Bolivar Trask | |
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Publication information | |
Publisher | Marvel Comics |
First appearance | Uncanny X-Men #14 (November, 1965) |
Created by | Stan Lee Jack Kirby |
In-story information | |
Alter ego | Bolivar Trask |
Team affiliations | Sentinels, Purifiers |
Abilities | Genius level intellect |
Bolivar Trask is a fictional character in the Marvel Comics universe. He first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #14 (November, 1965). He is the creator of the Sentinels.
Contents |
Fictional character biography
Bolivar Trask was an anthropologist who saw the rise of mutants as a threat to humanity. Bolivar was also the father of Larry Trask, who ironically is revealed to be a mutant precognitive. Bolivar had realized this, and given his son a medallion which suppresses his power. Bolivar's other child, Tanya, was also a mutant and her ability to travel through time causes her to vanish. Tanya would be rescued by Rachel Summers in a far future and become a part of the Askani under the alias Madame Sanctity. Tanya's travels through time would result in property damage to Trask's land. This mysterious situation would only further cement his attitudes.
Bolivar decides that humanity has to fight back against the mutants and develops robotic guardians for humanity, known as the Sentinels. His son Larry was protected from the Sentinels' ability to detect mutants due to the medallion Bolivar had given him. Bolivar publishes articles on the threat of mutants. One of these articles showed an illustration of mutant overlords keeping humans as slaves. This illustration would become a symbol for human/mutant relations and several years later Quentin Quire and his Omega Gang would base their appearance on this picture.
Professor Charles Xavier invites Trask for a public debate on human/mutant relations. Xavier's arguments that mutants were just like humans and not evil did not convince Trask and he reveals the Sentinels. Trask and his scientists had apparently created an adaptive, open-ended tactical/strategic programming. Trask was not a very skilled programmer though and the Sentinels turn against him, claiming that they were superior to humans. The Sentinels left with Trask and brought him to his first creation, the Master Mold, who orders him to construct more Sentinels.
To stop the Sentinels, Xavier summons his X-Men. The X-Men fight the Sentinels, but Beast is captured. To reveal the X-Men's secrets, the Sentinels tell Trask to use a device to read Beast's mind. Trask discovers that the X-Men were mutants protecting humanity and realizes that he had been wrong. He helps the X-Men defeat the Sentinels by sacrificing himself to destroy the Sentinel's base.
Bolivar's death would not be the end of the Sentinels though; Master Mold would return and Bolivar's son, Larry, still unaware of his own mutant status, would follow in his father's footsteps and create new Sentinels to avenge his father.
Later, a relative of Bolivar, Donald Trask, would be recruited by the villain Cassandra Nova to gain control of a group of Sentinels in Ecuador. The machines, now varying in size, will not harm Trask DNA. They obey Donald's orders. However, once Nova is done copying all of Donald's DNA, she kills him and takes over the robots.
Recently in X-Force, Bastion (who has been reactivated by the Purifiers) has apparently resurrected Bolivar Trask through use of a Technarch to be part of a team of the world's foremost mutant killers. He was reported to have the highest record of mutant kills.
Other versions
Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse, Bolivar Trask married Moira Kinross and together they designed heavily-armed Sentinels to fight Apocalypse. These Sentinels were better programmed and even capable of reasoning with mutants if they protected humans (their primary objective). Bolivar participates in a plan to bomb North American Apocalypse forces, though this would mean extensive civilian deaths.
Civil War: House of M
Bolivar Trask is sworn in as the Vice-President of the U.S.A. and creates Sentinels to fight against Magneto in his rise to power.[1] He is vaporized by his own Sentinels when Magneto throws him in the path of their weapons.[2]
Ultimate Bolivar Trask
Bolivar Trask first debuted in Ultimate X-Men, as the architect for the US Government 'Sentinel Initiative', a response to Magneto's terrorist attacks on Capitol Hill. Initially, the Sentinels patrolled Los Angeles, and then New York City, destroying any human containing mutant genes. However, these attacks ceased after the X-Men rescued the President's daughter from the Brotherhood of Mutants. Trask discovered the location of the Savage Land, and by the order from the President of the United States, he dispatched his Sentinels to destroy Magneto's paradise. This proved to be a foolish move when Magneto easily reprogrammed the chromium-built machines to destroy humankind. After a subsequent Sentinel attack on Washington, D.C., the Sentinel Initiative was shut down.
Trask is also mentioned in Ultimate Spider-Man as the employer of Richard Parker and Edward Brock Sr. (the fathers of Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Eddie Brock/Venom) that stole their cancer cure project (The Venom suit) because he was more interested in military applications. He is the main antagonist in the Ultimate Spider-Man video game which continues the story introduced in the comics (see below). He has recently appeared in the Sentinels story arc of Ultimate X-Men, revealed as being employed by the Fenris twins to build the new Sentinels currently attacking mutants. This would suggest that the government no longer employs him, perhaps due to the failure of the Sentinel Initiative. Feeling horrified by all that he has done, he allows himself to drop into the heart of an explosion and is killed.
Bolivar Trask later appears in a flashback in "Ultimate Spider-Man" #125 where he talks to a captive Eddie Brock about the symbiote in which he makes a deal with him in removing the symbiote. However, during an experimental examination of Brock (as Venom) the Beetle abruptly broke into Trask's facility and allowing Venom to escape.
X-Men Noir
Bolivar Trask is a multitalented doctor of anthropology, and sociology, who is also a pulp sci-fi writer, and a public proponent of eugenics, though not a racist, as his leading characters possess the "finest" qualities of different ethnic groups. He is the writer of the pulp sci-fi series, "The Sentinels", about a race of genetically superior beings in the year 2013 who protect humanity from the grisly deformed "Mutants". His characters include Stephen Lang, creator of sentinels; Callisto, leader of inadequates/muties; sentinel commander Bastion, perfect sentinels Nimrod and Rachel as well as the mad Egyptian En Sabah Nur.
In other media
Television
- In the 1990s animated series, Trask (voiced by Brett Halsey) is also the creator of the Sentinels, and was much longer-lived than his comic counterpart, returning for several episodes (one of which ironically featured him on the run from his own creations, along with Gyrich). Trask was introduced here in the second episode of this series. He was later seen sacrificing himself to destroy Master Mold.
- In the animated television series, X-Men Evolution, Colonel Bolivar Trask (voiced by John Novak) is a former member of S.H.I.E.L.D., a noted anthropologist and cyberneticist studying the process of genetic mutation. Trask concluded the mutants would one day replace humans as the dominant species on Earth if left unchecked. He decided to prevent this by designing an army of robotic guardians who would police mutant kind — the Sentinels. Trask kidnapped Wolverine while he's chasing down Sabretooth to get to Magneto at the second season finale of the series, and uses him as a test subject for his Sentinel prototype. The Sentinel was able to defeat Wolverine. After his Sentinel prototype was destroyed and the X-Men's names were cleared, Trask was arrested and placed in prison. However, he was released early to continue his work on the sentinel projects, working under Nick Fury, so that the world would be ready for the eventual threat of Apocalypse.
- Bolivar Trask first appears in the Wolverine and the X-Men episode "Thieves Gambit" voiced by Phil LaMarr. In the show, he is a scientist working for Senator Robert Kelly alongside Dr. Sybil Zane on creating the Sentinel Program. Though the building it was being developed in was destroyed in the fight with Wolverine and Gambit, Bolivar and Dr. Zane escaped. In "Badlands," he ran a laboratory that Wolverine, Shadowcat, and Forge infiltrated. When Wolverine ended up captured, Bolivar figured out about his adamantium skeleton resulting in the Wolverine-type Sentinels that Professor X's X-Men encountered 20 years into the future. In "Backlash," he had managed to create Master Mold to create the Sentinels. He was with Senator Kelly, Warren Worthington II, and Dr. Sybil Zane when they watch the Sentinels fight the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants. In "Foresight," he ends up launching the Sentinels to Genosha under orders of Senator Kelly (whom was really Mystique in disguise) and later gets knocked out by him.
Film
- Bill Duke portrays Trask in X-Men: The Last Stand. Here, he is the head of the Department of Homeland Security, and has no (presumed) connection to the Sentinels. However, he does appear connected with the ongoing adaptation of human weapons and tactics to mutant threats. It is also notable that in the comics, Trask is of a Caucasian ethnic background while the actor who portrays him in X-Men: The Last Stand (Bill Duke) is African American. Also notable, is that the film's version of Trask seems to have no real hatred of mutants and is merely doing his job, as opposed to his comic-book incarnation that took great pleasure in making deadlier weapons to use against mutants.
Video games
- Bolivar Trask appeared in the video game Ultimate Spider-Man voiced by John Billingsley. He appears as the CEO of Trask Enterprises. He alongside Adrian Toomes attempt to re-create the Venom suit and hires Silver Sable to capture Eddie Brock Jr. and later Peter Parker. After Peter Parker is freed from the Carnage symbiote, Venom goes after Bolivar Trask. Upon Spider-Man confronting Bolivar about info on his father (and obtaining the files about him), Venom attacks with Bolivar making his way to a helicopter...which he doesn't know how to operate as stated by Silver Sable. Spider-Man had to fight Venom to keep him from getting to Bolivar Trask. Bolivar Trask is later arrested by the arriving S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents and later confronted in an offshore prison by Eddie Brock. As Venom, Eddie finally murders Bolivar Trask for what he made Venom do.
- In X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, Trask was mentioned in stage 4, concerning his Sentinels and how they have been changed.
- In X-Men: The Official Game, Trask is briefly mentioned as taking over supervision of the criminal Multiple Man.
- Bolivar Trask appears in the video game adaption of X-Men Origins: Wolverine voiced by Bumper Robinson and modeled after his appearance in the third film. He is shown researching the mutant gene and also helping to build Sentinels. In the game's continuity, he initially didn't have anything against mutants and simply took part in the Sentinel project for the scientific value. However, after witnessing a violent incident which involved a mutant, he came to see mutants as a menace. He is seen in the future epilogue of the game in which the Sentinels rule the Earth (a la Days of Future Past). Notably in the game, he loses his left hand to Wolverine only to have it replaced with a cybernetic hand in the future.
References
External links
- Bolivar Trask at Marvel.com
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