"God Loves Man Kills" part 2

Welcome back Muties!  During our previous discussion about 1982's God Loves Man Kills graphic novel by Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson, we were introduced to the Reverend William Stryker, founder of the far-right fundamentalist Stryker Crusade, a highly successful and influential evangelical and anti-mutant ministry.  Stryker is also the organizer, financial backer, and mastermind of the Purifiers, a paramilitary organization dedicated to the genocide of all mutants.  Following a televised debate with Professor Charles Xavier, Stryker arranges for the the Purifiers to ambush Xavier, as well the the X-Men Cyclops and Storm, in Central Park, in an attack in which the three mutants are seemingly killed.

As Chapter 2 of God Loves Man Kills opens, Kitty Pryde and and Illyana Rasputin are grieving for what they believe to be the deaths of their friends an mentors, when Illyana finds something strange on the Xavier Institute's Westchester property.  Kitty investigates and discovers it to a an "electronic sensor module" aimed at Xavier's mansion.  Kitty scrambles the module by phasing throughout it, reckoning that whoever set it up will detect the malfunction and come to repair it.  Eventually, a group of Purifiers, including their field leader who is identified only as Anne, show up to do to just that.  While Kitty phases into the ground to spy on the Purifiers, Illyana is discovered, "stunned" (given that she is shot, I assume its with a tranquilizer gun?) and captured.  As the Purifiers begin to drive away with Illyana, Kitty phases into the trunk.  The Purifiers have their own technology that detects mutants, however, and release a quantity of never gas into the trunk James-Bond-car style.

Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Colossus, meanwhile, have begun investigating the site of the ambush in Central Park. Wolverine almost immediately determines that the bodies still in the vehicle are not those of his friends as their smells are different (insert suspension of disbelief regarding police crime scene procedure).
Nightcrawler, hiding nearby, notices a group taking a particular notice of their car, and informs the others. The X-Men confronts the group, which turns out to be a seeming trio of Purifiers, and a fight quickly ensues. The X-Men very quickly subdue two of the Purifiers, until a fourth member, wearing Mandroid-like armor begins to use his suits firepower to begin to turn the tide. The appearance of Magneto ends the fight, however, and the mutants take the captured Purifiers back to Xavier's for interrogation.

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It's a rare thing for me to criticize anything of Chris Claremont's. His comics helped define most of my childhood. His novels framed a good portion of my early 20s. His narration and dialogue formed a lot of how my own internal monologue works. That said, however, this scene with Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler is one of those moments when I can't help but be a little critical.

My main issue isn't that the cops let them onto an active crime scene. I can No-Prize this away by saying that this moment in time was before the whole "feared and hated" thing got really ramped up, and maybe the X-men flashed their superhero credentials (we'll see soon that the cops are pretty sympathetic to mutants). I have trouble, however, believing that the police wouldn't take issue with the X-Men attacking what appears to be a car full of people who appear to be just minding their own business, and also with kidnapping those people with the aid of a known super powered terrorist. As with anything of Claremont's that I find less than total perfection, though, I just tell myself that Jim Shooter probably made him do it.

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Chapter 3 opens with Charles Xavier experiencing nightmares of being crucified by demonic versions of the X-Men, only to be saved by a luminescent, beatific figure in white. This angelic figure reaches for Xavier, a seeming source of salvation, though when Charles shows the slightest trace of doubt, the figure hurls him "once more from the grace he craves, and into the abyss". We're shown, however, that Charles is actually in a sensory deprivation tank, the 1982 version of a virtual reality simulator strapped onto his head, feeding images directly into his brain, while hallucinagenic drugs that increase his compliance are pumped into his system. Storm and Cyclops, meanwhile, are trapped in machines that keep them in a constant state of pain and neutralizes their powers Their pain is fed psionically to Xavier, causing him to subconsciously form negative associations with them and with other mutants as a whole.

As the Purifier scientist/torture explains all of this, we're shown a flashback that exposits Stryker's motivation behind his crusade. Once a decorated military man, Stryker was driving through the desert with his very pregnant wife, when their car crashed. Stryker's wife went into labor, requiring Stryker to deliver the baby. When the baby turns out visibly mutated, Strkyer kills the baby, then his wife, and attempts to kill himself, though failing in the last. What follows is a stunning display of absolute narcissism.

Obviously viewing mutants as a bad thing, he doesn't see being born a mutant as something that happened to his son. He doesn't see giving birth to a mutant as something that happened to his wife. He sees both of these circumstances as things that were done to him by his wife and child. It's also interesting that though he uses a knife to kill his child, and being military presumably has a gun in the car, he decides to try to kill himself in a way that leaves a lot to chance.

Already deeply religious, Stryker decided that his child's birthday as a mutant was a punishment from God on William himself. Depressed and descending into alcoholism, Stryker is eventually discharged from the military for repeated misconduct. At his lowest, Stryker justifies his situation in conjunction with his sincerely held beliefs by deciding every was his wife's fault, because of course she must have been a "sinner", and that his son's birth was really a sign from God for him to lead a religious persecution of all mutants.

I really like how Stryker is portrayed here. The most effective antagonists are often ones that have a sympathetic side. Magneto may hold the world hostage, but it's because he wants to keep his people safe. Doom may kill hundreds to gain godlike power, but he ultimately uses that power to create a utopia and to rule it benevolently. Stryker, by contrast, is just a coward who is unwilling to face the moral implications of his actions and, as we'll soon discover, is more than willing to engineer genocide to justify them.

Meanwhile, Kitty Pryde has escaped the Purifiers by phasing before the nerve gas could effect her. The Purifiers chase her through the Bronx, leaving a trail of death for anyone that gets in their way, from gang members to police officers. The chase takes them to a subway train, where the X-Men and Magneto are able to catch up with them. Quickly defeating the Purifier squad, the mutants make their way downtown as they continue their search for their missing companions.

(Though it's not explicitly stated, my assumptions are that the X-Men got the information from this next step from their interrogated Purifier prisoner, and used Cerebro to track Kitty.)

The X-Men locate and a abduct Stryker's torture scientist, Doctor Ramsey. The team, specifically Nightcrawler, intimidate Ramsey into giving them information about Stryker and his plans.

Back at Purifier HQ, Stryker has completed his brainwashing of Xavier. Charles now firmly believes that mutants are the devil's tools, and that Stryker is his only salvation. As a test of Xavier's loyalty, Strkyer demands that he kill Storm and Cyclops. Charles hesitates for a moment, before releasing a blast of psionic energy that seemingly murders his two students.

Just as the Purifiers place the "bodies" of Scott and Ororo, as well as the captured Illyana, on an elevator to be taken for incineration and execution respectively, the rest of the X-Men make their move. Magneto takes control of the elevator, literally ripping out of the building, binding the technicians on board, the Anne, the Purifier commander, escapes. Illyana is rescued, and Wolverine determines via his enhanced senses that Storm and Cyclops are alive, just in a state of status. Magneto revives them with a jolt of electricity (because magnetism), and deduces that Xavier must have subconsciously resisted Stryker's kill order by reducing his student's metabolic rates to their barest minimum, "creating the illusion of death". After some philosophical debate with Cyclops, Magneto rallies the X-Men to begin the final confrontation with Stryker and the rescue of Xavier.

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Well, Muties, after my Stryker rant, and given that I know how much commentary I know ahead of time I'll want to offer on the last chapter of God Loves Man Kills, I think this is a good place to leave off for now.

As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the content of this or any post or any of my blogs, feel free to reach out on Twitter @IamGrantRichter. Also, if you like what I'm doing here, I'd greatly appreciate your support at Patreon.com/Grantrichterwrites.

Feral Samurai will be back in roughly two weeks (my schedule probably won't fully normalize until after New Year's) with the finale if GLMK. In the meantime, I'll be returning to Rotworld in about a week over in Avatar of the Green (avatarofthegreen.blogspot.com).

Until then, see you neXt time, Muties!