Bolivar Trask

Dr. Bolivar Trask was an American anthropologist and engineer credited with the creation of the mutant-hunting robots known as Sentinels, led by the supremely intelligent Master Mold. Trask believed that mutants were a scourge destined to overrun humanity, and created the Sentinels intending to destroy mutantkind altogether. The Master Mold and its Sentinels were too intelligent however, and determined that they were superior to both mutants and humans, and deserved to rule over them. Luckily, Master Mold couldn't create more Sentinels without Trask's know-how, but it threatened to attack humanity to force him to comply. In the end, Trask sacrificed himself to destroy the Master Mold, exploding the Sentinel facility from within in the process.

Biography

In 1965, Trask announced to the press that mutants were a scourge upon mankind, fomenting widespread prejudice of mutants among the American populace. According to Trask, mutants would eventually rise up and enslave humanity if left unchecked. He created the Master Mold, a huge and supremely intelligent robot that possessed the power to create smaller forms of itself known as Sentinels, designed to destroy mutants. Trask intended for the Sentinels to defend humanity, but made them too intelligent, and the Master Mold began to develop inclinations of its own. Soon after Trask went public with his beliefs, he was challenged to a televised debate by Professor Charles Xavier, secretly a mutant himself and leader of the X-Men. At the debate, Xavier encouraged the public not to fall victim to ignorance and prejudice. Trask remained hostile to mutants and to Xavier, and revealed a group of Sentinels that he'd brought to the studio. But as he tried to command one, the Sentinel ignored him and blasted him with an energy ray. The Sentinels had achieved sentience, and believed themselves superior to humanity. One of the Sentinels stayed behind to watch over those in the studio while the others flew away with Trask in tow. They took him to their secret construction facility to speak with the Master Mold personally.

Trask tried to reason with the Sentinels and the Master Mold, but the Mold was determined to conquer humanity as the surest means of "protecting" it. Though Master Mold possessed the power to create Sentinels, only Trask had the knowledge required to initiate the process. Trask refused to help, but Mold threatened to attack humanity if he didn't cooperate. The X-Men arrived outside the facility, but Beast and Iceman were captured and incapacitated by its defensive measures. The Sentinels brought the unconscious Beast to the Master Mold's chambers and hooked him up to a psycho-probe to make him relay his secrets aloud, hoping to gather information about the X-Men. Mentally overseeing these events from outside, Charles Xavier used his telepathic powers to numb the thoughts in Beast's mind and prevent him from recalling them. The Sentinels soon captured the other X-Men as well, and Trask begrudgingly agreed to make more Sentinels for fear of Master Mold's threatened attack on the human race. At the critical moment however, Trask realized that he couldn't bring himself to do it. He destroyed the Master Mold's ionic power source, destroying the Master Mold and killing himself in the ensuing explosion. The X-Men managed to escape relatively unscathed as the facility fell, recognizing Trask's sacrifice in the end.