A force of Christian fundamentalists led by the ruthless Reverend William Stryker, the Purifiers see themselves in a holy war against mutants, believing them to be the children of the Devil and thus worthy of extermination.
Eventually, one of the guards, horrified that Stryker would attempt to kill the young mutant Kitty Pryde, shoots the secular fraud of a "pastor" and ends his genocidal plans.
Accessing the damaged Sentinel's memory core, Stryker saw the effects of Decimation months before M-Day actually occurred, enabling him to lay the groundwork for a renewed campaign against mutants.
[3] Using the knowledge of the future contained within Nimrod, Stryker was able to save numerous people from untimely deaths, accrediting his interventions as miracles from God, allowing him to substantially increase the ranks of the Purifiers.
The use of the Nimrod visions also allowed Stryker to gain the support of prominent political and business leaders, as well as the veteran assassin Matthew Risman[volume & issue needed].
The Purifiers also contacted the branch of the Weapon X program known as the Facility, and commissioned its scientists to construct Predator X, in order to hunt down a mutant Stryker saw as the Antichrist[volume & issue needed].
As Risman assassinated Wallflower per Stryker's instructions, the vicious pastor was able to deceive the mutant Icarus into betraying his teammates, giving them another avenue of attack.
Despite the extensive damage and injuries caused in their attack, the death of Stryker at the hands of Elixir and the return of the X-Men forced the Purifiers to withdraw, having taken numerous casualties in the process.
"[volume & issue needed] Since the attack on the institute, the Purifiers have been lying low and rebuilding their strength for another offensive, as well as trying to find and recover the missing Predator X.
The Purifier task force beat both the X-Men and the Marauders to the scene, and proceeded to "cull" every child in the city in order to make sure the mutant baby did not survive.
The Purifiers bring the object, revealed to be the head of Bastion, to one of their churches, installing it onto the Nimrod unit they recovered from Forge's Aerie to return the mutant-killing machine to life.
They forcibly recruit Donald Pierce, save the Leper Queen from execution, retrieve Cameron Hodge from a crater in Mount Everest, and dig up the corpses of Graydon Creed, Stephen Lang, Bolivar Trask and Reverend Stryker himself.
[volume & issue needed] Meanwhile, the Purifiers use a brainwashed Wolfsbane to attack Warren Worthington III and obtain his wings, which, even though they appear to be fully organic, are still composed of Apocalypse's techno-organic strain.
[5] Bastion leads the Purifiers in an even more genocidal direction, injecting powered mutants with the modified strain of the Legacy Virus to causes countless deaths and create fear and chaos.
[volume & issue needed] During the Second Coming storyline, Bastion was seen with Stephen Lang, Bolivar Trask, William Stryker, Graydon Creed and Cameron Hodge stating that their forces are assembled and at his disposal.
During the 2011 "Fear Itself" storyline, the global chaos caused by Skadi and the Worthy leads a splinter group of Purifiers to believe that the world is coming to an end and that an appearance by the Devil is imminent, spurring them to "save" as many people as they can.
The Purifiers possess a variety of deadly armaments and munitions, some more conventional weapons like assault rifles, Flame throwers and anti-tank rockets, as well as more advanced and expensive equipment like Vibranium-based weaponry.
The group also used the knowledge contained within Nimrod's memory banks to great effect, although that advantage was lost when the Sentinel reactivated and destroyed its keepers, before being defeated by the New X-Men.
[24][25] The Purifiers were a radical group of mutant-hating extremists that emerged after the Ultimate Wave destroyed New York, led by Reverend William Stryker Jr.