Alais: Arch Angel

Height: 6'0"

Weight: 160lbs.

Place of Birth: Centerport, New York

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #1, September 1963

Mutant Powers: Angel has feathered wings that extend from his back which enable him to fly.

History: Warren Worthington III was attending a private school in his adolescence when wings began to grow from his shoulder blades. The wings reached their full adult size within months, but Worthington kept them a secret by strapping them tightly to his back and concealing them under clothes. At first he thought himself a freak. However, Worthington learned that he could use his wings to fly and came to enjoy his newfound ability. Then one night there was a fire in his dormitory, and he resolved to use his flying power to rescue the people inside. To conceal his identity, Worthington wore a long blonde wig and a long nightshirt, so that he looked like an angel. The rescue was successful and his identity remained a secret.

Shortly thereafter, Worthington became a costumed crime fighter in New York City under the name the Avenging Angel. He was then contacted by the X-Men, a team of superhuman mutants, and agreed to join them, becoming one of the group's original members. Years later, shortly after Professor Charles Xavier, the founder of the X-Men, recruited several new members for the group, the Angel decided to leave the team. After his parents' death, Worthington inherited a vast fortune, and he used part of it to found a Los Angeles-based organization of superhumans called the Champions.

Worthington also publicly revealed that he was the Angel, although he and Xavier managed to keep secret Worthington's connection with Xavier's school, the cover and home base for the X-Men. When the Champions failed as an organization, Worthington decided to devote his time from then on to his business duties and to his girlfriend Candace "Candy" Southern. Worthington also briefly returned to the X-Men. The Angel later joined another team of superhuman adventurers, the Defenders, and remained with them after the Beast, another of the original X-Men, reorganized the group. The Defenders used the mansion and estate that Worthington and Southern jointly owned in the Colorado Rocky Mountains as their base of operations.

After several of the Defenders seemingly perished in a battle against Moondragon and the Dragon of the Moon, the Angel joined four other original members of the X-Men in founding X-Factor, an organization that would seek out and aid superhuman mutants under the pretense of hunting down "mutant menaces." Worthington brought in a friend from school, Cameron Hodge, to act as X-Factor's public relations director. Unknown to Worthington, Hodge was the leader of an organization called

The Right and intended to use X-Factor to exacerbate anti-mutant sentiments in the general public. Mystique, leader of Freedom Force, discovered that Worthington, a known mutant, was secretly the financial backer of X-Factor, which was publicly believed to be a mutant-hunting organization, and leaked this information to the news media, generating great controversy. Subsequently, in a battle with the Marauders during their massacre of the mutant Morlocks, the Angel was caught by Blockbuster. Another Marauder, Harpoon, then impaled the Angel's wings with his weapons. The thunder god Thor rescued the Angel, but the bones of the Angel's wings had been permanently crippled, and his wounds became infected. As a result, surgeons amputated Worthington's wings. Worthington changed his will, leaving his fortune to X-Factor, thereby unwittingly playing into Hodge's plans. Shortly afterwards, in despair over the loss of his wings, his breakup with Southern, and the controversy plaguing X-Factor, Worthington apparently committed suicide in a small aircraft that exploded. In fact, however, Worthington was teleported to safety by the mutant Apocalypse who, through genetic manipulation, caused the Angel's wings to grow back in a new form. His views towards the world radically altered by his recent traumatic experiences, Worthington became one of Apocalypse's warriors, the so-called Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and took the name Death. As Death, he battled the other four founding members of X-Factor, but he was shocked into ending his attack when one of the X-Factor members, Iceman, faked his own demise. Abandoning both Apocalypse and X-Factor, Worthington flew off to live a solitary life. He then rejoined X-Factor and adopted the new name of Archangel.

After an attack by the Shadow King, Archangel rejoined the X-Men, and fell in love with teammate Psylocke. Recently, Warren underwent yet another transformation. This time Archangel "shed" his metallic wings which gave way to his older, more familiar feathered wings. The mystery surrounding this change is yet uncovered, but Warren fears it could be the next step in some higher plan that Apocalypse may have in store for him. This transformation was seemingly triggered by injuries he suffered to his wings inflicted by Sabretooth.