Is My Hero Academia's Hawks A Better Hero Than Marvel's Angel?

My Hero Academia takes many a cue from modern-day superhero comics, but in certain cases, the characters in My Hero seem to surpass the heroes that inspired them, and you could definitely say that applies to Hawks.

For those who aren't familiar, Hawks is the No. 2 Pro Hero, and if you've looked at Hawks for even a second you can definitely see the similarities between him and Marvel's resident flying X-Man Angel, aka Warren Worthington III. This resemblance mostly comes form Hawks' Quirk, which gives him large feathered wings like Angel's.

His main ability is flight of course, but Hawks has a few other tricks up his sleeve that put his Marvel rival to shame. Now to clarify, we're just comparing core Angel with Hawks, so this does not include that character's changeover into Archangel. That, in essence, would be a completely different article.

You might scoff at leaving out Angel's most interesting aspects, but that's also kind of the point. At 22 years old and relatively recent to the hero ranks Hawks is already 3 times as useful as Angel in a battle and 10 times more interesting. It took Angel getting remade as one of Apocalypse's Four Horsemen to do the same for him.

Just on a personality level Hawks comes out ahead. Both heroes can be aloof at times, but Hawks doesn't default to that one emotion. He's bold and speaks his mind whenever he feels the need, and while he's carefree he's also quite good at his chosen profession, so it's easy to overlook those more casual approaches.

In regards to powers, it isn't even close, but not for the reasons you might think. On a base level, Angel could probably do some of the things that Hawks does, but those aspects have never truly been flesh out. Both can fly and seem rather durable. In fact, Angel's wings are incredibly strong and allow him to lift up to 200 punds. Hawks' are very alike in that way, but he's much more versatle in how he uses his wings.

In a recent issue of My Hero Hawks manages to save a number of people falling from the sky by sending out his feathers to catch them and float them to safety. He can telekinetcally control their movement, though the more he dispatches from his wings the harder it is to actually fly.

Warren can send out poison tipped blades when he's Archangel, but as Angel he does not. He can also use his wings as actual blunt force weapons if he wanted to, but rarely does so.

Hawks doesn't have those same issues. In addition to rescuing people with his feathers, he can also send direct them as weapons, and can even pluck them from his wings and use as swords, slicing through two Nomu in a recent issue. He also sent his feathers to further propel Endeavor forward in the latest issue, increasing his speed substantially and aiding his attack. To be fair though, Angel later developed a potent healing factor, which Hawks lacks. It was so potent that it could even heal others if Angel's blood was transfused into their bloodstream.

These are not to say that Warren can't do these things mind you, but they aren't often explored or shown at all, and he's certainly been around long enough that it really shouldn't be the case.

Now, like we said before, Archangel is another story and can do several of these things in that form. Thing is he also suffers a significant setback with those abilities, as the bloodlust from being in that form can make him snap at any moment. Hawks doesn't have that to worry about, at least not yet.

At least in this part of his career, Hawks definitely has the upper hand in a hero battle against Marvel's Angel.