Marvel Casts Its Angel — Let's Try Not To Waste Him Again

Marvel’s new X-Men have found their Angel. Asa Germann, best known for Gen V and the worst death in Scream 7, has been cast as Warren Worthington III in Marvel Studios’ upcoming X-Men movie. Germann originally auditioned for Cyclops before that role went to Kit Connor, and Marvel apparently liked what they saw enough to find another member of the team for him to play.

Thank God because Warren deserves another chance at this. Angel has already appeared in two different X-Men movies and I’m not sure either version left much of an impression beyond “there’s the blonde guy with wings.” Ben Foster played him to yawns in X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006, while Ben Hardy did even worse with the role for X-Men: Apocalypse ten years later. Two actors, two timelines and somehow we’re still waiting for somebody to make Warren Worthington III not suck on screen.

That shouldn’t be difficult. Warren was one of the original five X-Men alongside Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast and Iceman, and he has one of the better built-in character arcs on the team. He’s rich, confident, beautiful and has the kind of mutation that doesn’t exactly look like a curse. Then everything gets ripped away from him.

That’s where Archangel comes in. After suffering devastating injuries to his wings, Warren falls under the influence of Apocalypse and is transformed into one of his Horsemen. The white feathered wings are replaced by razor-sharp metallic ones, and the guy who seemed to have everything becomes a weapon pointed at the people he once considered family. There’s a movie sitting right there.

X-Men: Apocalypse even had all the pieces: Warren, Apocalypse, Archangel, metal wings — all of it was there, and they still fucked it up. Ben Hardy looked the part and then Warren basically became another body for Apocalypse to recruit before everybody started throwing shit at each other.

The Last Stand at least gave Ben Foster one strong moment, with a young Warren desperately trying to cut away his developing wings because he was terrified of what his father would think. Then the movie pushed him to the side and never did much with him again.

Marvel doesn’t need to rush to Archangel this time. Let Germann be Warren first. Let us get to know the privileged, confident guy with the enormous white wings before tearing his world apart. Archangel means a whole lot more if the audience gives a damn about the person who existed before the metal wings showed up.

The new X-Men cast is starting to fill out around him, with Kit Connor playing Cyclops, Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, Christopher Abbott as Professor X, Samara Weaving as Emma Frost, Inde Navarrette as Rogue and Maya Boyd as Storm. Adam Driver is also set to play Mr. Sinister, giving Marvel plenty to work with before Apocalypse ever needs to enter the picture. You can see the rest of the lineup in Marvel’s X-Men Has Its Team — So Who the Hell Is Nathaniel Milbury?

For now, Germann playing Angel is a casting choice I like. I just want Marvel to remember that Warren Worthington III is more than the sexy wings. Fox screwed this up twice now, Marvel you screw him up a third time and I’m gonna have to slap a bitch.