God Loves, But Mind Control Still Kills part III: Mind Control Is The Opiate Of The People

In the third and final part of God Loves, But Mind Control Still Kills, the mysteries surrounding Mount Haven are finally answered. Just why is the mutant hating reverend William Stryker after the inhabitants of this mountain town? How come Bishop and Shadowcat are the only two X-men who seem impervious to whatever is mind controlling everyone else and just what is the deal with minister Paul? Let's dive in...

                              

Issue # 29 opens with Lady Deathstrike standing triumphant over the unconscious body of her archenemy Wolverine. However, because her body is being controlled, lady Yuriko Oyama is unable to fully appreciate this victory...

Not that she would have had too much time to enjoy his death, because Logan's fellow X-man Cannonball races to the rescue... the sounds of which can be heard in Mount Haven, serving as a bit of a wake up call for the mind controlled Storm... However, the equally addled Sage tries to win her back...

Ah yes, when all else fails and the violent weather mirrors Storm's subconscious fighting back... Dial 'S' for either Sage or Sappho....the mind controlled mentat needed the X-treme X-men's team leader back in the game. After all, Bishop was still on the loose... So Sage resorted to this here.

Storm's near lesbian encounter had no effect on that cheerful, mindless grin on her face. In fact, it seemed prevalent in Mount Haven... all courtesy of minister Paul, as Kitty Pryde finds out in the labyrinth like catacombs of the city. 

Kitty finally realises Mount Haven's dirty secret. The place didn't exactly start out as a haven for mutants... quite the opposite in fact. The town was home to one of the largest mutant detention and research facilities in the country...Aaron Pankow, the convicted mass murderer William Ryker went to see in the opening issue of this arc, worked there and told the reverend about the atrocities in Mount Haven, causing Stryker to start up his crusade once again.

Long story short... Stryker has figured out just who minister Paul really is. Mount Haven did indeed house a government sponsored mutant R&D facility, outfitted with a top notch sentient computer system capable of sentient reasoning. During the many hours of supervising and facilitating horrific experiments on captured mutants, the 'innocent' A.I. started to see right from wrong and decided to take action. 

Taking over the form of one of the tortured mutants, Haven's A.I. used his body to reinvented itself as minister Paul. Soon, it figured out a way to protect everyone who wasn't a mutant, by unleashing swarms of nigh undetectable nannites into the air that infected everyone in town. Paul slowly killed every human within the city limits. This meant death came as an unexpected surprise to the general population and it also explained just why there were no adults, only mutant offspring running around carefree (and mind controlled). 

An apalled Stryker finally carried out his mission when he pushed Shadowcat into minister Paul. Her innate phasing abilities immediately short circuit whatever electronics they encounter... Not only did this ability make her impervious to the nannites, it also explained why the healer Cybil died after Kitty accidentally phased through here...

In this case, Kitty's phasing caused the computer controlling Paul to suffer the equivalent of a grand mal seizure, shutting down all the nannites in Mount Haven at once... Often with lethal results as Bishop discovered...

Yes, the entire town had been infected with the nannites that slowly turned their bodies into cybernetic organisms designed to be controlled by the not quite human cybernetic intelligence housing in minister Paul. When he short circuited, his followers paid the price... Only the most recent of arrivals lived to tell the tale.

In the end, Bishop was instrumental in ensuring all the X-men, including Cannonball, recovered from their bout with cybernetic mind control. In case you were wondering why Bishop wasn't infected himself... the answer is painfully obvious: coming from a future where cybernetic infestation is as common as chicken pox, Bishop was inocculated against nannites as a kid. A rather simple and effective deus ex machina... Speaking of machines of god...

'Paul' was left in a state of existential crisis. The only reason the evolved computer system did what it did was a rather silly misunderstanding. It believed the only real human beings were the ones showing 'the spark', actually meaning the energy flare indicative of mutagenic potential. Baseline human being were considered to be little more than vermin to be eradicated... after all, anything to protect the 'real human beings'.

The reverend Stryker offered a stunningly selfless solution for this dilemma...

Yup, here we have the mutant hating man of God, wearing a slave collar, freely sacrificing his life to keep a newly formed cybernetic intelligence in check. It's really one for the history books, if only future writers would have left the reverend alone...

Despite heavily relying on mind control, God Loves Man Kills II is a remarkable story that mirrors the original graphic novel in having William Stryker starting out as a protector of humanity, but eventually merging with a mechanized man hunter to safeguard both man ánd mutantkind in the process... It's a rare case of perfect symmetry and a worthy send off for the character of the reverend William Stryker. His story arc had reached a natural climax... what else could be done?

... *sigh*... Yeah, instead of leaving a powerful and unique character alone, granting him the story arc his creator had intended, you could of course turn the reverend Stryker into a platitudes spouting hate filled bigot stereotype, literally armed with a piece of the futuristic Sentinel Nimrod. Y'know, for shits and giggles...

"Oh heavenly father, forgive us our sins as we forgive those indebted to us" ... indeed. Thankfully, the X-men weren't too bothered with all of that after their experiences in Mount Haven.