Project Purgatory (Marvel)
Project Purgatory is a government agency that featured in Marvel Comics New X-Men.
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History
Project Purgatory was an initiative formed following the devastating events that befell the city of New York known as Inferno. At the time, a Mutant was responsible for opening a portal to the hellish realm of Limbo. This led to horde of demonic entities terrorising the mortal world and killing dozens of individuals. After the incident, the demons were banished back to their realm by the hands of the Mutant known as Illyana Rasputin with much of the world thinking that they had befallen some collective delusion. However, the United States Army was well aware of the true reasons for the event and attempted to find a means of combating the threat posed by the demons of Limbo as well as Mutants. This in turn led to the creation of a secret military unit code named Project Purgatory whose aim was to research the field of the supernatural along with the paranormal.
During the course of the project, the chief scientist known as Doctor Noc learnt that a number of Mutants with a special trait were responsible for opening the portal into Limbo. Thus, he developed the technology to use positive X-Gene infants in order to accomplish this feat by using samples of their flesh mixed with a reverse engineered portal which was a doorway into Limbo. Once this was accomplished, General Ulysses became the head of the military contingent of the division and he along with Doctor Noc as well as a trained unit of military soldiers passed the dimensional barrier into the hellish realm of Limbo. There, they established a military base known as the Hatchery and continued their experiments into both the demons native to this realm as well as the Infero babies who were classified as Mutant weapons. The goal was the use of both aspects of the program to develop a new breed of soldiers.
At some point during their operations in Limbo, the soldiers of Project Purgatory uncovered a fragment of the Bloodstone Amulet. This led to a confrontation with the demon Witchfire who sent forth her demons into the U.S. military base in order to retrieve the mystical amulet. During the course of events, the demons broke into the laboratories leading to the belief that the "Inferno babies" were killed as a result. Furthermore, the Earth based military forces were cut off from the nearest Limbo portals thus effectively stranding them within the hell dimension with virtually no hope of escape. Over the next four Earth years of which the men of Project Purgatory experienced 20 years due to the time difference between dimensions, the heads of the program such as Noc and Ulysses were able to return back to Earth. However, they never gave up their plans of returning to Limbo in order to take control of it and to capture Illyana Rasputin. By this point, its been revealed that the "Inferno babies" had grown up into powerful Mutant demonic beings. Furthermore, General Ulysses had killed his superiors and kidnapped Pixie where upon he forced a confrontation between his forces and those of Magik along with the New Mutants.
Overview
The Project was created as a secret program formed by the United States military. Whilst it reported to Washington, its primary base of operations was a facility known as the Hatchery that existed within the realm of Limbo. Recruits faced a harsh reality in this realm as they were forced not to bring any form of religious icons with them as these totems offended the "natives" namely the demonic inhabitants of the dimension. These creatures such as the flying beasts would often fly into the base and snatch the offending human. Furthermore, time was slower within Limbo when compared to the mortal realm with years on Earth leading to decades being experienced in this dimension. A number of portals allowed for a return to Earth which included the Epsilon Portal which was the closest gateway back to the mortal realm with the only other one being the Observation Portal which was transient and thus it was unable to locate it without an Earth based vector. If their base of operations were threatened by demonic attacks, a contamination protocol was placed into effect with the Epsilon Portal sealed off thus preventing any of the military forces in Limbo from returning to Earth.
Purgatory's primary objective was the safeguard and study of the Mutant cache of weapons namely the "Inferno babies". These children possessed special traits that made them the object of intense study by the scientists of the program. This was not the only means of study as the researchers attached to the Hatchery were known to study the dead remains or living demons that populated Limbo. They even went as far as transplanting arms and other organs into wounded Army soldiers who had lost limbs in combat against the creatures. In addition, patrols that went into the Limbo wilderness that acquired any artifacts were typically destroyed under the containment protocols of Project Purgatory. However, any items that bypassed these procedures were also objects of study by the base scientists.
Personnel
- General Ulysses
- Doctor Noc
