Using the Bible to Justify Blinding Hate in “X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills”

The connections between the Moral Majority’s Jerry Falwell and Reverend William Stryker in Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson’s X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills is pretty apparent. I wrote about this in my previous post, and a few years back I pointed out how the graphic novel ties itself to the historical violence enacted against African Americans and others in the United States. Today, I want to expand on both of these discussions, looking at where Stryker’s hate comes from and the logical flaws within his thinking that lead him to stoke fear and violence against mutants in X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills.

As Stryker’s team tortures Professor X, Cyclops, and Storm, we get a glimpse into the genesis of his animus towards mutants. Storm tells Stryker, “We have done you no harm” before asking him. “Why are you doing this?” In response, Stryker simply tells her, “Because you exist, and that existence is an affront to the Lord.” The next two pages take us into Stryker’s mind as he looks backwards thirty years, before his crusade and his violent rhetoric. The military stationed him at a “militray nuclear test program,” and they told him and his pregant wife that “the danger was minimal.”

On a trip to visit family in Phoenix, Stryker and his wife Marcy get into an accident. Their car runs off of the road and…