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 survive, 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.

1919: Ingratiating himself into German politics, Savage recruited Adolph Hitler. Among the many relics Savage had stolen or obtained over the centuries, one in particular was among the most powerful. The Lance of Longinus was one of the few weapons that could kill an immortal, a fragment of the sword called Excalibur in the possession of Merlyn. It also granted immortality to the bearer, and Hitler clutched the blade as he was bathed in the Terrigen Mists. Instead of killing him, the Mists empowered Hitler with immense charisma and personal presence. At the same time, they would still take a toll as his brain began deteriorating, though very slowly in the earliest years.

1934: From Hitler's ranks, Savage would recruit another prospect for his longer ambitions. Col. Johann Schmidt had risen in the Nazi party from mere laborer to head of the HYDRA weapons development program, in the German Scheutzstaffle (Science Corps).

1936: The Eugenics program conceived of by Essex was co-opted by Hitler and the Nazi party. It was originally conceived of as a means of culling humans who did not carry the gene coding for Celestial DNA. Hitler's Reich expanded to targeting wide social groups, resulting in tens of thousands of people executed. Joseph Mengele, a student of Essex's work, would indulge his own sadism in his attempt to trigger the metagene reaction. Their excesses shocked the world into rallying against the Nazis.

1939: Fascinated by Schmidt's research into the Ubermensch, Essex collaborated with Abraham Erskine to attempt to produce more of the rare and nearly depleted reserves of Terrigen Mist. This would be refined in later years as part of the Super-Soldier program and Project: Rebirth in America. Erskine's defection to the Allied forces robbed Essex and Schmidt of considerable investment of resources, as well as the completed formula for the 'vitality serum'.

1939: The Axis powers launch near-simultaneous invasions of Poland and China. War is officially declared and Europe descends into chaos.

1940: Schmidt conducts an unauthorized invasion of Norway, seeking a crashed Kree ship. From the wreckage he would learn of the Cosmic Cube, and begin a personal quest for that item.

1941: Kotaro's ambitions outstriped Savage's plotting. Insinuated into the Emperor's private council, Kotaro encouraged the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into the Allied command. Deeply embedded covert agents were able to get word to Pacific Command bare days ahead of invasion, resulting in several destroyers, battleships, and aircraft carries on 'routine patrol' at the time of the bombing run.

1943: During the Africa Campaign, Rommel's forces found the lost city of Baina-Mighdall, home of the legendary Amazon mercenaries. An entire armored division was destroyed, but one Amazon was captured. Under torture, she revealed the location of Themyscira and the purpose of that place: to guard Doom's Gate and the realm of Tartarus beyond. Morgana la Fay resolves to capture Doom's Gate for herself and unleash the Titans locked away in the darkest depths of Olympus.

1945: The Purifiers began to disintegrate due to internal power struggles and squabbling. Hitler was growing increasingly deranged due to the Terrigen Mists, but kept alive by the Lance of Longinus. Strategy became incoherent and ill-conceived. Schmidt struck out to the Arctic Sea with his elite HYDRA enforcers, many of them deranged brutes twisted by the incomplete vitality serum. Morgana la Fay abandoned Savage and took their legions of undead soldiers to Themyscira, intent on conquest. Kotaro would be killed in an honor duel with the mutant known as Logan Howlett and Essex 'died' at the hands of the Howling Commandos as they liberated the concentration camps. Finally, even Savage abandoned their schemes in the face of the Defenders, fleeing to the ancient caves in Siberia to ponder his next plan of attack. With allies abandoning him left and right, Hitler used a body double and staged suicide. Taking his most fanatically loyal soldiers with him, he escaped to the Nazi lunar base and hid there for several years after the war had 'officially' ended, increasingly relying on occult medicine and mechanical assistance to compensate for the disintegration of his body and mind.

1948: Hitler's lunar base is attacked by the remaining Defenders. Hitler is killed and the lunar base annihilated. The Lance of Longinus is recovered, and Hippolyta of Themyscira agrees to keep it safe from the world of man.