Colonel William "Bill" Stryker, M.D. is a fictional supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe, and an enemy of the X-Men. The character has been portrayed by Brian Cox in X2, Danny Huston in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Josh Helman in X-Men: Days of Future Past. In 2009, William Stryker was named IGN's 70th Greatest Villain of All Time.

Biography

God Loves, Man Kills
William 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 the 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 son immediately after his son's birth in Nevada. Crazed and outraged, Stryker then makes a failed suicide attempt. As time passes, he is convinced that 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
William 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, makes her way onto the airplane where Stryker was being transferred. Once there, she kills his guards and rescues him, then it is revealed that the two are lovers, and he immediately begins a crusade against the X-Men, focusing on Wolverine, Cannonball, the X-Treme X-Men team, and Shadowcat, against whom he apparently keeps a grudge.

Stryker sent a group of his 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 returns as a major player at the start of the 2005 "Decimation" storyline, following the "House of M" storyline, in which he deemed 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 de-powered 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 Dust, 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, who causes catastrophic damage to Stryker's brain via the rapid growth of a tumor.

Bastion resurrected Stryker with a Technarch, to join Bastion's new Purifiers. Bastion revealed that as the founder of the Purifiers, Stryker has the second highest number of mutant kills. He is surpassed only by Bolivar Trask, the founder of the Sentinels.

Bastion charges Stryker to locate Hope Summers and Cable, following their return from the future in the Second Coming event. His Purifiers, in conjunction with Cameron Hodge's Right footsoldiers, engage the X-Men and New Mutants. The Purifiers take out Magik with a weaponized ritual, Illyana is abducted by demons through one of her own stepping discs. They also disrupt Nightcrawler's teleportation with a sonic attack, leading to disorientation. The battle culminates when Wolverine orders Archangel to take out Stryker, shifting into the "Death" persona and slices Stryker in half at the waist with his wings.

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