| “ | Bolivar Trask: I see mutants as our salvation. William Stryker: A common enemy. Bolivar Trask: A common struggle against the ultimate enemy. Extinction. I believe our new friends are going to help us usher in a new era, Bill. A new era of genuine and long-lasting peace. |
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| ~ Dr. Bolivar Trask to William Stryker. |
Doctor Bolivar Trask is the main antagonist of the 2014 superhero film X-Men: Days of Future Past, the seventh installment of the X-Men film series.
He is an anti-mutant American scientist who believes that mutant-kind may drive humankind into extinction. Desiring to allow his own species to prevail and flourish to achieve world peace, Trask proposes the Sentinel program, an initiative that will have great consequences for both mutants and humans eventually, leading heroes from the future to mess with the past to prevent Trask's ambitions from being achieved.
He was portrayed by Peter Dinklage, who also voiced Captain Gutt in Ice Age: Continental Drift.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
Both Timelines[]
- Despised mutant-kind the moment the X-Gene was discovered by the world, hypothesizing that mutants would cause the extinction of humanity despite his contemporaries pointing out how ridiculous his theories were.
- After finding Trask Industries to organize his research, he experimented on several mutants, such as several members of the Hellfire Club (namely Azazel, Angel Salvadore, Emma Frost and Banshee), torturng them to death to study their DNA to create advanced robots known as the Sentinels that could subdue all mutants and wipe them out from the face of the Earth.
- Though some of them were evil mutants who assisted the mutant criminals Sebastian Shaw (in fact, Shaw's attempts to cause World War III may have been why Trask believed mutants were a threat to humanity) and Magneto, they didn't deserve to be killed to have their bodies used for science.
- Gathered the world leaders several times, including during 1973's Paris Peace Accords, to convince them to fund his Sentinel program.
- Secretly sold military secrets of the United States of America to foreign nations, likely to finance his schemes.
- His actions and hatred towards mutant-kind were partially one of the reasons, alongside some family issues, that led Major William Stryker to become a firm believer of the anti-mutant agenda and turn as bad as Trask.
Original Timeline[]
- Even though Mystique shot him dead and didn't live to see his plans achieved, Trask managed to hurt mutant-kind even from beyond the grave, as while he was unable to torture any more mutants and several mutant lives were possibly saved from the clutches of Trask Industries, Mystique's actions immortalized him as a martyr of the Anti-Mutant Movement and convinced the world leaders that Trask was right, leading to disastrous consequences in the long run:
- Mystique herself got captured by the military immediately after killing Trask and handed her over to Trask's employees, who experimented on her (and eventually, with Wolverine's friend Rogue) like Trask would have wished until they were able to replicate Mystique's shapeshifting abilities to adapt to any mutant powers, leading all Sentinels to become unstoppable.
- Over the next fifty years, the Sentinels launched the total annihilation of the mutant race until only the X-Men and some of their allies remained.
- Even worse is the fact that all human people with genes able to produce mutant offspring were likewise targeted and similarly exterminated, even though Trask never planned to wipe out his own species, leading humanity to also be on the verge of extinction and leaving the Earth in a dystopian state where the Sentinels ran off Nazi-like concentration camps.
- Though the Sentinels spared the mutant-hating humans who supported them, humans who did support the mutant race as resistance fighters were also hunted down and killed. This proves that Trask was wrong and that Charles Xavier was right on humanity having some goodness, despite how most humans distrusted mutants thanks to the Anti-Mutant Movement's hateful ideas partially fueled by Trask.
- Even worse is the fact that all human people with genes able to produce mutant offspring were likewise targeted and similarly exterminated, even though Trask never planned to wipe out his own species, leading humanity to also be on the verge of extinction and leaving the Earth in a dystopian state where the Sentinels ran off Nazi-like concentration camps.
- Once the surviving X-Men and Magneto's acolytes send Wolverine back to the past through Kitty Pryde's time-traveling powers, the Sentinels ambush them, and if not thanks to Wolverine preventing Trask's assassination in the past, the mutant race would have died then and there.
Current Timeline[]
- While 2023 Wolverine with 1973 Professor X, Beast and Magneto were able to stop Mystique from killing him, Trask's potential impact on history leads Magneto to try to kill Mystique in hopes that doing so would alter the future, irreparably damaging their relationship and publicly exposing mutants that scared President Richard Nixon enough to authorize the Sentinel program, allowing Trask to succeed on his goals in spite of Wolverine's intervention. Not to mention that it affected the future in a way that altered the events of the original films.
- Her renouncement at her mission to kill Trask also resulted eventually in Mystique not making it to the 21st century upon trying to foil Vuk's plans for Jean Grey's Dark Phoenix in the 1980s unlike in the original timeline, indirectly making Trask responsible for cutting Mystique's life short and leading Jean Grey to claim lives she didn't originally.
- Obtains a blood sample of Mystique's blood thanks to an injury Magneto inflicted on her and grows obsessed in capturing her once he analyzes it to ensure the Sentinels acquire her powers once produced.
- Gets his Sentinels ready for a press conference organized by Nixon at the White House, which horribly backfires when Magneto infuses steel on the Sentinels, sicking them on the present crowd while Trask cowardly runs to hide inside the presidential bunker with Nixon and all those government officials he has endangered with his creations.
- His imprisonment ultimately prevents the dark future in which the Sentinels devastate the world from ever come to pass and instead is replaced by a brighter and happier future in which mutant-kind and humankind live together as equals and peacefully, with both mutant and human students being taught at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and even making some originally deceased individuals like Jean Grey and Cyclops back to life (at least until Dr. Zander Rice and Donald Pierce come along), proving how much responsible Trask was of so many injustices and misfortunes in the original history.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- For all his flaws and faults, Bolivar Trask believed that his actions against mutant-kind would save humankind, help them to evolve and achieve world peace by ending both the Cold and Vietnam Wars, making him a well-intentioned extremist as he genuinely cared for his fellow humans.
- One can argue that the Sentinels also targeting pro-mutant human allies or humans capable of breeding mutants suggests that deep inside, Trask was hypocritical, but to be fair, in the original timeline Trask didn't live to see this and in the current timeline Trask seemed to not have thought about that possibility before once Magneto manipulates the Sentinels to attack humans at the press conference.
- He doesn't actually hate mutants. In fact, at one point in the movie, he even says he admires them and the things they can do.
- Has some standards against war, as he was disgusted by all the unnecessary carnage caused during the Vietnam War.
- After being spared by mutants who were prosecuted by him, he seemed to have a change of heart for the species.
Trivia[]
- Only the film version of Bolivar Trask qualifies as Near Pure Evil, as his mainstream comic book counterpart ended up redeeming himself once he realized that the X-Men were protecting humanity and that his theory of mutants planning to overthrow Homo sapiens was wrong, giving up his life to destroy his laboratory with his Sentinels.
External Links[]
- Bolivar Trask on the Villains Wiki
- Bolivar Trask on the X-Men Movies Wiki
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 Near Pure Evils
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