Several years later, when a group of new X-Men join the group he decided to leave.  When his parents died he
inherited a hugh fortune, and he used part of it to form a Los Angeles-based organization called the Champions.
He then revealed himself to the world as Angel but he and Xavier managed to keep secret Ange'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.

Angel went on to join  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.

After several Defenders seemingly perished Angel joined four other original members of the X-Men in founding X-Factor. 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, learned Warren 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.

Iin a battle with the Marauders during their massacre of the Morlocks, Angel was caught.   Harpoon, impaled Angel's wings with his weapons. The thunder god Thor rescued Angel, but his wings were permanently crippled, and his wounds became infected. As a result Warren's wings were amputated .   He changed his will, leaving everything to X-Factor, unknowingly  playing into Hodge's plans. Shortly afterwards, in despair over the lossing his wings, breaking up with Southern, and the controversy plaguing X-Factor, Warren apparently committed suicide in a small aircraft that exploded.

He was teleported to safety by Apocalypse who, through genetic manipulation, caused  Angel's wings to grow back in a new form and Warren 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, Warren flew off to live a solitary life. He then rejoined X-Factor and adopted the new name of Archangel.

Archangel later "shed" his metallic wings which gave way to his older, more familiar feathered wings. This transformation was seemingly triggered by injuries he suffered to his wings inflicted by Sabretooth.  He began a relationship with his fellow X-Man, Psylocke who helped him deal with his transfomations and he in turn helped her deal with her  "evolution" as a result of her exposure to the life-saving Crimson Dawn.

Warren and Betsy broke up when she seemingly began taking up with Neal.  Warren has been somewhat haunted recently by this fact as he struggles to deal with Betsy's death.  He has also recently lost his blue color as he leads one of the sections of the X-Men.