Formation[]

Following the birth of the first mutant born since M-Day, Matthew Risman and the Purifiers, with the aid of Eli Bard, managed to find Bastion in a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility. After "resurrecting" Bastion, they then harvested the remains of Magus, modified it into a techno-organic virus (or T.O. virus) and injected his remains into several living and dead known mutant killers (Donald Pierce, the Leper Queen, Reverend William Stryker, Stephen Lang, Cameron Hodge, Graydon Creed, and Bolivar Trask), turning them all into Technarch/human hybrids and "resurrecting" the dead members, much to Risman's objections. These mutant killers now constitute an inner circle of leadership for the Purifiers: The Human Council.^[2]

Missions[]

Individual members of The Human Council were charged with different duties to give the appearance of several different organizations being run independently while all secretly being directed by Bastion.^[3] These missions occasionally overlap and are assigned as follows:

• Matthew Risman - Bishop of the Purifiers - With Reverend Craig, he brainwashed Craig's daughter, Wolfsbane, and trained her to attack Angel and obtain his wings, which, even though they appeared to be fully organic, were still composed of Apocalypse's techno-organic strain.^[4] Using the sample, the Purifiers employed The Facility's Adam Harkins to duplicate the strain and use it to create an elite team of Purifiers called "the Choir". After learning that Bastion was planning to remove Risman from the group's leadership, Risman led the Choir against Bastion's Purifiers in an attempt to destroy Bastion and the reanimated remains of Stryker, considering them unholy. However, Archangel attacked the Purifiers in an attempt to reclaim the wings that were stolen from him, killing every member of the Choir. Soon after that, Matthew Risman was shot in the head by X-23 before Risman was able to kill Bastion.^[5]

• Reverend William Stryker - Archbishop of the Purifiers - After Risman's death, Stryker resumed leadership of the Purifiers and continued to prepare his religious acolytes for the return of the Mutant Messiah and impending war.^[3][6] Stryker and a team of Purifier soldiers attempted to ambush Cable and Hope in the hotel they were staying, but he was killed in battle with the X-Men's Alpha Team.^[7]

• Cameron Hodge - Founder of The Right - Hodge has begun recruiting for The Right group and rebuilding his Smiley-Faces army to prepare for the return of the Mutant Messiah and impending war.^[3][7] Hodge's Smiley-Faces were poised outside of the ruins of the Xavier Institute as patrol.^[8] When Cable and Hope's location was discovered, Hodge was preparing his Smiley-Face armored troops to assist the Purifiers. However, the New Mutants ambushed him before he could deploy his troops. Hodge reverted into his more robotic form and ripped off Karma's left leg before being absorbed by a reluctant Warlock at the behest of Cypher.^[9]

• Donald Pierce - Leader of the Reavers - Posing as Cyclops, Pierce began training a team of Young X-Men for the purpose of killing the New Mutants (or perish in the attempt). Pierce claimed the New Mutants were reorganizing the Brotherhood of Mutants under the direction of the Hellfire Club.^[10] Pierce was exposed as an impostor and imprisoned by in Cell Block X in Graymalkin Industries and later move to the X-Brig on Utopia.^[11][12] There he acted as a sleeper agent for Bastion inside the X-Men's home base. Pierce was responsible for disabling Cerebra to cripple the X-Men's communications.^[9] Finally, to ground the X-Men on Utopia, Pierce sacrificed himself to destroyed the Blackbirds with a suicide bomb.^[13]

• Graydon Creed - Founder of the Friends of Humanity - Claiming witness protection to explain away his "death" and using his political clout, Creed again became a public face of anti-mutant policy and began organizing rallies across the United States for the Friends of Humanity.^[3][12] Creed served along with Lang as one of Bastion's close lieutenants when the other members of the Human Council had been killed. Creed and Lang were both converted into robot forms by Bastion to battle the X-Men on the Golden Gate Bridge; all three were killed in battle by Hope.^[14]

• The Leper Queen - Leader of the Sapien League - Reorganizing her racist/speciesist Sapien League,^[3] the Leper Queen was charged with capturing several mutants and inject them with a modified strain of the Legacy Virus to cause their powers to go berserk and kill themselves and thousands surrounding of humans. The Leper Queen was an unwilling participant compelled by Bastion.^[12] Beautiful Dreamer was the first. She was released into a Friends of Humanity rally in Ames, Iowa killing eleven hundred humans. Next was Fever Pitch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.^[12] The next target was the United Nations, and Boom-Boom, Hellion and Surge were all abducted for this purpose. While Hellion and Surge were sent to the U.N., Boom-Boom was kept as a decoy with the Leper Queen to lure the X-Force into killing her.^[15] The X-Force was successful in stopping the final attacks, narrowly saving Boom-Boom, Hellion and Surge and killing the Leper Queen.^[16][17] These mutant-caused mass murders were meant to compel the world to respond to the perceived mutant threat, and they were successful. Because of these incidents, the U.N. formed the Mutant Response Division.^[17]

• Bolivar Trask - Inventor of the Sentinels - Trask used his connections in Washington, D.C. and the U.N. to be placed in a high ranking position in the newly formed Mutant Response Division to deal with the few mutants outside of Utopia (specifically X-Factor Investigations crew and possibly others). Like the Leper Queen, Trask appears to be resistant to Bastion's control.^[18] Leading the MRD troops to attack X-Factor at their safe house, Trask was briefly freed from Bastion's control when Monet attempted to read his mind. Trask used this moment of freedom to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head.^[19]

• Stephen Lang - Head of Project: Armageddon - Like Trask, Lang was placed in a high ranking position in the Mutant Response Division. As Trask is dealing with the mutant population in New York City, Lang is hunting mutants in more remote locations. Recently he was stationed in Portugal to eliminate Vanisher at his safe house/brothel in Monsato.^[13] Lang served along with Creed as one of Bastion's close lieutenants when the other members of the Human Council had been killed. Lang and Creed were both converted into robot forms by Bastion to battle the X-Men on the Golden Gate Bridge; all three were killed in battle by Hope.^[14]

Necrosha[]

Not long after the Human Council's formation, Eli Bard left to bring the T.O. Virus to Selene the Black Queen which lead to the events of Necrosha. He became a member of Selene's Inner Circle until his death.^[20] The mysteriously mutant resurrections across the world led Bastion to realizes that someone had gotten hold of the T.O. virus. This spurs him onto accelerating his mysterious plan.^[21]

Second Coming[]

With the return of Cable and Hope, the Mutant Messiah, Bastion final plans for the extinction of mutantkind have begun.^[8] Bastion began tracking the pair to using Cable's T.O. virus as a beacon. Hodge's Smiley-Faces and Stryker's Purifiers have both been used to attempt to kill Hope.^[6][7][9] Once the X-Men understood how Bastion was tracking Cable they broke into two team: Nightcrawler, Rogue and Hope teleporting back to Utopia and Wolverine, Cable and the remainder of Alpha Team to act as decoys.^[9] Bastion quickly uncovered the deception and attempted to kill Hope personally, but he is confronted by Rogue and then damaged when Nightcrawler sacrifices himself to save Hope.

After Hope arrived on Utopia, Bastion launched the next phase of his plan. During the months leading up to Hope's return a large energy dome was built over the Bay Area to cut off the X-Men from escape or help. Once the dome was activated, Bastion opened a dimensional portal from his home reality to allow in more Nimrod-Series Sentinels.^[22] Like the original Nimrod, these Sentinels are able to detect, analyze and adapted to mutant powers. They are also self-repairing. The X-Men were barely able to subdue them, and several X-Men sustained severe injuries.^[23] Every five minutes a wave of five new Nimrod Sentinels continued to appear through the portal.^[24] Only by sending X-Force, Cable and Cypher into the future to reprogram and destroy the Nimrod Master Molds were the X-Men successful to defeating them.^[23][25][14]

Once the dimensional portal was closed, Bastion decided it was time to confront Hope personally. He converted both Lang and Creed into robot forms to battle the X-Men on the Golden Gate Bridge. However, Hope's mutant powers manifested which allowed her to destroy all three in battle.^[14]

Each teammates' arsenal

• A Human High Council exists in the Age of Apocalypse. Instead of being an extreme mutant hate group, this Human High Council is the joint leadership of the surviving humans of Earth.

• When the Human Council was first revealed in X-Force (Vol. 3) #3, each members "mutants killed" count was revealed:
  • Bolivar Trask = 16,521,618^[26]
  • Reverend William Stryker = 414 (including Wallflower and Icarus)
  • Donald Pierce = 348 + Wolf Cub^[27] = 349
  • The Leper Queen = 221 + Beautiful Dreamer & Fever Pitch^[12] = 223
  • Cameron Hodge = 178
  • Graydon Creed = 147
  • Stephen Lang = 29 + Vanisher^[13] = 30
  • Bastion = unknown (at least one, Nightcrawler^[9])
  • Matthew Risman = unknown