Marshall D. Teach

Marshall D. Teach, commonly referred to as Blackbeard, is the captain of the Blackbeard Pirates. He was formerly a member of the Whitebeard Pirates' second division led by Portgas D. Ace, up until he killed fourth division commander Thatch for the Yami Yami no Mi. He also briefly held the position of Shichibukai after handing Ace over to the Marines, but has since forfeited the title. He is one of the primary antagonists of One Piece, along with the World Government, as he instigated the Whitebeard War, which resulted in the deaths of both Portgas D. Ace and Whitebeard.

Appearance
Blackbeard is a middle-aged man with a massive build, several broken or missing teeth, a pronounced crooked nose and a very large and hairy chest and torso. Long, thick, curly black hair falls down the back of his neck, underneath a black bandanna, and a small scruffy black beard (hence his nickname) grows around his jawline. As the series goes along, his beard becomes longer and scruffier. He is one of the few characters in the series that fit best what a stereotypical pirate should look like.

At his first appearance in Mock Town, Teach wears an open buttoned white shirt with rolled up sleeves, green pants with black line patterns, a yellow sash around his waist and classical swashbuckler boots complete with large bronze buckle.

During his raid of Banaro Island, he has added a large black and gold Captain's jacket over his attire, along with beads on each wrist as bracelets and rings with gemstones on all of the fingers of both his hands (similar to his predecessor, Crocodile).

At the Shichibukai meeting at the Marine Headquarters, he added a necklace of beads to his sash and a traditional tricorn hat over his bandanna, as well as switching to a red shirt. He also has three flintlocks and a bottle tied up on his sash around his waist.

Personality
"This "new era" they keep rambling on and on about is a load of crap. The era when pirates dream of treasure will come to an end...? Yeah, right! Zehahahaha! The dreams of pirates... will never end! Am I right?"

Blackbeard's personality seems to be an strange mix of courage and cowardice, strategism and inconsequence, intelligence and stupidity. While sometimes his character looks strong and fearsome, in others he will look weak and ridiculous.

Blackbeard, especially for being another "D", shares several attributes with Luffy. Having a voracious appetite (his favorite food is pie), carefree attitude, very competitive, reckless, persevering and huge ambitions following his dream of finding One Piece and become a new Pirate King. Despite that, there is also a great contrast between him and Luffy. Just before his death, Whitebeard noted that Teach wasn't the one they had been waiting for and dismissed Teach as the one to carry Roger's legacy.

He also has an eye for talent and knew Luffy's potential was worth more than the 30,000,000 bounty he thought Luffy had at on their first meeting.

Blackbeard is amoral. He stayed decades on Whitebeard ship to eventually kill the fourth division commander Thatch, later handed Portgas D. Ace to the World Government and finally killed his captain Whitebeard. Despite that, he still displayed respect for his superiors during the events, referring to Ace as his commander, and said that he aspired to be like Whitebeard.

An attribute that he share with his initial crewmates is his strong belief in fate, in contrast to Luffy's belief of freedom. His amorality may be a result of his belief in fate, which makes him believe that there is neither inherit "good" nor "evil" in the world. Blackbeard's lack of morals doesn't stop on him, as he recruited several atrocious pirates to his crew while in Impel Down.

He is patient and conniving, having spent decades on Whitebeard's ship just to get his hands on the Devil Fruit he wanted, before leaving the crew. During his raid on Impel Down, he stated that his plans have not gone exactly as expected, but is willing to take these surprises in stride.

Despite his encouragement of pursing dreams, Blackbeard is as much of a foil for Luffy as he is an adversary, having mocked his opponent's delusions and convictions of invincibility, as well as the convictions of others. Such as Hannyabal's notion of justice, and even Luffy about Ace's impending execution.

Blackbeard is overconfident, and while powerful, tends to converse and/or taunt his opponents in the middle of battle. He's done this in every battle he's been shown in, and as a result, he always suffers a heavy, painful attack while his guard is down.

Abilities and Powers
Blackbeard once fought Red-Haired Shanks and gave him the scars on his left eye, noteworthy as he had not eaten his Devil Fruit yet and Shanks claimed the fight was not a sneak attack.

One of the more impressive feats he has committed is that he defeated two commanders of the Whitebeard Pirates, Portgas D. Ace and Thatch, when few other people would even dare touch a member of the Whitebeard Pirates for fear of incurring their Captain's wrath.

Blackbeard, besides possessing the Yami Yami No Mi, also has incredible physical strength and endurance. Nothing demonstrated his endurance better than his taking of a point-blank quake bubble attack from Whitebeard himself, and not losing consciousness, especially since his Devil Fruit causes him to receive even more damage (compared to the giant Vice Admiral Ronse, whose head had nearly been shattered after suffering a similar attack). His physical strength is also demonstrated when he seriously injures both Luffy and Ace in just one hit. Blackbeard also appears to be knowledgeable as he knew how to use the Gura Gura no mi powers straight away after extracting it.

However, Blackbeard has a ridiculous habit of conversing with his opponents, leaving his guard down. He has demonstrated this failing in all his fights, against Whitebeard, Luffy, Ace and Magellan.

Devil Fruits
Blackbeard has become the first and only character to wield the powers of two Devil Fruits at the same time. Through means that are currently unknown, he acquired the extremely destructive powers of the Gura Gura no Mi from the dead body of Whitebeard and is now able to create earthquakes like his old captain. Marco speculated that this was possible due to an unstated peculiarity unique to Blackbeard himself, consisting in an "atypical body structure" of some sort, also pointing out that the other Whitebeard pirates should be aware of this fact.

With the power of darkness, which "returns everything to nothing", and the power of earthquake, which "destroys all", Blackbeard claims himself to be truly invincible and the strongest.

Yami Yami no Mi
Blackbeard has eaten the Devil Fruit Yami Yami no Mi. With it, he can manipulate gravity, shown as an ebbing shroud of darkness. Teach demonstrates that the "darkness" is a void which devours anything, able to pull in (much in the manner of a black hole) and crush his surrounding environment into a pile of rubble. Due to the Yami Yami no Mi's gravitational ability, Blackbeard, unlike every other Logia user, cannot let attacks simply pass through him, meaning he takes damage like any human would but two times more powerful. He compensates for this one major flaw with his massive strength and endurance. Whitebeard himself noted that Blackbeard's power's weakness is its weak defense.

However, Blackbeard states that the risk this presents is well worth the advantages the fruit bestows upon him, such as the ability to 'absorb' certain projectiles and then hurl them back at his foes using moves like 'Liberation'. The second, and most frightening power of the fruit is to nullify other Devil Fruit abilities through physical contact, allowing Teach to physically hit Ace, whose body was composed of intangible flames, and injure Luffy, whose body was made of rubber. Teach states that this is because the Yami Yami no Mi truly holds the power of the devil.

Gura Gura no Mi
With the newly acquired powers of the Gura Gura no Mi, Blackbeard can create powerful earthquakes by shattering the air itself, creating shock waves that can destroy the Marineford main building itself. He can also focus his quake powers into a "quake bubble" on his fist, greatly increasing damage in one punch. He acquired the Gura Gura no Mi by wrapping a black tarp over himself and Whitebeard. The process of how he got it is still unknown.

20 Years Ago
Blackbeard aspires to become the Pirate King. In order to do this, he wanted the Yami Yami no Mi. He joined the Whitebeard Pirates several decades ago to search for it, thinking that it would have the best chance of obtaining it. 20 years ago after Shiki escaped Impel Down, Blackbeard was present amongst Marco, Vista and Jozu while the flying pirate spoke to Whitebeard about his plan.

Blood and Murder
He served under Whitebeard's command for at least 20 years before his betrayal.

More than ten years before the current storyline, Blackbeard and Shanks fought in a battle. During the battle, Blackbeard gave Shanks his three scars by his eyes. Blackbeard eventually became a member of the second division and encouraged Ace to seek the commander position, refusing it himself.

One day, Thatch, commander of Whitebeard Pirates' fourth division, found a Devil Fruit. Recognizing it as the Yami Yami no Mi, Blackbeard killed Thatch to get the fruit and fled. For killing a comrade and betraying his "father", second division commander Portgas D. Ace went after Blackbeard to kill him, despite Whitebeard's reluctance to send Ace to his possible doom. The time Blackbeard escaped from Whitebeards crew and stole the Yami Yami no Mi was around some time after Luffy left Arlong Park since shown in a flashback of Ace was Ace showing Whitebeard Luffy's first bounty and being proud. Because of this it is assumed Blackbeard did not kill Thatch yet since Ace left immediately to hunt down Blackbeard after he fled.

Blackbeard then assembled the Blackbeard Pirates, composed of Lafitte, a former policeman from the West Blue and the crew navigator, Van Auger the sniper, Jesus Burgess the helmsman, Doc Q the doctor, and Stronger, Doc Q's horse. Some time after, his pirate crew pillaged the Drum Kingdom, leaving its king, Wapol, to flee (ironically freeing Drum Kingdom from Wapol's tyranny).

Chasing a Dreamer
After Luffy defeated Crocodile in Arabasta, Lafitte nominated Blackbeard to become one of the Shichibukai to take Crocodile's place, the World Government declined, as Blackbeard did not have a reputation.

Blackbeard happened to be in Jaya, at the same time Luffy was. Both Luffy and Blackbeard seemed to strike up a rivalry when they nearly got into a fight over how they like or dislike one of the island tavern's food. After learning his identity, Blackbeard planned to capture Luffy, who had a 100,000,000 bounty on his head and Zoro who had a 60,000,000 bounty. Before that however, he'd given Luffy a friendly speech about how pirates will never stop dreaming, after Luffy had been ridiculed by the Bellamy Pirates for being a "dreamer". He tried to capture Luffy and Zoro, but his raft-esque ship was destroyed when the Knock Up Stream shot the Straw Hats into the sky.

The Sun Vs. The Darkness
Blackbeard and his crew are seen again on Banaro Island. Having killed, knocked out or chased away all the inhabitants, Blackbeard reads from a newspaper about the Enies Lobby incident, and remarks that Luffy's bounty will surely rise. Before they can leave to chase him, however, Ace appears and challenges them.

Blackbeard tries to recruit Ace to the Blackbeard Pirates, but is refused, and a great battle ensues that destroys most of the island. Blackbeard reveals his Devil Fruit power at last, and that he killed Thatch to get it. Eventually both clashed with a huge ball of their respective element. Blackbeard won the struggle, handed Ace over to the World Government, and was rewarded for his efforts by becoming a Shichibukai.

It is later revealed that Ace has been sentenced to public execution, which would lead to a war between the World Government and the Whitebeard Pirates. To stop the Whitebeard from saving Ace, all of the Shichibukai have been assigned to battle the Whitebeard Pirates alongside the Marines.

Hell Fortress Break-in
Apparently, he had answered to the call of Shichibukai to battle Whitebeard and was joining the war, and is later shown dining with the other Shichibukai, except for Jinbei and Boa Hancock. However, he has instead taken his entire crew to Impel Down and commenced an attack on the jailers. He excuses himself by stating that he is on "their" side. On his way through Level 1, the Crimson Hell, he encounters Shiryuu, whom Blackbeard initially misidentifies as Magellan. He later inexplicably arrives at Level 4, where he and his crew take down both the Bazooka Unit and Hannyabal. Jinbei shows anger towards Blackbeard, while Luffy realizes that the man at Jaya who had told him to never stop dreaming is the same one responsible for his brother's imprisonment.

Blackbeard taunts Luffy about Ace's oncoming execution, provoking his wrath. Though Blackbeard tells Luffy to praise his good luck (as Blackbeard would surely have killed Luffy instead of just defeating Ace, had Ace let Blackbeard off the hook), Luffy angrily attacks the Shichibukai, and though both of them are stopped by Jinbei before they could hurt each other seriously, Blackbeard even notes Luffy's Haki has improved and admits he had underestimated Luffy's strength. When Magellan shows up, Blackbeard lets Luffy and the rest proceed to Level 3, even receiving a comment from Jinbei that Blackbeard's assault on the Great Gaol proved instrumental for the breakout, to which Blackbeard then replied that he's also grateful for, since a panic within Impel Down prior to him and his crew's arrival was exactly what they need, right before stating that his crew and him will "shake the whole world to its core". However, Magellan quickly captures and poisons the entirety of the Blackbeard Pirates with his Hydra. Blackbeard stated that the pain was unbearable and screamed, as Magellan walked past them to pursue Luffy.

Blackbeard and his crew survived from the Magellan's poison by receiving an antidote from Shiryuu. Blackbeard then comments that Shiryuu would make a fine addition to his crew and invites Shiryuu to join his crew again. Shiryuu accepted, and states that he's been waiting for a man with such stature.

Invasion of Marineford
Blackbeard later appeared at Marineford, having sneaked in to see his former captain's death. Blackbeard is seen with 5 new additions to his crew: Basco Shot, Shiryuu, Catarina Devon, San Juan Wolf and Abalo Pizarro. Blackbeard then tells Sengoku that the sole reason that he obtained the title of Shichibukai was to gain the means to break into Impel Down and gloats that he doesn't need that title anymore.

Acting as the vanguard of their attack, Blackbeard initiates his crew's assault by using his Devil Fruit powers to increase the gravity upon the ground from which Whitebeard stood, binding him in place, and then used Kurouzu to pull Whitebeard into his grasp to nullify the latter's Gura Gura no Mi powers. Unfortunately, this did not deter the Yonkou, who struck Teach down using his bisento, sending him to the ground. Whitebeard then proceeds to reprimand him that the Yami Yami no Mi power affords little defensive advantages and continues by placing a powerful grip around Teach's neck and sends a shockwave bubble at point-blank range upon his head, once again sending a massive tremor throughout Marineford. Having lost his composure, Blackbeard orders his men to fire everything they got upon his former Captain. Despite this, Whitebeard held his ground with his final words being that Blackbeard will not be among those whom Roger will await for in the afterlife. It was then that Blackbeard realized that Whitebeard departed while still standing, much to his shock.

Despite this shock, Blackbeard and his crew quickly covered Whitebeard's body with a black cloth of sorts, which Blackbeard entered as well for a short time. After that, he emerged from the cloth, before showing off not only the power of the Yami Yami no Mi, but also the Gura Gura no Mi, as he inexplicably managed to extract that power from Whitebeard's body. With a mighty laugh, Blackbeard proclaimed to everyone present and everyone watching these events, that from that moment on, this was his era.

Battles

 * Marshall D. Teach vs. Shanks (details unknown, yet left Shanks with his scar)
 * Marshall D. Teach vs. Thatch
 * Marshall D. Teach vs. Dalton and Drum Kingdom
 * Marshall D. Teach vs. Portgas D. Ace
 * Marshall D. Teach and Blackbeard Pirates vs. Impel Down Guards (Level 1)
 * Marshall D. Teach vs. Hannyabal and Bazooka Unit
 * Marshall D. Teach vs. Monkey D. Luffy (interrupted by Jinbei)
 * Marshall D. Teach and Blackbeard Pirates vs. Magellan
 * Marshall D. Teach vs. Edward Newgate
 * Marshall D. Teach and Blackbeard Pirates vs. Edward Newgate

Manga/Anime influences
Historically, Blackbeard was as fearsome a pirate as he is portrayed by Eiichiro Oda in One Piece. Blackbeard's pirate ship was discovered in North Carolina in 1996, and possibly influenced Oda when he began One Piece in 1997, evidenced by Oda's statements that Blackbeard was his favorite historical pirate.

Marshall D. Teach's name is partially taken from the real Blackbeard's supposed name, Edward Teach. His former captain, Whitebeard, received the real Blackbeard's first name (making him Edward Newgate), and even his first known victim name, former commandeer of Whitebeard pirates fourth's division Thatch, is actually one of the names commonly used for the real life pirate Blackbeard is named after. The real life Blackbeard had also surrendered himself in exchange for a pardon only to go back into pirating, a comparison can be drawn between this and Marshall D. Teach's joining of the Shichibukai (whose bounties are retracted) only to turn his back on the group afterwards.

Trivia

 * Blackbeard carries the initial D in his name. He was the fourth character to be revealed as a D. However, the first mention of him, only revealed him as Blackbeard and therefore he was the fifth character carrying the D. to be introduced.
 * While Blackbeard's age is not specified, Ace (20 years old at his death time) stated that Blackbeard has lived twice as long as him meaning that he is somewhere in his forties. This was further proven with Blackbeard already a member of Whitebeard's crew at the same time Ace was just a baby in Chapter 0.
 * Many of One Piece's characters are given a distinct laugh. Blackbeard follows this tradition by starting his laughs with "Ze" (i.e Zehahahahahaha!) This wasn't present in the Funimation Dub.
 * He is the only Shichibukai (counting both current and former members) who did not possess an animal theme, had no former bounty and the only one with the middle initial D. He and Crocodile are also the only Logia users to ever become a Shichibukai.
 * Though Teach's beard is ironically small, one claim states that the actual Blackbeard never was able to grow his beard very long either.
 * Blackbeard's plan to become Pirate King caused the deaths of Thatch, Portgas D. Ace, and Whitebeard.
 * Blackbeard is the second Shichibukai to forfeit his title and the third to lose his position.
 * Of the Shichibukai, Blackbeard held the title the least amount of time. So far being the only Shichibukai that has joined during the current storyline and left soon after.
 * Blackbeard is the only one in the series so far to be able to absorb another Devil Fruit user's power as well as the only one to use two Devil Fruit powers. It is unknown at this point if this is a result of the Yami Yami no Mi's ability or Teach himself is unique in some way that allows him to extract or even to have two powers at once. It is further unknown if, whatever process was used to obtain the Gura Gura no Mi, can be used more than once.
 * Marshall D. Teach has the largest main character body count in One Piece, by killing Thatch, Newgate, and also causing the events that cost Ace his life.

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