Bolivar Trask
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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.
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[edit] History
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 was revealed to be a mutant precognitive. Bolivar had realized this, and given his son a medallion which suppressed his power. Bolivar's other child, Tanya, was also a mutant and her ability to travel through time caused her to disappear. Tanya would be rescued by Rachel Summers in a far future and become a part of the Askani under the alias Madame Sanctity.
Bolivar decided that humanity had to fight back against the mutants and developed 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 published 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 invited Trask for a public debate on human/mutant relations. Xavier's arguments that mutants were just like humans and not evil didn't convince Trask and he revealed the Sentinels. Trask and his scientists had apparently created an adaptive, open-ended tactical/strategic programming. Trask wasn't a very skilled programmer though and the Sentinels turned 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 ordered him to construct more Sentinels.
To stop the Sentinels, Xavier summoned his X-Men. The X-Men fought the Sentinels, but Beast was captured. To reveal the X-Men's secrets, the Sentinels told Trask to use a device to read the Beast's mind. Trask discovered that the X-Men were mutants protecting humanity and realised that he had been wrong. He helped the X-Men defeat the Sentinels by sacrificing himself to destroy the Sentinel's base.
Bolivar's death wouldn't 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.
[edit] Alternate Versions
[edit] 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).
[edit] Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse, Bolivar Trask married Moira MacTaggert 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).
[edit] Appearances in other media
[edit] Television
- In the 1990s animated series, Trask 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.
- In the animated television series, X-Men Evolution, Colonel Bolivar Trask 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. In the series, his main weapon is a gun that cannot allow mutants to move while stuck in a sticky green substance.
[edit] 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. So it can hint he did create the Sentinels in secret in X-Men: The Official Game for William Stryker before his death in X2: X-Men United.
[edit] Video games
- Trask appeared in the videogame Ultimate Spider-Man, as CEO of Trask Enterprises. He, along with Adrian Toomes, attempted to re-create the Venom suit and hired Silver Sable to capture Eddie Brock. This was before discovering Peter Parker, also known as 'Spider-Man,' also carried traces of the Venom suit in his blood. In the last level, Trask gives Spider-Man the files about his father, including Brock's. Just then, Venom crashes, and Trask attempts to escape, but failed when he doesn't have a clue how to fly a helicopter. Venom has decided to kill Trask, but Spider-Man stopped him. However, as shown in the final FMV, S.H.I.E.L.D. comes to arrest Trask, and Spider-Man has the files about the death of his parents, including Brock's parents. After everything he did, all Trask got was three years in a golf-course prison. Later, Brock tracked down Trask in prison and killed him, believing Trask to be the reason Brock and Parker's parents died in a plane crash.
- In X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, Trask was mention in stage 4 where he had used his Sentinels to the Perimeter Platforms. Also, he had rewritten the program for the Sentinels so that the Sentinels would not attack the X-Men.
[edit] Trivia
- The name Trask may be an anagram of the last name of Tony Stark (Iron Man), however this may be a coincidence.
