William Stryker is a major antagonist and an enemy of the X-Men. He is a fundamentalist televangelist who saw mutants as a sin against human nature. He is also responsible for the creation of Weapon X which was the program that created Wolverine.
History[]
God Loves, Man Kills[]
Stryker is introduced as a religious fanatic and a military man who is involved in the Weapon X project, he also hates mutants, he also killed his wife and son who was born as a mutant. His sanity made his attempt suicide, Stryker was convinced by Satan to create new mutants to destroy humanity. However, his hatred for the mutants was so great, and he looked at the birth as a sign of God to destroy the mutants. With his fanaticism convicing more people to join him, he also committed crimes against mutants. Stryker would later kidnap Professor Xavier, and brainwash and attack the machine that could kill all the mutants. However, his plans were ruined when the X-men joining forces with Magneto, then when they defeated Stryker who made him arrested.
God Loves Man Kills 2[]
After his defeat, Stryker was serving the maximum sentence for his crimes. He is soon rescued by Lady Deathstrike, a known enemy of Wolverine, after which it is revealed that the two are lovers, and that Stryker starts a cross against the X-men, causing Wolverine, Cannonball and Shadowcat, which he hates. However, Kitty Pryde managed to convince Stryker's followers that the mutants are not monsters. Her words seemed to have an effect on Stryker and he seemed to repent.
Decimation[]
However, Stryker soon returned to his previous religious fanaticism and saw the huge mass of mutants as a signal for the end of the specimen, he also called the New X-men genocides and confronted them on TV calling them the main villains. And with help of Icarus one of Xavier's students, caused a bus explosion to kill many mutants, he planned the assassination of Wallflower and tried to kill Sooraya Quadir, and with the deaths of Wallflower and Dust which were Stryker's main goals and Nimrod, in addition he destroyed the arm of two girls, he tried to attack Xavier Institute with a lauched along with his Purifiers, killing Quil in the process and leaving Onyxx and Cannonball seriously injured. After the defeat of his Purifiers, he was killed by Elixir.
Rebirth[]
He would later be resuscitated by Bastion as one of the new Purifiers and as a techno-organic, but he would be defeated and killed by Archangel.