William Stryker
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Stats
- real name: William Stryker
- publisher:Marvel Comics
- debut:X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills (1982)
- creators: Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson
- alliances:Purifiers
- powers: Robotic arm from Nimrod and has an implant capable of blocking low level telepathy
William Stryker' is a comic book supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe, and enemy of the X-Men. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Brent Anderson, he first appeared in the 1982 graphic novel X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills.
Rev. Stryker sees himself on a mission from God to destroy the mutant race. When God Loves, Man Kills was loosely adapted into the 2003 film sequel X2, Stryker, played by Brian Cox, is portrayed as a rogue army colonel with a fervent desire to destroy mutants. Danny Huston portrays Stryker in the superhero prequel movie, X-Men Origins: Wolverine in which he is the villainous director of the Weapon X project.
Character biography
God Loves, Man Kills
Stryker is a religious fanatic, with a military history which may have involved the Weapon X project (the same project which results in Wolverine being given his adamantium skeleton). Stryker is characterized by his unequivocal hatred of mutants. So strong is this hatred that Stryker goes so far as to kill his own wife and mutant-born son immediately after his birth. Crazed and outraged, Stryker then makes a failed attempt at suicide. As time passes, he becomes convinced Satan has a plot to destroy humankind by corrupting prenatal souls, the result of this corruption being mutants. Additionally, Stryker eventually comes to see the birth of his mutant son as a sign from God, directing him to his true calling: ensuring the eradication of all mutants.
Driven by this newfound conviction, Stryker then becomes a popular but controversial preacher and televangelist. While his followers, including a secret paramilitary group called the Purifiers, commit hate crimes against mutants, Stryker arranges to have Professor Xavier kidnapped, brainwashed, and attached to a machine that, using his brainpower, will kill all living mutants. In order to stop this scheme, the X-Men are forced to join forces with their nemesis, Magneto. When the extent of his bigotry becomes obvious—he attempts to kill Kitty Pryde in front of a television audience—one of his own security guards shoots and arrests him.
God Loves, Man Kills II
Stryker, who made no appearances until this storyline in X-Treme X-Men, was assumed forgotten. This time, it was revealed that Stryker had been serving a prison sentence as a result of the events of his previous actions. Lady Deathstrike, a character with ties to the X-Men's Wolverine, made her way onto the airplane where Stryker was being transferred. Once there, she killed his guards and rescued him, where it was revealed that the two are lovers, and he immediately began a crusade against the X-Men, focusing on Wolverine, Cannonball, the X-Treme X-Men team, and Shadowcat, against whom he apparently had a grudge.
Stryker sent a group of followers against several of the X-Men, and kidnapped Kitty Pryde. Along the way, Kitty convinced Stryker that mutants were not an abomination, and he seemed to turn over a new leaf.
Decimation
However, he recently came back as a major player right at the start of the Decimation following Marvel's House of M event, deeming the sudden massive reduction in number of the mutant population a sign of God, saying "He made the first step and now we have to take the next", basically rallying for genocide on TV. He was featured mostly in New X-Men as the main villain, but also appeared in other comics set during this time frame. With the help of Icarus, one of the Xavier Institute's students, he caused a bus to explode, killing about 1/4 of the depowered students from the academy. Then he planned the assassination of Wallflower, ordering one of his snipers to shoot her in the head. Next he tried to kill Sooraya Quadir, though it was actually X-23. The deaths of Wallflower and Dust were Stryker's prime objectives, as he had been informed by Nimrod that both girls would destroy his army. Finally he attacked the institute with his "Purifiers," killing Quill, leaving Onyxx and Cannonball critically wounded, and hurting Bishop, Emma Frost and other students. After Stryker's Purifiers were defeated, he was killed by the enraged boyfriend of Wallflower, Elixir.
Recently, Bastion has resurrected Stryker with a Technarch, to join Bastion's new Purifiers.
Other versions
Ultimate William Stryker
Beast reveals that the leader of the anti-mutant conspiracy within the U.S. government that operated was an Admiral named Stryker, who is also linked to the creation of the Ultimate Marvel Universe's version of the Legacy Virus*Ultimate X-Men #81*. Stryker's son, Reverend William Stryker, Jr. later appears in Ultimatum as a leader of a anti-mutant coalition. He has cybernetic facial implants and resembles Rory Campbell aka Ahab from the mainstream Marvel Universe.
Other Media
Film
- The story prior to his recent reappearing formed the loose basis for the film, X2, which follows its basic premise, but also incorporates elements of the Dark Phoenix Saga, In this movie, Col. William Stryker is the main antagonist, and played by Scottish actor Brian Cox. Stryker was slightly altered for his film interpretation in X2. He is no longer a religious extremist, but a military scientist who has gone into defense contracting. His connection to Wolverine aka Logan is made more explicit, as is his motivation regarding his son. One small detail remains is that the movie Stryker and comic's one served in the Vietnam War, as a black ops pilot. Also, rather than having killed his son, Jason (who himself is partially modeled after Mastermind, another X-Men foe), at birth, Stryker sent him to Xavier's school in hopes of curing him, regarding mutation as a disease that must be cured. Xavier had no interest or belief in 'curing' mutants, which angered Stryker. Additionally, Jason continued to grow angry, resentful, and vindictive towards his parents; he tortured them by planting illusions in their brains until his mother committed suicide by drilling into her own brain in order to "bore the images out." Stryker then gave his son a lobotomy to make him more docile. Jason, under his father's direction, brainwashes Xavier into using a reproduction of Cerebro to kill all mutants. Xavier and Magneto learned that Stryker is the mastermind behind an assassination attempt on the President by a brainwashed Nightcrawler. Magneto, wearing a helmet designed to shield against telepathic attacks, is able to reach Xavier while the X-Men are incapacitated by the psychic assault, but then has Jason make Xavier use Cerebro II to kill ordinary humans. At his direction, Mystique impersonates Stryker and instructs Jason of a change in plans, which Jason then communicates to the brainwashed Xavier. Magneto and Mystique escape, and soon thereafter Storm and Nightcrawler enter Cerebro II and disrupt Jason's illusion, allowing Xavier to break free from his control before any humans or mutants are killed. Stryker attempts to escape, but his attempts are foiled by Wolverine, then Magneto, and he is chained to a large block of debris. In his last moments, he confronts Wolverine about how he apparently volunteered to have the adamantium put in his skeleton, and asks him whether he would actually side with mutants (implying that Wolverine originally hated his mutation before his amnesia). Looking at the young mutant he was carrying to safety, a young boy with a lizard-like tongue (Artie Maddicks), Wolverine informs Stryker that he would "take his chances with him" and left him to die. As Wolverine walks away Stryker says to him that "one day someone will finish what I've started. One day!" Stryker remains chained as the nearby dam bursts. His fate is unknown, but it is implied that he dies in the ensuing flood.
- Stryker is in the film X-Men Origins: Wolverine, set roughly twenty years before X-Men, portrayed by Danny Huston. Huston liked the complex Stryker, who "both loves and hates mutants because his son was a mutant and drove his wife to suicide. So he understands what they're going through, but despises their destructive force." He compared the character to a racehorse breeder, who rears his mutant experiments like children but abandons them when something goes wrong.
Video Games
- Col. Stryker will appear in Wolverine tie-in video game.
- X-Men: Legends features a character similar to X2's William Stryker, a mutant hating soldier General William Kincaid is featured. In the end he is arrested for crimes against humanity.
Stryker is referenced several times in X-Men: The Official Game. It's revealed that his son, Jason Stryker survived and is using his father's secret program Master Mold to kill the X-Men. It's also revealed that The Hand and Kenuichio Harada funded it for him.