Today the Dark Angel Saga Volume 1 is available. This collects the first chapters of Rick Remender’s violent epic starring Wolverine’s covert team – it’s one of my favorite storylines of 2011.

  As The Dark Angel Saga races to the finale in Uncanny X-Force I recall the twisted tales that serve as the foundation for this adventure. Wolverine’s covert ops team has been searching for the Life Seed to save original X-Man Warren Worthington/Archangel from becoming the next Apocalypse. The seeds for this story are definitely worth reading. There are links to the books throughout the post.

  Logan and Wolverine’s covert squad traveled to the Age of Apocalypse. This alternative timeline is where Apocalypse conquered North America.  Back in the 90’s Marvel made a radical move by cancelling all the X-titles. During Legion Quest Professor X had been killed in a freak time travel incident by his own son and never formed the X-Men. Without opposition, the evil mutant Apocalypse rose to power. The new titles reflected this dark new status quo. Reality was eventually restored but some beings from that dimension escaped into the real Marvel universe and the X-Men have been pulled back into this alternate realm in previous stories.

  Warren Worthington was always the golden boy of the original X-Men. Being rich, blonde, athletic and born with mutant wings, Warren was christened Angel by creator Stan Lee.

  Many years later the original five X-Men regrouped to form X-Factor. This is when the golden boy’s life turned tragic. During the Mutant Massacre, Angel was brutally attacked and his wings had to be amputated. But Warren would fly again thanks to Apocalypse. Warren was now armed with wings of poisoned blades that he could shoot at his enemies. Under Louise Simonson’s reign as writer Angel became the Archangel, one of Apocalypse’s Four Horseman. It was just one of the game changing stories affecting all the X-teams during the Fall of the Mutants event. 

   I believe this stands as one of the most radical transformations in comics and lead to emotional storytelling and some vicious showdowns that included Archangel versus Wolverine. One of Archangel’s most vicious battles was in the X-Tinction Agenda.

  Eventually Angel was reborn. Warren’s white wings returned but the blue skin stayed. During this period Warren and Psylocke fell in love. Psylocke is a fellow X-man who underwent a radical change from telepathic British model to Asian psychic ninja. Psylocke’s transformation deserves a whole post – I’ll work on that!

  During the Messiah Complex epic Cyclops and Wolverine created a covert team to do the dirty work the X-Men couldn’t. X-Force was created to take out threats to mutants even if it meant killing. During the first mission Warren’s white wings were shredded again and the Archangel persona took over during a clash with the Purifiers. After the events of Second Coming Cyclops ordered Logan to disband X-Force.

  Warren and Logan form their own covert team to seek and destroy the newly resurrected Apocalypse in The Apocalypse Solution. The story raises a lot of questions about ends justifying the means and when a hero’s actions are really heroic. X-Force is definitely not for every reader.

  I think those storylines are the seeds to give you the foundation for The Dark Angel Saga. These epics are always exciting to enjoy anytime.  You may want to give them a read to give you more context while you wait for the final chapter and learn Warren’s fate.