaire is Warren's most defining character trait.

I think the comic may take place before Dark X-Men, seeing as there were characters talking about mutants being put in camps.

Yeah, I've suspected this for a while now. The only other option is that mutant camps are still a thing in From the Ashes, but I can't believe they'd go that route.