Bolivar Trask was an anthropologist who saw the rise of
mutants as a threat to humanity. Bolivar was the father of
Larry Trask, ironically revealed to be a
precognitive mutant. Bolivar had realized this, and gave his son a medallion which suppresses his power. Bolivar is also the father of Tanya, a mutant who vanishes after her abilities cause her to travel through time. She is rescued by
Rachel Summers in the far future and joins the Askani as
Madame Sanctity. Bolivar decides that humanity has to fight back against the mutants and develops robotic guardians for humanity, known as the Sentinels. Larry was shielded from the Sentinels' ability to detect mutants due to the medallion Bolivar had given his son. Bolivar publishes articles on the threat of mutants. One of these articles showed an illustration of mutant overlords keeping humans as slaves. This illustration would become a symbol for human/mutant relations and several years later
Quentin Quire and his
Omega Gang would base their appearance on this picture.
Charles Xavier invites Trask for a public debate on human/mutant relations. Xavier argues that mutants are just like humans and not evil, but that does not convince Trask revealing the Sentinels. But Trask and his scientists had apparently created a too adaptive, open-ended tactical/strategic programming, and as a result the Sentinels turn against him, claiming that they were superior to humans. The Sentinels left with Trask and brought him to his first creation,
Master Mold, who orders him to construct more Sentinels. To stop the Sentinels, Xavier summons the
X-Men. The X-Men fight the Sentinels, but
Beast is captured. To reveal the X-Men's secrets, the Sentinels tell Trask to use a device to read Beast's mind. Trask discovers that the X-Men were mutants protecting humanity and realizes that he had been wrong. He helps the X-Men defeat the Sentinels by sacrificing himself to destroy the Sentinel's base. In
X-Force,
Bastion resurrects Bolivar Trask using a
Technarch to be part of a team of mutant killers. As the inventor of the Sentinels, Trask has the highest record of mutant kills: 16 million. Trask later kills himself after escaping Bastion's control. ==Other versions==