Donald Pierce
Donald Pierce is a male comic supervillain that features in Marvel Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Donald Pierce
One of his ancestors was Anton Pierce who by 1872 came to purchase the Randall House in Boston, Massachusetts. During this time, he came to grow rich from cotton, rum, and slave trade. This allowed Anton to be admitted into the Hellfire Club that year, and he even entered into the Inner Circle two years later. His family continued to prosper from his actions with Donald Pierce being his descendant who was admitted into the Hellfire Club generations later. Donald Pierce would come to make the Randall House his base of operations. At some point, Pierce looked to take control of Albania but came to clash with Cable, Iron Man and a Soviet ally of the pair. During their resultant fight, Pierce came to lose parts of his body that he had to replace with cybernetic components. Donald came to blame Cable for this and over the years he became more metallic over the years. (Cable v2 #49) Later on, Sebastian Shaw formed the Inner Circle of the New York chapter of the Hellfire Club where he sought similar figures such as himself that looked for power through evil means. This led to him recruiting Harry Leland, Tessa, and the cybernetic Donald Pierce who was indebted to Shaw. This led to Pierce taking the position of White Bishop in the Hellfire Club. (X-Men: Hellfire Club v1 #4)
Years ago, the Hellfire Club was approached by the master thief Fantomex who tempted them with the technology and secrets within the World facility. This saw Pierce joining his compatriots as they entered into that laboratory only to be attacked by a giant tentacled monster forcing them to flee and abandon their goal. (Giant-Size X-Men: Fantomex v1 #1) Afterwards, the Hellfire Club was joined by a Mutant telepath named Emma Frost. (X-Men Unlimited v2 #6) Later on, Shaw came to give a task to Pierce to program a Sentinel to track and hunt down the Atlantean Namor using his DNA to track him. Namor and the traitor Emma Frost retaliated in response with Shaw and Pierce's Sentinels holding them off. It was then that Shaw had Selene using her powers to erase Emma's memories of the incident. (Uncanny X-Men Annual v2 #2) The Inner Circle was later was involved in arms deal, working through their ally Coelho. Tessa came to sense an intruder in their midst with this turning out to be Ms. Marvel who was hiding in the rafters. Pierce leaped up and kicked her whereupon Leland sent her plummeting through the floor. Pierce jumped after her and struck her several times before she severed his cybernetic arm, then kicked him unconscious where she soon managed to escape the scene. (Marvel Super-Heroes v3 #11) Afterwards, a recruitment drive was being held by the Hellfire Club with Pierce in attendance. At the event, he was boring Brian Braddock and his sister Elizabeth Braddock when the latter was taken away by Warren Worthington III much to Pierce's annoyance. (Uncanny X-Force v1 #17)
In an effort to eliminate the Mutant threat, the restored Bastion gathered various humans that had been involved in anti-Mutant activities whether they were living or dead. This included the capture of Donald Pierce who was brought against his will where he was infected with the Techno-Organic Virus that Bastion had recovered from a Technarchy offspring. (X-Force v3 #3)
Later during the search for the Red Skull, the Unity Squad crashed a bacchanal cruise liner for supervillains. Donald Pierce was seen alive and well playing at a craps table with other Hellfire Club Inner Circle members beside him. (Uncanny Avengers v3 #5)
With the Reavers at their lowest ebb, Donald Pierce and his cyber jockeys alongside their new members, Star and Shine, took a big money gig in order to ascertain the mortal remains of their hated adversary Wolverine for a potential buyer. Their mission ended in failure due in part to the X-Men having displaced the body of their fallen comrade from the adamantium statue it was trapped in beforehand, said makeshift headstone being left as a sort of lure for those who would attempt to desecrate his grave. Pierce and his team were soon rounded up by the X-Men and deposited to Alpha Flight for incarceration. (Hunt for Wolverine v1 #1)
With their latest acquisition being Miss Sinister, they would have fulfilled their agreement and the National Emergency director would grant Pierce and his crew their freedom, but Callahan went back on his deal, opting to enslave Pierce and Cylla through a fail-safe installed into their refurbished mechatronics while killing off Stomper, Wachtel, and everyone else involved. (Astonishing X-Men v4 #13)
They were arrested and left with the Office of National Emergency where General Callahan intended to use the Reavers expertise with technology to create new anti-Mutant weapons. He remained there along with some of the captive X-Men where they became reluctant allies until their respective comrades came to rescue them. However, the Reavers used stolen technology from Bastion to allow themselves to merge with any technology leading to them commandeering Sentinels whereupon Pierce turned on the X-Men. (Astonishing X-Men v4 #16)
He was later approached by Sebastian Shaw who enticed him into working against Kitty Pryde after she became the Red Queen of the Hellfire Club. By this point, Pierce was serving the government of Madripoor where he targeted ships from the Mutant nation of Krakoa. (Marauders v1 #6) During this time, Elsie-Dee approached him and wanted the failsafe bomb within her to be removed with Pierce agreeing to do so. However, once in his possession, he had Elsie-Dee stripped for parts and sold to various criminal groups on the island as they were valuable and gained him some profit. In this time, Albert arrived on Madripoor looking to find Elsie-Dee and confronted Pierce at the R.U.R. headquarters on the island. In the resultant fight, Albert attacked Pierce himself who was forced to reveal the identities of the individuals in possession of Elsie-Dee's parts. As Albert went to recover them, Pierce ordered the Reavers to hunt him down and destroy the android. (2020 iWolverine v1 #1)
Overview
Personality and attributes
Pierce saw robots as things rather than having the capacity for independence and anything that he had built was legally owned by him as he had paid for the parts. (2020 iWolverine v1 #1)
It was noted that he had a dark-haired nephew named Justin Pierce. By adulthood, Justin had joined the FBI where he became a member of its Metahuman Crimes Division that dealt closely with Mutants, superhumans, aliens, cyborgs and other super-powered beings. (New Mutants v2 #13)
One of his ancestors was Anton Pierce who was responsible for the families wealth and their ties to the Hellfire Club. (Cable v2 #49) Another ancestor was Sir Waltham Pierce who lived in the 1910's and indulged in his families membership in the Hellfire Club. (X-Men: Hellfire Club v1 #3)
Powers and abilities
The Pierce family dated their fortune back to 1872 for their involvement in the cotton, rum and slave trade. Their money later allowed their membership into the prestigious Hellfire Club. (Cable v2 #49)
He came to establish his own company known as Reaver Universal Robotics (R.U.R.) that specialised in the creation of robots and androids. By this point, he had upgraded his operation and used 3D biological printing in the creation of more realistic robots. This was considered a vast improvement over the previous analogue process he used in years past. (2020 iWolverine v1 #1)
Notes
- Donald Pierce was created Chris Claremont and John Byrne where he made his first appearance in Uncanny X-Men v1 #132 (April, 1980).
Alternate Versions
- In Weapon X v1 #2 (1995), an alternate version of Donald Pierce appeared in the Age of Apocalypse reality designated as Earth-295 in the Multiverse. Donald Pierce was rebuilt as a cyborg and was joined by other cyborgs that he dubbed the Reavers. Pierce and his Reavers would became agents of Apocalypse. When the Human High Council planned a Sentinel evacuation of humans still living free in North America, Apocalypse sent forces to upset this plot on both sides of the Atlantic. The X-Men foiled the plan to stop the evacuation outright. Unknown to the X-Men, Pierce, his minions Clegg and Slocum, along with Brotherhood of Chaos members Box and Copycat, were smuggled aboard the evacuation ship. After the fleet was assembled for an attack on Apocalypse's empire, Pierce infected Carol Danvers with the remains of the Reaver Vultura to aid him in the destruction of the fleet. During his attack he also used Brian Braddock, who was under Apocalypse's mind control, to kill Emma Frost, though he resisted Pierce's orders, for which Pierce killed him. In the end, Pierce was destroyed by Weapon X. A human team known only as X-Terminators had used Pierce's blood sample before he was infected by the techno-organic virus to create several clones of him to help the fight against the mutants. One such clone began operating under the codename Goodnight and infiltrated the Hellfire Club, becoming a great friend of Sebastian Shaw. The general public and Club members think he was in fact a mutant.
- In New X-Men v2 #16 (2005), an alternate version of Donald Pierce appeared in the House of M reality designated as Earth-58163 in the Multiverse. Donald was a member of the Human Liberation Front, one of the many human resistance groups labeled as terrorists by the House of Magnus. Alongside Seiji Ashida, the father of Surge, he was part of the HLF's base in Tokyo, which had targeted Project Genesis, a plan of Emperor Sunfire to forcefully mutate baseline humans.
In other media
Television
- In X-Men, Donald Pierce appeared in the setting of the animated television series. Donald Pierce and the other members of the Inner Circle manipulated Jean Grey into becoming their Black Queen.
- In Wolverine and the X-Men, Donald Pierce briefly appeared in the setting of the animated television series.
Films
- In Logan, Donald Pierce appeared as an antagonist in the live-action film where he was portrayed by actor Boyd Holbrook. This version was the leader of Zander Rice's Reavers and served as chief of security for the corporation Alkali-Transigen. He claimed to be Laura's handler and that he was also a 'fan' of Logan. After Laura and several mutant children escape from Transigen, Pierce led the Reavers in an attempt to get them back, only to be killed by them.
Appearances
- Uncanny X-Men v1: (1980)
- Cable v1:
- X-Force v3:
- Astonishing X-Men v4: (2019)
- Marauders v1: (2020)
- 2020 iWolverine v1: (2020)
External Links
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