Angel's Traumatic Injury in Extermination #2 Homages the Mutant Massacre

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Extermination #2 by Ed Brisson, Pepe Larraz, Marte Gracia and VC's Joe Sabino, on sale now.

When Hank McCoy plucked the Original Five X-Men (Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, Angel and Beast) from the past and brought them to the present-day, he couldn't have foreseen the teens sticking around as long as they have. Also, he more than likely didn't anticipate the physical and mental changes they'd undergo while fighting alongside their grown-up counterparts.

Just a few examples of how the young X-Men have changed since leaving the past are Jean's power levels evolving, her taking the role of leader on the team, Iceman coming out as gay, Beast's interest in magic over science, and Angel's wings evolving thanks to the power of the Black Vortex. Of course, this also doesn't take into account the things the X-Men have learned about their grown-up selves, with adult Cyclops becoming mutant public enemy number one with the humans, and Jean discovering she's died a time or two.

However, the one X-Man who is still alive and may have undergone the most drastic changes is Warren Worthington III. Angel had his wings brutalized decades ago during the "Mutant Massacre" crossover in Uncanny X-Men #210-213, resulting in Warren needing to have his wings amputated. Suffering from depression at the loss of his mutant gift, Angel lets the X-Men villain Apocalypse prey on his weakness by offering to give him his wings again with one caveat -- Angel has to become one of Apocalypse's Horsemen of the Apocalypse. From that moment on, Angel was gone and the Archangel was born, complete with blue skin and lethal metal wings.

After becoming a pawn of Apocalypse, Warren would eventually be successful at purging the evil influence from his body, but the Archangel would always rear its ugly head time and time again. In Uncanny X-Men #338, Warren's body changed yet again when his metal wings mysteriously shattered to reveal his natural, feathery wings underneath.

A very important part of Archangel's saga occurred during Rick Remender's run of Uncanny X-Men, when Apocalypse's influence took control of Warren yet again, leading him to attempt to become the second coming of En Sabah Nur. Psylocke, Warren's former girlfriend and lover, was able to help him through this tough patch, but Warren would lose part of his memory in the process, with a more pacifist personality being born.

Again, all of these transformations happened to the adult Angel, with his younger counterpart only gaining cosmic wings. However, a traumatic act committed upon young Angel in Extermination #2 mirrors one of our examples above.

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A Mutant Is Massacred

Extermination #1 revealed a younger version of Cable is the person who traveled from twenty years in the future to the present day, with the goal of forcing the Original Five X-Men to return to their proper place in the past. Young Cable killed himself (thank you, time travel) and kidnapped young Iceman as his prisoner -- one original X-Man down, four more to go.

While Kitty Pryde organized many of the X-Men to come up with a plan of attack on Ahab, who they believed to be behind the murders of Cable and Bloodstorm, young Cable laid a trap on the lawn of the Xavier Institute. Cyclops stormed out of the X-Men meeting after hearing Kitty's plan of splitting and hiding the originals to keep them safe. Once his teammates chased Cyclops onto the lawn, young Cable was able to stun Angel and bodyslide away with him.

We're soon taken to young Cable's secret hideout, where Angel is strung up by his hands and feet to some type of torture device. A slew of buzzsaw's then begun to cut at and slice his cosmic wings off his body as Angel screams in agony and Cable watches on, only muttering, "You brought this on yourself."

This scene is reminiscent of Angel being crucified in the Morlock tunnels by the Mauraders as his wings were pinned to the walls in the "Mutant Massacre." As we mentioned earlier, Angel would need to have his wings amputated because of gangrene, leading to his fateful meeting with Apocalypse.

The reason Cable would want to remove Angel's new wings is because if he's going to send Angel to the past, the X-Man can't go home with modified wings he obtained during his current-day adventures. No, that would just cause even more problems with the timestream. Of course, a person could argue the physical damage and trauma of having his wings forcibly cut off from his body can't be good for Warren as well.

In the early pages of Extermination #2, young Cable is shown to stun a man named Calvin Rankin, who also goes by the codename Mimic. Calvin has the Original Five X-Men's mutant powers, which include Warren's original wings. It's quite possible the reason Cable took Mimic is to somehow transfer his copycat abilities over to Warren to provide him a way to regrow his feather wings after returning to the past.

Finally, the imagery of Angel hanging from young Cable's device also invokes a callback to the cover of Uncanny X-Men #169, once again because of the Morlocks. Extermination writer Ed Brisson teased the series paying homage to many stories from Uncanny X-Men, with Issue #169 and the "Mutant Massacre" crossover as two glaring examples of Brisson keeping his word.