It's easy to treat the Purifiers as little more than religious zealots, particularly given that religion is often used to justify hate. However, Bendis, in this issue, does a remarkably good job underling the fact that this hate comes from a real fear that Stryker, Jr.'s followers have about the mutants. Stryker, Jr. echoes something that Maria Hill said in "Wolverine and the X-Men" #38, that, basically, the original X-Men being in the present shows that the X-Men don't even respect the laws of time and space. (I think that Hill also focused on the fact that death doesn't even hold sway over the X-Men, a point that would be particularly well taken if Nightcrawler does return to life in "Amazing X-Men.") Bendis makes you acknowledge that the Purifiers have an existential fear of mutantkind, seeing these sorts of shenanigans as defying God. They unfortunately use this fear to stoke their hate and justify genocide, but Bendis doesn't present these feelings in cartoonish terms. He takes the time to make them feel relatable, making the renewed threat of the Purifiers all the more powerful. Of course, it doesn't hurt that they're also now led by someone who has his own power set himself, raising all sorts of theological and practical questions. It should at least make next issue all the more interesting.
*** (three of five stars)
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