Donald Pierce is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is depicted as a cyborg and is commonly an enemy of the X-Men.
Donald Pierce appears in the 2017 film Logan, portrayed by Boyd Holbrook.
Publication history
Donald Pierce first appeared in
The Uncanny X-Men #132 (April 1980), and was created by
Chris Claremont and John Byrne. Byrne modeled Pierce's name and appearance after Donald Sutherland. The character's last name comes from
Hawkeye Pierce, Sutherland's character in the 1970 film
M*A*S*H.
Fictional character biography
Donald Pierce was born in
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. He first appears as a high-ranking member of the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club, where he holds the position of
White Bishop. However, Pierce is in fact a genocidal mutant hater, and has only joined the Hellfire Club to kill the Inner Circle's other members, all of whom are mutants.
[ Marvel Graphic Novel #4 - "The New Mutants" (November 1982)] In addition to hating mutants, Pierce is also bigoted towards certain nationalities and harbors a sense of self-loathing due to his cyborg status, referring to himself as "only half a man".
[ Uncanny X-Men #134 (June 1980)] He is the CEO and principal shareholder of Pierce-Consolidated Mining, and operates out of a mining and laboratory complex in Cameron, Kentucky. Pierce and his mercenaries kidnap
Professor X and Tessa in a plot against the Hellfire Club and
X-Men, but he is defeated by the Professor despite a device shielding against telepathic attacks. Pierce is handed over to Tessa of the Hellfire Club, expelled from the Inner Circle,
and taken to a secret holding facility at Shaw Industries.
[ Uncanny X-Men #245 (June 1989)]
The Reavers
Many months later, Pierce is violently liberated from the holding facility.
Though his rescuers are never explicitly identified, he resurfaces alongside three members of the Reavers, a band of cyborg criminals which Pierce claims to have built and assembled, and which had been all but wiped out by the X-Men.
[ Uncanny X-Men #251 (November 1989)] The four of them ally with
Lady Deathstrike and three Hellfire Club mercenaries (Cole, Macon, and Reese) who were cybernetically enhanced by Pierce. Under Pierce's leadership, the new Reavers are dedicated to exterminating mutants, with highest priority given to the X-Men and Sebastian Shaw (CEO of Shaw Industries).
[ Uncanny X-Men #247-249 (August–October 1989)]
The Upstarts' members Trevor Fitzroy sends reprogrammed Sentinels to destroy the Reavers, as they are a threat to mutants and Pierce is worth a lot of "points" in the deadly game the Upstarts play. Pierce is apparently killed by the Sentinels.[ Uncanny X-Men #281 (October 1991)] Pierce later resurfaces, starts an anti-mutant hate group, and enlists several members; revealing a plot to take militant terrorist actions against mutants and thwarted by the X-Men, he is beaten by Wolverine in hand-to-hand combat.[ Uncanny X-Men #282 (November 1991)]
Pierce would remain with the Hellfire Club for some time, eventually showing a more adversarial relationship with Shaw as the current Black King. He heads out to an outpost in Switzerland, believed to be Apocalypse's stronghold, to obtain Apocalypse's power and secure his position within the Hellfire Club's inner circle.[ Cable #50 (January 1998)] Pierce releases a techno-organic entity created by Apocalypse, who gravely injures him. Pierce survives, but his injuries cost him much of his remaining flesh, revealing his head to be his only remaining fully organic component.[ Cable #51-53 (February - April 1998)]
As a Purifier
Pierce next tries to take over Sebastian Shaw's new Hellfire Club, launching an attack and slashing Shaw's chest. Though Shaw is left critically injured and later needed to be hospitalized, Shaw is able to punch off Pierce's head.
[ Uncanny X-Men #454 (March 2005)] Pierce later is forcibly recruited into the Purifiers' ranks and infected with the Technarch transmode virus.
[ X-Force (vol. 3) #3 (June 2008)] Being under the control of the mutant-hunting robot Bastion, he shows his mutant target: the newly formed
Young X-Men.
[ X-Force (vol. 3) #7 (November 2008)]
Young X-Men
He appears in a nightmare of the precognitive mutant Blindfold, battling a not yet formed team of X-Men and killing one of their number.
[ Young X-Men #1 (June 2008)] Pierce himself recruited this team using an image inducer to pose as Cyclops. His reasons for recruiting these mutants as "X-Men" are not entirely clear, however, it appears that his primary focus is to eliminate the Hellfire Club's current Lord Imperial Roberto da Costa and former
New Mutants allies. He also hires Ink to deliver Dani and Blindfold to him, misleading him. Following the confrontation with the Young X-Men, his face is scoured by Dust. Blindfold's prediction is later proven correct when Wolf Cub is killed.
[ Young X-Men #5 (October 2008)]
Pierce is taken into the X-Men's custody. Pierce and Dust have frequent conversations while he is imprisoned, despite his vocal hatred of mutants and derogatory remarks toward Dust's faith in Islam, noting that his attitude reminds Dust of home. Pierce informs Dust that Ink is not a mutant, which is later discovered by the rest of the team.[ Young X-Men #6-7 (November - December 2008)]
Second Coming
After receiving the green light from Bastion to proceed with their plan, Pierce provokes an explosion that decimates all the X-Men's jets and the Blackbirds. Pierce stands amid the debris, and muses to the X-Men that he is sorry that he will not live to witness the decimation of the mutant race. Cyclops eliminates him with an optic blast.
[ The New Mutants (vol. 3) #13 (July 2010)]
Pierce was seen alive again with the rest of the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle on a cruise reserved for super criminals and cabals. He along with his compatriots were seen at a gambling den aboard the vessel as the Uncanny Avengers were searching for Red Skull.[ Uncanny Avengers (vol. 3) #5 (April 2016)]
Hunt for Wolverine
Shortly after his return as seen during the "Hunt for Wolverine" storyline, Pierce and the Reavers are left in dire straits after failing a series of missions. The Reavers attempt to dig up Wolverine's body for money, but find that it has been removed from his grave. After a lengthy battle with the X-Men, Pierce and the others are rounded up and deposited into the care of
Alpha Flight.
[ Hunt for Wolverine #1 (June 2018)]
O*N*E Conscription
Due to lack of resources and proper jurisdiction, Pierce and the Reavers are turned over to the Office of National Emergency (O*N*E). Pierce and select members of his crew are forced to impart their technologies and mechanical skills into building up Robert Callahan's mutant-hunting equipment, the rest of whom had been given the kill order by the corrupt commander to his soldiers. This soon made public news and garnered the attention of the X-Men.
[ Astonishing X-Men (vol. 4) #15 (November 2018)]
The remains of Pierce's crew, led by Havok and Warpath, launch an assault on the Location 22 base camp of O*N*E, who had been experimenting on their friends.[ Astonishing X-Men (vol. 4) #16 (December 2018)] The Reavers obtain a nanite-coded module created by Bastion that allows them to assimilate and incorporate technology into themselves.[ Astonishing X-Men (vol. 4) #13 (September 2018)] The Reavers assimilate a group of Sentinels and attack the X-Mansion, but are thwarted by O*N*E* and taken back into custody.[ Astonishing X-Men (vol. 4) #17 (January 2019)]
A.I. Uprising
During the
Iron Man 2020 storyline, Albert is directed by
Tyger Tiger to Pierce's company Reavers Universal Robotics in
Madripoor and is confronted by
Bonebreaker and the Reavers. After Albert subdues the Reavers, Pierce states that he sold
Elsie-Dee's parts to other criminal groups. Albert manages to recover Elsie-Dee's parts and reassemble her, causing the criminals to swear vengeance against him.
[ 2020 iWolverine #1 (September 2020)] Pierce and the Reavers attack Albert and Elsie-Dee, but they escape after being smuggled out of Madripoor by Kimura.
[ 2020 iWolverine #2 (October 2020)]
Powers and abilities
Donald Pierce is a
cyborg with artificial limbs which provide him with superhuman strength. His speed, reflexes and agility are also inhumanly high, attributes which are derived from his replacement extremities. His body has great resistance to damage and even if it is destroyed, as long as his head is intact he will probably survive. Before and after securing some of Cable's technology from the future and incorporating it into himself, he boasted a wide cadre of skills and abilities, such as generating electric currents.
He also boasts bionic optics, which feed into his mind to memorize and relay information, giving him an eidetic memory and photography vision.
[ X-Force (vol. 3) #12 (April 2009)] Pierce can plastically morph his arms into various weapons, including cannons and razor claws.
[ Wolverine (vol. 2) #141 (August 1999)][ X-Force (vol. 3) #3 (June 2008)]
Pierce's brain possesses implants that render him immune to psionic infraction thanks to various brain implants for telepathic resistance,
Aside from his physical advantages, Donald Pierce is a genius in robotics, cybernetics and electronics. In these fields he has developed technology that exceeds that of conventional science by approximately two centuries. He is also a seasoned leader with vast financial and human resources (a prerequisite for membership in the Hellfire Club). He is a college graduate in geological engineering and business administration, and is an accomplished strategist and business administrator. Pierce is a fair hand-to-hand combatant, but mainly relies on his cyborg strength and is more prone to letting others fight his battles for him rather than fight on the front lines. In later publishing after coming under the services of the Office of National Emergency, Pierce as with all of his Reavers gained the ability to possess and assimilate technology.
Reception
-
In 2017, WhatCulture ranked Donald Pierce 9th in their "10 Most Evil X-Men Villains" list.
Other versions
Age of Apocalypse
An alternate universe version of Donald Pierce appears in
Age of Apocalypse. This version is the leader of the Reavers, a band of human assassins who were enhanced by Apocalypse's techno-organic virus, becoming cyborgs with the ability to assimilate organic and non-organic material to mutate themselves.
[ Weapon X #4 (June 1995)] After Pierce is killed in battle with Weapon X, the X-Terminators create a series of clones of him for their own ends.
[ Age of Apocalypse #1 (May 2012)]
House of M
An alternate universe version of Donald Pierce appears in
House of M. This version is a member of the Human Liberation Front, a human resistance group that is labeled as a terrorist group by the House of M.
In other media
Television
-
Donald Pierce appears in the four-part episode "The Dark Phoenix", voiced by Walker Boone.
-
Donald Pierce appears in the Wolverine and the X-Men three-part episode "Foresight". This version is a mutant and member of the Inner Circle who is capable of emitting energy blasts. He joins the Inner Circle in an attempt to harness the Phoenix Force's power for themselves, only to be killed by falling debris while unsuccessfully transferring it from Jean Grey to the Stepford Cuckoos.
Film
Donald Pierce appears in
Logan, portrayed by
Boyd Holbrook.
This version is the leader of Zander Rice's Reavers, chief of security for the corporation Alkali-Transigen, and Laura's handler who claims to be a "fan" of Logan. After Laura and several mutant children escape from Transigen, Pierce leads the Reavers in an attempt to get them back, only to be killed by them.
External links
