Purifiers

The Purifiers are an ancient organization, with a history stretching back into dim antiquity. The goal of the Purifiers is simple: to make humanity strong enough to survive a hostile and aggressive universe, at whatever cost or necessity.

The ancient immortal Vandal Savage was the first of the Purifiers. Obsessed with the idea of 'enhancing' humanity, his personal mission-- a goal spanning millennia-- was to usher humanity into the next stage of their evolution, with him at the helm of a global society.

Enlisting various allies over the years, Savage would put plans into place that stretched for decades, or centuries. The cause of the fall of more than one civilization, he played a direct role in the downfall of Atlantis.

In the late 1800s, Savage began a campaign to destabilize Europe. Encouraging social and ethnic conflicts he successfully engineered the first World War.

Banding together with many allies, the Purifiers began a more ambitious campaign culminating in World War II. Their goals were complex and multifaceted. Savage's initial plan called for social overthrow in Europe, destabilization of Russia through economic means, increasing the flow of opium into China, and fragmenting the colonial influences present in the Middle East.

Vandal Savage's list of allies grew.

• [[[Lord Helstrom]]] -- a [[[Daemonite]]] High Lord
• [[[Hiraoka Kotaro]]] -- leader of [[[The Hand]]]
• [[[Nathaniel Essex]]] -- Expert on metahuman genetics
• [[[Morgana Le Fay]]] -- one of the last survivors of Atlantis, a powerful sorceress.

Following the war, the core of the Purifiers was broken. Kotaro was dead, Essex in hiding; Le Fay had returned to Otherworld and Adolph Hitler was dead.

Elements of the Purifier philosophy persisted in the organization known as HYDRA. Imported by Kotaro from Japan's ancient mystical ninjas, it turned into a highly secretive organization focused on preserving advanced scientific and alien knowledge-- and destroying any knowledge that was a threat to humanity.

In 1983, Vandal Savage helped finance and back William Stryker in the first public formation of the Purifiers. This was done at the behest of Nathaniel Essex, theorizing that culling of weaker mutants might accelerate the evolutionary process. This also gave the older Purifiers-- and through them, AIM and HYDRA-- intimate access to the Sentinel program.

A split with Stryker in 2005 produced the Humanity First faction, hardline political movements and anti-mutant human supremacists. Filipe Cardanza, a vocal anti-mutant protestor, became a fiery mouthpiece for a global anti-mutant screed.