“[When Warren Worthington III learned that Jean Grey was still alive, hejoined his former teammates and founding members of the X-Men in the formation of X-Factor. X-Factor intended to seek out and aid other mutants under the pretense of hunting down those perceived menaces to society. The public assumed they were humans hunting mutants, when in fact they were training young mutants in the use of their powers at the X-Factor Complex. The media referred to their non-human guises as X-Terminators. Once again, Warren funded the group and appointed Candy as the Vice President of Worthington Industries. Warren asked his best friend and former college roommate Cameron Hodge to act as the team's PR adviser, unaware that Cameron actually despised mutants and was the leader of the anti-mutant group the Right. Hodge waited for the most propitious moment to strike. The team went-on to battle Apocalypse and his Alliance of Evil.
Reporter Trish Tilby used a tip from Mystique to reveal that Warren, a mutant, was financially backing X-Factor. Candy walked-in on Warren comforting Jean, and walked out on him angrily. As the Marauders began to massacre the Morlocks, Warren had no time to follow her and set things straight.
When Warren attempted to rescue X-Factor's young charge Artie his wings were pinned to the wall by the Marauder Harpoon, after being beaten by Blockbuster and Vertigo. He was rescued by Thor. Hodge planted false evidence that Warren's wings were infected to the point that amputation was necessary. Although Warren objected, Hodge had a court order issued to go through with the amputation.
Distraught by these experiences, Warren attempted to fly one more time in his private jet. Hodge sabotaged his jet and it exploded. It had appeared that Warren had committed suicide and was believed dead, although he had actually been teleported away by Apocalypse.
Warren was brainwashed and began to serve Apocalypse. Apocalypse warped his body and mind into his own "Angel of Death" upon his Celestial Ship and placed him into his team of Horsemen as Death. Warren's skin turned blue. He grew a set of bio-metallic wings from his back that could retract and also fire dart-blades with a neurotoxin. Warren's new wings could fly higher, faster, and were razor sharp.
Apocalypse had the Horsemen battle each other to find the leader, and Death beat them all. As Death, Warren fought the rest of X-Factor and captured them. After X-Factor's defeat, the Horsemen were sent into Manhattan to incite chaos. Warren was shocked back to his senses after Iceman faked his own death at Warren's hands by having him destroy an ice sculpture of Bobby. After their defeat of Apocalypse, his sentient Ship crash-landed on their Complex and X-Factor began living in it. X-Factor was approached by the media, and finally revealed the truth of X-Factor's mutant origins.
Unable to face anyone, Warren left the team. Cameron Hodge and the Right kidnapped Candy Southern, eventually killing Candy. Worthington decapitated Hodge in retaliation.
Death later returned to X-Factor as the somber and brooding "Archangel", as Beast called him, to help fight the invading demons. Teaming up with the X-Men, they were able to stop the villainous Mr. Sinister. Warren was left struggling with the urge to kill due to the influence of his wings. Continually fighting an inward battle against his killer instincts, Warren eventually learned to control his wings through concentration. Warren was attacked by Caliban, a former teammate who had taken his place as the Horseman Death, trying to prove himself in the eyes of Apocalypse. Later, Warren encountered a resurrected Cameron in Genosha. Warren met a widowed mother and beat cop named Charlotte Jones. Together they began an awkward relationship. It was with Charlotte's help that X-Factor freed Warren from the Ravens, a cult of near-immortal psychic vampires. It was during this battle that Warren's survival was made public knowledge, allowing him to regain control over his family's remaining business holdings and his personal fortune.
After defeating the Shadow King on Muir Island, Warren and his fellow X-Factor founders returned to the X-Men. Warren often adventured with the X-Men's "Gold Team" led by Storm. The team journeyed to a void where Warren was seduced by the Triumvirate leader, Sha-Har-A-Zath, into battling his comrades. Soon after, the X-Men returned to the Morlock Tunnels to stop a young mutant, Brain Cell, from mentally influencing the Morlocks to incite chaos. After the battle, Warren made his way back to the spot where his wings had been injured by the Marauders. There, Jean helped him see that his destructive behavior was not the fault of his wings but instead his own repressed violent tendencies. Warren began to see it was up to him to get his life under control.
When Prof. Xavier was shot by Stryfe, Warren allied himself with the new X-Factor and X-Force to track down Apocalypse and the Mutant Liberation Front. While engaged in battle, Warren accidentally decapitated Kamikaze. Warren once again blaming his wing’s lust for blood. When Beast and Dr. Moira MacTaggert had exhausted all of their resources, Apocalypse stepped-in to save Prof. Xavier. Warren, surprisingly, vouched for Apocalypse's genius but promised he would kill Apocalypse after torturing him and at a time of his own choosing. However, Warren decided to leave him to die alone after a wounded Apocalypse asked him to end his misery.
A short time later, Warren regained his original, feathered wings, when his techno-organic ones "molted" away. As this process was happening he was visited by Ozymandias, which left him unsure whether Apocalypse had released his hold on him or was continuing to use him in some way. He retained his blue features.
After meeting Maggott, Psylocke and Warren were captured by Nanny. There, Magneto (disguised as Erik the Red) held a mock trial for Gambit for his part in the Massacre of the Morlocks. Warren was outraged that Gambit had played a part in the Massacre that had once cost him his wings and refused to defend him. Later Warren was slammed by his teammates for his and Psylocke's lack of commitment to the team. He returned to the Morlock Tunnels where he was attacked by Abomination and aided by Marrow.
Warren joined a splinter X-Men group to assist the Mannites in their battle with the latest bearer of the name Death, who was eventually discovered to be Wolverine. This prompted Warren and Psylocke to rejoin the X-Men and they became involved in stopping the latest plan of Apocalypse to gain ultimate power. During a fight with the brainwashed Wolverine, Angel became more and more ruthless until he was overcome by a transformation that left him with glowing wings and hair as well as psionic abilities. Warren used these abilities to track down the first Horseman known as War, who had somehow once again become a paraplegic. Warren explained that he had become the embodiment of hope and used his new-found psionic powers to heal the former War..
Eventually, Warren returned to the X-Men full-time. Warren helped the X-Men defeat the threats of the X-Corps and the Vanisher's mutant drug cartel. Warren became the leader of the X-Men's active away team and even took the opportunity to address the G8 summit about mutant rights. This move and the cause that he promoted helped turn the X-Men from an outlaw band of heroes to a recognized global rights group.
In a battle with the plant-being, Black Tom Cassidy, Worthington was entrapped in Black Tom's life-draining vines and began to enter cardiac arrest. Warren was saved by his teammates, whereupon his blue skin reverted to its former pink color. This was later pointed to as a signal that his healing abilities had begun to manifest themselves more strongly.
While Cyclops was secretly using Warren's Aerie in Colorado for X-Force, Warren was attacked by a brainwashed Wolfsbane and his wings were ripped off. It was revealed that Warren's feathered wings were not flesh and bone, but still techno-organic and when his wings regrew, he reverted to his Archangel persona with blue skin and techno-organic wings. He murdered hundreds of winged Purifiers, members of the Choir, during a raid on their base in retaliation for taking his wings before passing out and reverting to his Angel form.
After joining Cyclops' secret black ops team, X-Force, Warren gained the ability to switch back and forth between his Angel and Archangel personae. X-Force used Warren's home as a temporary base to maintain secrecy. Like all members of X-Force, Warren remained a member of the X-Men, while secretly going on missions with X-Force when ordered. He initially tried to keep his transformation secret from the other X-Men, but during a recruiting mission with Beast, Warren was forced to transform into his Death/Archangel form to save them.
After the events of the Mutant Messiah's return to the present, Cyclops ordered the disbanding of X-Force. Wolverine, however, believed there was still a need for X-Force and decided to run it in secret. Warren joined the re-formed X-Force, using it as an outlet for his growing urge to kill. Warren and Psylocke rekindled their relationship after joining the team, as she helped him to control his Death/Archangel persona. Warren and Wolverine became leaders of the squad with Wolverine leading in the field and Warren supplying the funding. Warren also built a new secret bunker in Sedona, Arizona, Cavern-X, which was the base of operations for X-Force, but seconded as an emergency base for the X-Men should they need it.
The team's first mission was to stop the return of Apocalypse, who had been resurrected as a child. The team was attacked by the Final Horsemen of Apocalypse and Famine left Warren weak and starving. Deadpool attempted to revive Warren by feeding him everything in his pouches and even cut into his own flesh for him. When the team got to Apocalypse, no one was willing to kill the child, not even Archangel. While X-Force argued among themselves, Fantomex killed Apocalypse.
The child Apocalypse's death triggered an Ascension Protocol within the Death Seed that Apocalypse had planted in Warren to turn him into Archangel. He began to become, in essence, a new Apocalypse. X-Force became aware of this after Warren tried to kill a reporter to whom Shadow King had delivered files on the secret team. To prevent his ascension, X-Force traveled to the Age of Apocalypse under the direction of Dark Beast. They sought to claim a Life Seed to destroy the Death Seed within Warren. Teaming up with the X-Men of that universe, they managed to claim a Life Seed and return to their world but not without unfortunate casualties for the X-Men.
However, they had been tricked. Dark Beast had been working for the ascended Archangel all along. They returned to find Cavern-X overrun by Clan Akkaba, with Archangel at its head. The Life Seed was crucial in his plans to scour all life from the world, replacing it with new life grown from the Life Seed. As a test run, a small town in Montana was destroyed and regrown as Tabula Rasa.
Psylocke surrendered herself, hoping to appeal to whatever was left of Warren. When X-Force's actions led to the demise of the Final Horseman of Death, Archangel gathered a Death Seed from the Dreaming Celestial and transformed Psylocke into his own Death. Betsy was freed from the Archangel's control by Jean Grey from the Age of Apocalypse. She stabbed him with a Celestial Life Seed, killing both Archangel and Warren, and turning him into a new person. Under unknown circumstances, Warren's memories returned.
When Warren's memories returned, so did Archangel's powers and personality. Desperate to be rid of them, Warren contacted Clan Akkaba. They cut off his "tainted" wings, and Warren, now "cured and pure," became a sort of prophet in Green Ridge, Colorado; however, Akkaba secretly used his wings to create an army of Archangels and one of those clones escaped and became a member of Magneto's X-Men.
The real Warren was later found in Green Ridge by Psylocke and Magneto. Clan Akkaba revealed their true intentions in helping Warren, when their army of cloned Archangels led by the escaped clone attacked Green Ridge. In the end, Angel, realizing that Archangel needed his humanity, merged with all his clones, creating a new being. This new Archangel was unsure of who or what he now was, but was determined to find out. He swore off all violence and returned with Magneto's X-Men to their base in the Savage Land.
Angel was one of the numerous mutants called by Psylocke when she was attacked by the Shadow King in London. As she and some of the mutants she summoned ventured into the Astral Plane to stop him, Angel decided to stay in the real world to watch over their bodies and keep local authorities at bay. When the Shadow King took over the bodies of Gambit and Logan, Psylocke had Angel reluctantly switch to his Archangel persona to stop them. In the Astral Plane, the Shadow King was fighting against the late Charles Xavier, whose spirit he had managed to capture after his passing. Following the Shadow King's defeat, Xavier returned to the land of the living in the body of Fantomex. Xavier used his telepathic powers on Archangel to subdue his bloodlust and allow Warren to possess full control over his actions even when in his Archangel form.
Warren lived on the sovereign Mutant nation state of Krakoa, created by Charles Xavier, Magneto, and Moira X. He later joined Cyclops' team together with (Wolverine, Mystique, Husk, Penance, Marvel Girl, and Nightcrawler) on a mission to destroy Mother Mold before the creation of Nimrod. Archangel and Husk were both confused at some of Cyclops' methods. The team was spotted as they neared their destination, and subsequently their Shi'ar ship was blown up in a kamikaze attack by Captain Mendel. The explosion killed both Archangel and Husk, but the survivors continued on to destroy Mother Mold, at the cost of their lives.
The team was later resurrected by a group of mutants known as “The Five”.
When Apocalypse received word from his grandson that the ancient mutant society of Arakko had fallen to the demons of Amenth, who were now coming to destroy Krakoa, he led a team of volunteers to Otherworld to face the coming threat. Still not trusting Apocalypse, Warren joined the mission to keep an eye on him. Apocalypse was happy to fight alongside his former Horseman, and even happier to see that Warren had come to the mission as Archangel.]”
