InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Born free...Til they caught me"

seriousfic (seriousfic) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-04-05 10:14:00

Scott meets Archangel/Death
You remember, when Apocalypse turned Warren Worthington III into one of his evil Four Horsemen?

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icon_uk
2009-04-05 10:28 am UTC (link)

I remember telling my friends at the time, as soon as Warren's plane blew up, that he'd be back as Death before you knew it (since we'd already seen War, Famine and Plague, and the Angel of Death seemed an obvious motif), and no one believed me. [smug]Hah![/smug]

Of course, this was before it was decided that Angel HAD to be dark and edgy to be interesting and lo the late 1980's and early 1990's age of comics were born... sigh.

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	seriousfic 2009-04-05 10:30 am UTC (link)
	To be fair, "he has wings and he's very pretty!" isn't that interesting outside of shoujo manga. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-04-05 10:34 am UTC (link)
	Nor is "fires energy blasts", but how many of THOSE do the X-Men have? Angel was already known as the best natural flier in the MU, and had been known to use weaponry. He's no more ineffectual than, say Hawkman. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

seriousfic
2009-04-05 10:50 am UTC (link)

But at least Hawkman has a mace. In lot of these old X-Men stories, Warren just flies around punching people.

Though you could argue about their relative ineffectualness vis-a-vie their teams. The X-Men have stuff like a telepath, a guy who shoots optic blasts, a guy with superhuman strength and agility. Not too shabby, but not the be-all and end-all of superheroes either.

The JLA has a guy who can travel at the speed of light, a man who can push the world out of orbit, a woman who can push the world out of orbit with slightly more effort and has an invisible jet. So there are circumstances where Angel could come in handy to the X-Men, whereas anything Hawkman can do is generally covered by Green Lantern thinking hard. :)

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icon_uk
2009-04-05 11:03 am UTC (link)

True, but he originally carried a gas-gun, which he stopped using for no apparent reason, and for extended periods did use a mace too (last seen in The Champions I think, he borrowed it from Hercules)

Team dynamics are always fascinating, but it depends on how they are form. The JLA suffers in some ways from the fact that it's a "Best of..." team, and usually has no actual "made for the JLA" heroes at it's core.

Teams like the X-Men, Legion and New Mutants were all conceived as teams, and so were composed of lower powered members who function better as a unit.

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	seriousfic 2009-04-05 11:09 am UTC (link)
	They really need to think up a distinctive, useful weapons for Angel. If Gambit can have a bo staff and Wolverine can have claws, surely they can spare Angel something to add a little more oomph to his power set. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-04-05 11:19 am UTC (link)
	I'd have left him with the mace to be honest, and the gas gun could have been modified into an assortment of non-lethal grenades which he could drop from on high ("utility guano" so to speak!); sonics, emetics, anaesthetics... Archangel with his razorwings and fletchette feathers was going a step too far IMHO. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

seriousfic
2009-04-05 11:23 am UTC (link)

But the mace is too much like Hawkman. It's like giving Captain Marvel heatvision. At least fletchette feathers fit in with the character's power. Spider-Man has spider-powers and webshooters, Archangel has wings and deadly feathers. More than that and you risk turning him into the Punisher with wings.

Besides which, Scott is the one with the Olympic-level understanding of geometry, so giving Warren grenades is like bypassing Black Cat to give Spider-Man a push-up bra and high heels. You're just not playing to people's strengths.

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icon_uk
2009-04-05 11:32 am UTC (link)

At least fletchette feathers fit in with the character's power

Barely. I'd say that, as "lethal feathers" are not an aspect of any bird known to man, it's just as pointless an addition as giving him flaming elbows or the like.

And I'm not sure I see what dropping grenades from a height has to with an innate understanding of 3D geometry. Warren has been mentioned as having super-acute eyesight making him a more than adequate bomber (as in the "WWII plane" sense of the term).

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	filbypott 2009-04-05 11:52 am UTC (link)
	I'd say that, as "lethal feathers" are not an aspect of any bird known to man Well, there's the Stymphalian birds, but then you're mixing your mythoi. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-04-05 11:54 am UTC (link)
	So THAT'S what they were called, THANKS! I was looking up Stygian and Styxian because I was SURE there was a mythical bird like that, but I couldn't remember the proper name! :) (Reply to this) (Parent)

seriousfic
2009-04-05 12:05 pm UTC (link)

But feathers are an aspect of a bird, so "feathers + hurting people" is a logical extrapolation. Just like real spiders don't shoot weblines around and swing off buildings, but webshooters are a logical extrapolation of Spider-Man's power set.

And for the real trick shots, like bouncing a grenade around or throwing it so it incapacitates hostiles but only mildly inconveniences hostiles, 3D geometry would come in handy. Because if you're just dropping grenades on people, there's this thing called gravity that is just as handy.

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	icon_uk 2009-04-05 12:16 pm UTC (link)
	Because if you're just dropping grenades on people, there's this thing called gravity that is just as handy. Which is pretty much my point, since Angel can drop them with more accuracy, and from heights beyond the reach of opponents, more efficiently than any other X-man. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	ashtoreth 2009-04-05 08:16 pm UTC (link)
	Physics would agree. Grenades are really heavy. Also non-reusable. It seems a touch dorky though. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	kaileighblue 2009-04-05 05:56 pm UTC (link)
	He had Exile-Magik's soul sword for a bit. Or is that ignorable because it was Austen. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	squirle 2009-04-05 07:29 pm UTC (link)
	I go with the X-Men #1 cover, and vote for making Warren's distinctive weapon a bazooka. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	filbypott 2009-04-05 11:51 am UTC (link)
	Well hey, Batman just punches people, so Angel has a head up on him there ;) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	seriousfic 2009-04-05 12:02 pm UTC (link)
	Yes, but Batman is the world's greatest detective, so he gets point for being the team brains. It's like how Hannibal is leader of the A-team. Sure, anyone can handle a M-16 rifle, but who's going to come up with the plan? That he loves to see come together? (Reply to this) (Parent)

	fromtheaether 2009-04-05 01:06 pm UTC (link)
	At about that time, both Beast & Iceman were also given power ups. According to Walt Simonson, this was done to give the original X-Men more parity with the newer X-Men. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-04-05 01:09 pm UTC (link)
	Beast's strength was increased slightly, but not so much as you'd particularly notice, and Iceman got stuck in his ice-form, which was conveniently forgotten about before too long. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	timemonkey 2009-04-05 01:40 pm UTC (link)
	Iceman gets stuck in his ice form all the damn time. Actually, it seems to be a sign that he's getting strong and his skill needs to catch up with his power. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	xdoop 2009-04-05 01:31 pm UTC (link)
	Here's what I don't get: wasn't the original X-Men series a failure? It only really became a success with Claremont and the international team. So what was the point of reuniting the original X-Men team, especially since it meant retconning the Dark Phoenix storyline and making Scott leave his wife and child? (Reply to this) (Thread)

icon_uk
2009-04-05 03:27 pm UTC (link)

Precisely to cash in on the success of the X-Men concept which was riding high at the time.

New Mutants had proved there was a market for more mutant stories, and who better to focus on than the ones who started it all, most of whom were in character limbo. You got instant identifcation with minimum derailing of other plotlines to bring them together.

Restoring Jean Grey was a major event and so was a good launch point. Note I'm not saying that bringing her back was a good idea (because I don't think it was), but I can see the business logic behind it.

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	ashtoreth 2009-04-05 08:20 pm UTC (link)
	"Warren...was winged, joyous LIFE!" I really don't need more than that to posit a whole history of slash. :) (Reply to this) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-04-05 08:43 pm UTC (link)
	That had to be Claremont. He describes all characters in terms best suited to romance novels. And if not Claremont: no excuse. Eugh, what bad writing. And I kind of think everyone knows Warren is Angel. They've only been friends, like, 40 years. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	xdoop 2009-04-06 09:13 am UTC (link)
	It's Louise Simonson. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-04-07 09:16 am UTC (link)
	I feel sick. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	kingrockwell 2009-04-06 10:49 am UTC (link)
	I don't thin he was correcting himself to hide Warren's identity, but more likely to invoke the contrast between Angel and Archangel. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	wonderwomanhero 2009-04-06 11:36 am UTC (link)
	Aren't his wings made of some sort of special thing? Because, if memory serves, Callisto, when hoisting the nearly naked Archangel, tried to clip his feathers, and Storm mentioned he'd be crippled or something. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	ashtoreth 2009-04-06 02:42 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, but clipped wings grow back, so you have to keep on clipping them. (Although there was a tempest in a teapot in the letters column over the wrong wording for that. Apparently, 'pinfeathers' are the tiny soft feathers that keep the bird warm. The feathers you clip to prevent flight are aerials, I think.) (Reply to this) (Parent)