| “ | Mutants, I don't hate them. I just know what they can do. You don't realize this but we are at war. I took an oath: Protect this country. My name is William Stryker, and I am not a monster. I'm simply a patriot. | „ |
| ~ William Stryker's reasonings to combat mutantkind. |
| “ | People don't change, Wolverine. You were an animal then and you're an animal now. I just gave you claws. | „ |
| ~ William Stryker to Wolverine. |
William Stryker, Jr., also known as Colonel Stryker, Major Stryker or simply Bill, is the secondary antagonist of the X-Men film series.
He is a high-ranking United States Army official who has a well-known hatred towards the mutant race since his days as Bolivar Trask's assistant and the birth of his mutant son Jason, wishing to wipe out all mutants in the world. To do so, Stryker would go to kidnap several mutants and experiment with them, with James Howlett Logan being one of the results of this mutations, making Stryker responsible for Wolverine's creation.
In X2, he was portrayed by Brian Cox, who also played Agamemnon in Troy, Mr. Kreeg in Trick 'r Treat and Kostas Becker in The Simpsons. In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, he was portrayed by Danny Huston. In X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse, he was portrayed by Josh Helman.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
Past[]
X-Men: Days of Future Past[]
- Worked as the bodyguard of Trask Industries CEO Bolivar Trask, sharing his anti-mutant views and assisting his plans for the mutant-exterminating Sentinel Program.
- He even flew many black ops missions during the Vietnam War to the American military base settled on Saigon, Vietnam to abduct all mutant soldiers he could to take them to Trask's facilities to be experimented.
- After Mystique kills Trask during the Paris Peace Conference where Trask was presenting his project, Stryker incapacitated her by tasering her, taking her to be experimented on by Trask's scientists who were able to reverse-engineer her DNA to develop the Sentinel Program.
- Sent his son Jason to the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters once he finds out that Jason is a mutant, hoping that Professor Charles Xavier may be able to cure Jason from his "disease", only to angrily take Jason away once Xavier told him that Jason being a mutant was nothing wrong. This (allegedly) led Jason to resentfully target his parents for birthing him a mutant with horrible illusions until his mother killed herself, which amplified Stryker's hatred for mutantkind. Stryker then went so far as to lobotomize and cryogenize Jason to use him in his anti-mutant agenda.
- While lobotomizing his son, Stryker learned that his spinal fluid can be used to brainwash mutants. Leading to him regularly harvesting Jason's spinal fluid in order to brainwash mutants. Said brainwashing is also shown to have horrifying onscreen effects, as Scott Summers claims he was fully aware of what he was doing under Stryker's influence, but had no control over his body.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine[]
- Abducts several mutants, such as Scott Summers or Emma Silverfox, to experiment on them for his Weapon X project.
- Recruited James Howlett Logan, Victor Creed, Wade Wilson, Fred Dukes, Agent Zero, Chris Bradley and John Wraith into the Team X black ops unit, sending them to clandestine operations across the globe in foreign countries.
- During a mission to attack a compound in Lagos, Nigeria so they could retrieve a piece of Adamantium the compound's leader had in his possession, he and his team killed most of the man's guards.
- Interrogated the Nigerian village about how they obtained the Adamantium meteorite that provided the village with the strange mineral, and once the chief refuses to tell him due to holding the Adamantium as sacred, Stryker has his men gun down all the villagers.
- This act horrified Logan and made him quit the team, refusing to talk to both Stryker and Creed, the latter who became known as Sabretooth due to his love for carnage, during a few years.
- Ordered Kayla Silverfox to go to Canada to spy on Wolverine.
- Had Sabretooth fake Kayla's murder to lure a devastated Logan into accepting his offer to be experimented on for his Weapon X project.
- Painfully inserts Adamantium into Logan's skeleton after tricking him into accepting his offer. While this made him virtually immortal and indestructible, it also nearly killed him and would go on to haunt Logan for the rest of his life.
- Tries to erase Logan's memories to ensure his loyalty before Logan escapes from the Alkali Lake facility to avoid that.
- Ordered Zero to attack the farm of the kindly old couple who sheltered Logan, leading to the deaths of the couple.
- Fatally stabbed General Munson once he decided to stop financing the Weapon X program due to realizing how personal Stryker was taking his plans.
- Went back on his deal with Sabretooth to give him an Adamantium skeleton and sics Weapon XI (Deadpool) onto Sabretooth and Wolverine. Even worse is that he knew that he couldn't put Adamantium inside Sabretooth's skeleton due to his healing factor not being as strong as Wolverine's.
- Spitefully shoots Logan in the head with a revolver loaded with Adamantium bullets, causing Wolverine to suffer from both brain damage and amnesia for years and forget several parts of his past.
X-Men[]
- Builds a plastic prison to lock Magneto up after the Battle in Liberty Island to prevent Magneto from escaping. Though Magneto arguably deserved it for nearly getting all humans killed from the Statue of Liberty, he does have a tragic background enough to consider him sympathic and most of the prison guards stationed there are cruel jerks to him.
X2: X-Men United[]
- Tricked Magneto into revealing to him the existence of Cerebro, which he decides to use to kill the X-Men and the mutants once and for all.
- Brainwashed Nightcrawler into trying to kill President McKenna to convince the president to authorize an attack to the X-Mansion.
- Had several students of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngers and Professor X himself kidnapped during the dark of the night to force Xavier into building a second version of Cerebro.
- Built another Cerebro by using the children he kidnapped from Xavier’s mansion, proclaiming that as a scientist, he needs to make sure his machine works. He planed to use Cerebro-2 to exterminate all living mutants from his son's mind.
- Makes Deathstrike his new henchwoman, siccing her on Wolverine once the X-Men and the Acolytes attack his base, a skirmish that ends with Wolverine surviving and Deathstrike being crushed and drowned.
- Has Jason brainwash Xavier into using Cerebro-2 to wipe out all mutants he can, killing some of them in painful ways before Magneto and Mystique, who came to rescue the mutants alongside Wolverine and the other X-Men, re-engineers the device to kill humans instead, also killing some of them before Storm and Nightcrawler free Xavier.
- Leaves his lobotomized son behind to be crushed to death by the falling debris just as his facility starts to crumble due to the X-Men and the Acolytes triumphing over him, even having the gall to implore Wolverine from sparing him in exchange of information of his past, offer Wolverine firmly declines because he has come to learn that it's better when you let the past die.
- His death, as violent as it was due to Xavier mentioning in X-Men: The Last Stand that the Lake Alkali's sheer force particularly disintegrated Stryker's body upon coming across the dam's wall, wasn't played for sympathy.
X-Men: Apocalypse[]
- Abducts past Wolverine after Mystique posed as him to retrieve him from the Potomac River after saving the dystopian future and torturously experiments with him on his Alkali Lake facility until Mystique and the X-Men free him. Among the men who worked for him at the Alkali Lake facility in the revised timeline before Wolverine is freed and kills most of them was Dale Rice, the father of Dr. Zander Rice, who would eventually follow up Stryker's footsteps into targeting all mutantkind decades later, making Stryker indirectly responsible for the tragic events of Logan.
- Abducts CIA agent Moira McTaggert, Mystique, Quicksilver and Beast following Apocalypse's destruction of the X-Mansion and takes them to his Alkali Lake facility, where he locks them up inside a room, ignoring Moira's CIA ties and declaring that they will stay there until they give away Charles Xavier's whereabouts, ignoring that the planet could be destroyed if they didn't escape.
- Escapes from his facility after Jean Grey, Cyclops and Nightcrawler free Wolverine so he can go back into Canada's wilderness, leaving behind his guards to be killed by the mutant.
- Expresses zero remorse over his actions as he is taken away into custody under McTaggert's orders, assuring Moira that mutants are the true enemy and that she will regret that he isn't going to be there the day mutants will no longer be trustworthy.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- Even if he stopped loving and caring for his son Jason once it was discovered he was a mutant whose condition couldn't be reversed, Stryker did love his wife, as Jason's act of killing her is what led William to lobotomize Jason in the first place and led him to wish to get back at Professor X and his mutant students due to Xavier being the one who told him and his wife to accept Jason's powers.
- Seemingly respected and cared for his mentor Bolivar Trask, as he was the one who kept working on the Sentinel Program after Trask's death and, as far as we see, didn't try to take over all credit for himself, suggesting that his working relationship with Trask was a genuine friendship.
Trivia[]
- His comic counterpart doesn't qualify as Near Pure Evil since he doesn't genuinely love his wife and son.
External Links[]
- William Stryker on the Villains Wiki
- William Stryker on the X-Men Movies Wiki
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 Near Pure Evils
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