Matthew Risman

Matthew Risman
Matthew Risman, the second Leader of the Purifiers. Art by Skottie Young.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	New X-Men #22
Created by	Christopher Yost Craig Kyle Mark Brooks
In-story information
Full name	Matthew Risman
Team affiliations	Purifiers

Matthew Risman is a fictional character, in the Marvel Universe and a deadly enemy of mutants including the X-Men.

A trained sniper, Matthew Risman was in the middle of a hit when he suddenly received a call telling him to return to his home. Leaving his target, Risman rushed home, dragging his wife and daughter from their home seconds before a mountainside collapsed on it, completely obliterating it. As the trio looked at their damaged home, the man who had informed Risman of the coming disaster, William Stryker, appeared. Convincing Risman that he had access to knowledge of future events, Stryker recruited Risman into the Purifiers, a group who believed it was their holy mission to eradicate the few mutants who remained following M-Day.

Following events that Stryker foresaw while tapping into a damaged Nimrod's memory of the future, Stryker and the Purifiers began slaughtering mutants and ex-mutants, attempting to alter the future seen by Nimrod to one where the Purifiers triumphed during their assault on the Xavier Institute. Due to a switch between X-23 and Dust, the Purifiers believed they'd eliminated the correct mutants, allowing them to triumph. Surprised by the switch, the Purifiers were defeated, Stryker was killed, and Risman was left horribly scarred by an angry Dust.

Calling Stryker a martyr, Risman has taken up leadership of the Purifiers and is ready to continue his war on mutant-kind.

In the X-Men: Messiah Complex crossover, the Purifiers are one of the three factions, alongside the X-Men and Marauders, searching for the first mutant baby born since M-Day.

All three groups were alerted to the baby's birth more or less simultaneously, and headed for the remote Alaskan village where the birth took place. 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. They were then attacked by the Marauders, who killed several Purifiers. By the time the X-Men arrived on the scene, both villain teams had departed, with the whereabouts of the baby unknown.