Candy Southern goes a lot further back in X-Men than people might realize. She first appeared in X-Men #31, back when the book was still following the original five, and her con…

Candy Southern goes a lot further back in X-Men than people might realize. She first appeared in X-Men #31, back when the book was still following the original five, and her connection to Warren started before either of them was dealing with everything that came later. They knew each other as children. Both came from wealthy families, so they were already part of the same social world. When they meet again, though, Candy has her own apartment, a job at the United Nations building and college classes at night. There’s already a life there before she gets pulled into Warren’s superhero problems. Their relationship develops through that early period, including the awkwardness of Warren having a whole other identity he isn’t initially sharing with her. Dating someone who keeps disappearing is complicated enough. In Warren’s case, there are actual wings hidden under his clothes and an entire team of mutants behind the explanations he’s giving people. Candy eventually knows about Angel and the X-Men, and she stays part of Warren’s life through years of changes. That’s a long stretch of history to reduce to just calling her his girlfriend. She knows the person behind Angel, and she has to deal with how his decisions affect their relationship and their home, even when those decisions begin with him trying to help somebody. Then X-Factor brings another major change. The original X-Men reunite, Jean is back, and Warren gets pulled into that whole situation. His renewed feelings for Jean put more strain on his relationship with Candy. Their breakup belongs to that messy period, when Warren’s personal life, the team’s public image and Cameron Hodge’s manipulation are all colliding. Candy also gets dangerously close to exposing what Hodge is doing. She’s trying to bring information to the press when she disappears into his control. By the time Warren finds her at the Right’s headquarters, Hodge has already done terrible damage to her. He murders her during their confrontation in X-Factor #34. That happens after Warren has lost his original wings and been transformed by Apocalypse. He reaches Candy with the metal wings and the violence that came with becoming Death, but he still can’t save her. Warren beheads Hodge in retaliation, and the aftermath carries into Inferno with Candy’s body in his arms. So at the point I’ve reached, Candy’s history has already ended in a pretty brutal place. But there are years before that: the early relationship, her own career, her attempt to expose Hodge. Those are all part of who she was, too. Her death is a major part of Warren’s story, but it shouldn’t erase everything she was doing while she was alive.