This is not to disparage the genre: people like what they like.

The idea of angels acting in defiance of an absentee God is all over modern fiction, particularly the TV show Supernatural. In an increasingly secularized media culture, this divorce of angels from religion, from God Himself, simply turns angels into superheroes. X-Men. Beautiful, winged X-Men, but mutants all the same. They can fly around, have super-strength, perform miracles, but lack the thing that makes them actually angels: faith in and obedience to God.
The angelic fiction sub-genre has plenty of room for latitude. If there are sparkly vampires and Teen Wolves, there can be superhero angels. A fallen angel doesn't have to de facto become a demon, an idea I explore for the Watcher angels in The Blessed Man and the Witch.
Nevertheless, magical powers and feathered wings do not an angel make. Secularizing an angel takes him away from his core and transforms him into a superhero.
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