people to gain attention. In either case, he didn't really have the tolerance for these wild accounts, but little did he know some of those stories where more than just rumor or fantasy. There were mutants among us.
While religion played a pivotal part in his upbringing, Stryker passed over the priesthood to serve in the US Armed Forces. He was a tough-as-nails, hell-raising professional soldier, serving with the Army Rangers and later with the Special Forces in Vietnam where he ran several covert black ops. William Stryker has a reputation as a hard edged loyal military man and will step on any and all toes necessary to achieve his goals. His "dedication" earned him the rank of Colonel at the end of Vietnam conflict when he returned state side.
After returning home from the "war", Stryker married and the couple had a son they named Jason. The child began his life innocently enough until he hit puberty. It was then they discovered their only child was a mutant. Desperate and in need of help, Stryker enrolled Jason in the Xavier Institute for Gifted Students. The boy was becoming out of control with his telepathic abilities. Professor X did his best to help the young man, but he became one of the Professor's greatest tragedies. Nothing Xavier did seemed to help Jason and he soon returned home. Still out of control and subjecting his parents to horrid mental images and suggestions, Marcy Stryker soon put a power drill to her head in order to stop the insanity, killing herself.
That incident is what fulled William Stryker's hatered for all mutants, leading up to experimentation as head of the joint US/Canadian Weapon X program. Stryker views mutants as nothing more than fodder, lab rats to be toyed with in order to create the ultimate weapon; a super soldier. And his greatest creation was the mutant known as Wolverine, who humilated Stryker by slipped through his grasp.
However, try as he might, Stryker could not forget the events of the night his wife killed herself and sought solace in alcohol. That was until he was approached with an offer he couldn't refuse, the Weapon X program. Now he had a purpose in life and a way to get "even" with the mutant menance and the Xavier's of the world while striving to protect the country he loved and had served for so long. In addition, he later commandeered the Mount Haven installation converting it into a prison for mutants (Magneto was it's first inmate), using it as both a resource for obtaining experiment subjects and as a dumping ground for project failures; the latter earning the installation the nickname of "Deadpool".
Much like zealots such as Magneto, Stryker foresees a war brewing between human and mutant kind. Therefore, he sees it as his duty to ensure mankind is the victor. In that respect, he must convince the President and anyone else by any means necessary of the mutant threat. Even if it means the assassination of the President himself in order to erradicate all of mutantkind from the face of the planet. |
