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 flips over in a ditch. Stryker pulls his wife out of the car and, as he thinks, “Alone, in the middle of the Nevada desert, I delivered my son.” As he delivers his son, he realizes that the baby is a “mutant.” He sees his son and thinks, “He . . . it . . . was a monster!” In this panel, we see a closeup of Stryker’s face as he stares in amazement at his son. His language here is important as well. Stryker begins by referring to his son as “he” but immediately switches to “it,” thus dehumanizing, demonizing, and othering his son at the very moment of his birth.

This moment is akin to a birth certificate where, through nothing that the baby does, labels get placed on the individual. If we think about the “one drop rule,” segregation, and Jim Crow, the mere mark on the paper identifying someone as Black would label them instantaneously. The individual had no choice in the matter. The individual just entered the world, clean of any labels, but that cleanliness didn’t last. The label of Black would mean that the baby would, even in that state of innocence, endure racism and violence.

Seeing his son, Stryker pulls out a knife and murders him. He thinks, “Faced with that abomination, I did what had to be done.” After he murders his son, Marcy regains consciousness and asks to see her baby. Stryker holds her close then breaks her neck, killing her in the process. He then places Marcy back in the car and the baby in her arms and proceeds to light a match, causing the car to explode. Standing at Marcy’s grave later, he thinks, “Marcy and the monster were burned beyond all recognition. None knew of my shame but I.” Again, through this sequence, Stryker dehumanizes his son, calling him an “abomination” and a “monster.”

Stryker’s seemingly easy dismissal of his son’s humanity connects, in many ways, to the ways that enslavers and segregationists used the Bible to justify their violent oppression of African Americans. Stryker’s response reminds me of the curse of Ham, the biblical story in Genesis 9 when Noah curses his son Ham for seeing him naked in a drunken state. Noah curses Ham proclaiming, “the lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers” (Genesis 9:25). “This scripture,” as Anthea Butler notes, “became the foundation of the biblical justification for slavery for many southern slaveholders in the United States as well as for northerners who supported slavery.”

No one has a choice in their birth or in their race when they enter the world. They inherit what the society has constructed and then fall into place base on that construction. Stryker’s son had no choice in his birth, but Stryker, upon viewing his son, became fearful and made a choice to murder him. Stryker drank himself into a stupor trying to forget what happened, but he couldn’t. Ultimately, he violently lashed out and received a discharge from the Army. At his lowest, Stryker came across an article about Professor Xavier and the X-Men. After reading the article, he realized “what the monster was.” Again, he cannot humanize his own offspring, merely labeling his son a “monster” and realizing, according to himself. that his son was “a mutant.”

Stryker begins to contemplate if his sin caused his so to be a mutant. He questions, “But, could I have fathered such a creature? Was my life so wicked that the Lord sought to punish me through my son? And if so, why them let me live? If I was evil, shouldn’t I have been condemned to eternal damnation?” Stryker turns upon himself, trying to figure out what he may have done to transgress his covenant with God (Deuteronomy 17:2). After praying “for guidance,” Stryker comes to believe that none of this was his fault; instead, “the evil . . . the sin . . . was Marcy’s.” Through this, he blames his wife for his own failings, even though she did nothing wrong, and he blames her for their son’s appearance.

Standing at a podium and preaching, Stryker continues thinking, “She was the vessel used by God to reveal unto me Satan’s most insidious plot against humanity . . . to corrupt us through our children, while they were still in the womb. The Lord created man and woman in his image, blessed with his grace. Mutants broke that sacred mold. They were creations, not of God, but of the devil.” Stryker references Genesis 1: 27 here which reads, “And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

While he quotes this verse, Stryker does not provide any thought to the fact that God created his son. Instead, Stryker becomes afraid at his son’s appearance and thinks that something has to be wrong with him. If, as Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I created you in the womb, I selected you; Before you were born, I consecrated you,” then God knew that Stryker’s son would be a “mutant.” This fact, alone, would negate his assertion that Satan somehow corrupted Marcy’s womb and the fetus growing there. This same reasoning appears in the curse of Ham and in other biblical passages that enslavers used to justify their actions. These verses and thoughts look for a biblical justification for one’s actions and they twist the Bible to fit those actions. At its core, this is what X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills drives home, the dangers of using religion to justify violence.

What are your thoughts? As always, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @silaslapham.