Reavers (comics)

The Reavers are a fictional team of criminal cyborgs appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

Reavers
Reavers. Art by Jim Lee.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Uncanny X-Men #229 (May 1988)
Created by	Chris Claremont (writer) Marc Silvestri (artist)
In-story information
Member(s)	Donald Pierce Lady Deathstrike Pretty Boy Bonebreaker Skullbuster Wade Cole Angelo Macon Murray Reese Skullbuster (Cylla Markham) Josh Foley

In the Marvel Universe, the Reavers are characters dedicated to the destruction of the X-Men and a number of them especially wanted to take revenge on Wolverine in particular. The group are assembled under the leadership of character Donald Pierce and consist of three survivors from a group of Australian cyborgs who formed the original 'Reavers', along with other cyborgs.

The Reavers are not to be confused with the Reavers who are involved in the histories of the Guardians of the Galaxy members Starhawk and Aleta.

The Reavers appeared in the 2017 film Logan with their leader Donald Pierce portrayed by Boyd Holbrook.

Publication history

The Reavers first appeared in the comic title Uncanny X-Men #229 (May 1988) and were created by Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri.

Fictional group history

Looters

The original group of cyborgs calling themselves the Reavers operated out of an underground complex beneath the fictional ghost town of Cooterman's Creek in North Central Australia. They acted as a commando-style team of thieves, with apparently dozens of members. Their base was inexplicably equipped with advanced computers and a sub-basement tunnel system. The Reavers coerced the mutant teleporter Gateway to teleport them from Australia to locations around the world to conduct their robberies. Informed of the Reavers' existence by Roma, the X-Men defeat the Reavers in battle and expel them from their base, which they then co-opt for their own use. The X-Men destroy some of the Reavers and force most of the rest to enter the mystical Siege Perilous to meet unrevealed fates. Only Pretty Boy, Skullbuster, and Bonebreaker escape.

Donald Pierce's Reavers

The Reavers are reassembled under the leadership of Donald Pierce, who reorganizes the team as an assassination squadron to undertake para-military style commando operations, dedicated to taking vengeance on the X-Men in particular and eliminating mutants in general. Pierce combines the three survivors of the original Reavers with Lady Deathstrike and the three former Hellfire Club mercenaries Cole, Macon, and Reese. No explanation is given for why Pretty Boy, Skullbuster, and Bonebreaker came to be involved with the group, aside from Pierce claiming to have created the original Reavers. Lady Deathstrike's reasons for joining the Reavers are even more unclear, as she professes a lack of interest in their goal of eliminating mutants.

While the X-Men are away from their Australian base, the Reavers retake the ghost town and wait for the team to come back. However, on their return, the X-Men escape the Reavers through the Siege Perilous. Only Wolverine, who is on a leave of absence in Madripoor, remains. Once he returns, they capture him, and proceed to torture and crucify him. Wolverine escapes the Reavers with the aid of Jubilee. The Reavers then attack the Muir Island Mutant Research Center, theorizing that it is Wolverine's most likely destination. They fight Freedom Force and Moira MacTaggart's alternate X-Men team, and kill Stonewall and Sunder. During the assault on Muir Island, Skullbuster is rendered inoperative by sniper fire from Forge. Donald Pierce rescues a gravely wounded pilot named Cylla Markham, who agrees to be converted into a cyborg.

Around this time, Bonebreaker, Reese, and Pretty Boy are dispatched to a New York warehouse after Microchip, an associate of the Punisher, in a self-confessed mistake, infiltrates their computer system. The temporary absence of Gateway gives Punisher and Microchip enough time to evacuate and set up resistance. The warehouse is destroyed, but the two escape through the sewer. The Reavers face off against the Punisher again. In the firefight, the Reavers kill Microchip's cousin. The Punisher sets off auto-destruct charges, which cause heavy damage to the three Reavers, particularly Bonebreaker, whose cybernetic lower body is demolished. The Reavers retreat.

The Reavers then successfully attack the White Queen's company, Frost Technotics. They capture Rogue, who has returned from inside the Siege Perilous, although Rogue is then rescued by a recreation of Ms. Marvel. Donald Pierce transforms Cylla Markham into the new Skullbuster (although she usually goes by the name Cylla). Lady Deathstrike later seeks Wolverine in Madripoor and Vancouver. Pierce creates an android named Elsie-Dee and a Wolverine android double named "Albert" to kill Wolverine. The attempt fails, however, when Elsie-Dee rebels against her programming.

Upstarts and humans

As part of the Upstarts' game, Trevor Fitzroy dispatches his own Sentinels to the Reavers' Australian hideout to kill Pierce and anyone else they find there. In the ensuing battle, only Pierce, Lady Deathstrike and Cylla escape the massacre, Pierce seemingly only making it as far as the Hellfire Club before he is "killed". Cylla later resurfaces, allying herself with Bloodscream in an attempt to murder Wolverine. However, Bloodscream betrays her and sucks the life from her, killing her.

However, most Reavers somehow survive their supposed deaths. They later return to battle the X-Treme X-Men on behalf of the Shadow King.

Donald Pierce puts together a new group of Reavers, composed of young anti-mutant humans (with the exception of Elixir, who at the time was unaware that he was a mutant). They are defeated by Karma, Elixir, and a handful of young mutants. The group later breaks Pierce out of prison, but with Elixir as bait, they are lured into an ambush and captured by the same five mutants who stopped Pierce when he first betrayed the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle.

Messiah Complex

The latest incarnation of the Reavers in Messiah Complex by Humberto Ramos.

The Reavers return to play a role in the comic book crossover storyline Messiah Complex event under the leadership of Lady Deathstrike. Judging from the design of their costumes, as well as their rhetoric in battle, these newest Reavers are simply existing members of the Purifiers upgraded with cybernetics rather than classic members of the team. Deployed as an elite commando unit designed to eliminate organized mutant resistance, the Reavers manage to track down and confront Cable in Alberta, Canada before being attacked by the new X-Force.

In the ensuing battle, Deathstrike and the Reavers are all terminated by Wolverine's strike team, but not before killing the mutant Caliban and injuring Cable. To this date only Deathstrike's fate was revealed, and it remains to be seen whether the Purifiers will be able to upgrade more of their fighters with Reaver technology to replace the ones lost in Canada.

Cable and X-Force

The Reavers play a small role in Cable and X-Force - Volume 4. Pretty Boy, Bonebreaker, Skullbuster (female), and Skullbuster (male) are quickly dispatched by Hope Summers and Cable before being able to deploy an ICBM.

Hunt for Wolverine

During the "Hunt for Wolverine" storyline, Donald Pierce later leads a new group of Reavers, composed of Star and Shine whom together go by the Starshine moniker, Pretty Boy, Skullbuster (Cylla Markham) and Bonebreaker. They were able to find the place where the X-Men had hidden Wolverine's metal-encased body until an X-Men found them. During the battle, Wolverine's adamantium shell was broken and to the Reavers surprise it was empty. The X-Men eventually defeated the Reavers and delivered them to Alpha Flight. Only Starshine was able to evade capture and contacted Lady Deathstrike about their findings.

Indocterination and Ascent

For the past few months, Pierce and his Reavers were stuck in the custody of the O*N*E under the direct supervision of a corrupt mutant-hating P.L.O named General Callahan. Who, after they had been left on the office's doorstep by the dwindling Alpha Flight, had been using the bionic villains as a personal scavenger crew, running them ragged doing dirty business in pursuit of the military officer's shady agenda of illicitly capturing and incarcerating mutants or mutant-related subjects. In exchange for their incarceration, Robert would give them much-needed augmentations and bionic enhancements tethered to an in-built safeguard to enforce their obedience.

After a while, the agreement made between the two factions would cause enforced loyalties to fray. With many Reavers absconding from their internment, only Scylla and the team leader would be dragged back. The rest were given kill orders for their desertion. A few amongst their desperate number would come across a couple of the priority targets on the general's watchlist. After a lengthy battle, it is revealed that the reason why the office of National Emergency had them hunting these individuals was due to the possibility of one amongst their number unknowingly possessing the final piece of equipment needed to initiate a whole new sentinel program their employer's outfit had been building up too.

Havok would opt to team up with the distaff cyborg mercenaries to free their boss and fellow mutants in exchange for the missing puzzle piece he possesses on his person for one final assault on their shared enemy's headquarters. But they soon betray Beast, Havok, Warpath, and the recently freed Dazzler by displaying all that the techno-organic coding Alex had implanted on him by Bastion during his moral inversion could really do, Pretty Boy and Bonebreaker technologically overtaking the general's incomplete sentinels and turning them on the X-Men. Believing they'd killed their shortlived allies, Donald and his cohorts absconded with their latest modifications and headed to the Xavier Institute to kill more mutants. But the misconceived done away with uncanny's soon catch up to them and battle the Reavers into submission, both them and Summers ending up incarcerated by the Office.

Operating in Madripoor

During the "Iron Man 2020" event, Donald Pierce and the Reavers are shown to have established a company called Reavers Universal Robotics in Hightown, Madripoor. Albert shows up there to confront Donald Pierce where he is confronted by Bonebreaker and the Reavers. Pierce arrives to prevent the lobby from being wrecked. Taking Albert on a tour, Pierce states that he has been upgrading his operations with the help of a 3D Printer. When Pierce stated that Elsie-Dee is not here and that she previously appeared asking to have her self-destruct mechanism disarmed, Albert retaliates while claiming that Pierce doesn't own him or Elsie Dee. After Albert subdues the Reavers, Pierce states that he sold Elsie-Dee's head to Yakuza boss Kimura, the arms to the Jade Dragon Triad, and the legs to the Vladivostok Mafia. In light of Albert's actions towards them, the Reavers, Kimura, the Jade Dragon Triad, and the Vladivostok Mafia to take action against Albert vowing that he will never make it out of Madripoor alive.

Known members

First Team

• Bonebreaker
• Skullbuster
• Pretty Boy
• Various unnamed other members (deceased or reincarnated)

Second Team

• Donald Pierce (leader)
• Lady Deathstrike
• Wade Cole (deceased)
• Angelo Macon (deceased)
• Murray Reese (deceased)
• Bonebreaker (arrested)
• Skullbuster
• Skullbuster (Cylla)
• Pretty Boy (arrested)

Third Team

• Donald Pierce (leader)
• Elixir (quit)
• Duncan
• Various unnamed other members

Fourth Team

• Lady Deathstrike (leader)
• Various unnamed other members (all presumed deceased)

Fifth Team

• Donald Pierce (leader)
• Starshine, a duo of Japanese young women that together function as the Reavers ship.
  • Star appears to have the ability to fuse with machinery which she can use as her own body
  • Shine appears to possess psionic powers
• Pretty Boy
• Skullbuster (Cylla)
• Bonebreaker
• Lady Deathstrike (defected)

Other versions

Age of Apocalypse

In the Age of Apocalypse, Reavers were a band of human traitors serving Apocalypse. They have been enhanced with Apocalypse's techno-organic virus which allows them to merge with both organic and mechanical materials.

Ultimate Marvel

Rather than being a specific team of supervillains, the Ultimate Marvel version of the Reavers are human gladiators who have undergone surgery to become cyborgs for the specific purpose of hunting down mutants on live television for the Genoshan Government under Mojo Adams. They are led by the deranged Mutant-hunter Sgt. Wade "Wadey" Wilson aka Deadpool. Some do retain the names of the Earth-616 Reavers, such as 'Bonebreaker'. Another known one is named 'Cruise'.

In other media

Television

• The Reavers appear in the X-Men: The Animated Series two-part episode "Out of the Past", consisting of Lady Deathstrike, Bonebreaker, Pretty Boy, Murray Reese, Skullbuster, and Wade Cole. Additionally, Donald Pierce appears in the four-part episode "The Dark Phoenix" as a member of the Inner Circle Club.
• The Reavers appear in Wolverine and the X-Men, with vocal effects provided by Charlie Adler in the episode "X-Calibre" and Steve Blum in "Hunting Grounds". This version of the group serves Mojo and consists of Spiral, Murray Reese, Wade Cole, Angelo Macon, and series original character Ricochet, among other unidentified members.

Film

The Reavers appear in Logan, consisting of Donald Pierce, Bonebreaker, Pretty Boy, Angelo Macon, Danny Rhodes, and Mohawk. This version of the group are Alkali-Transigen's enhanced security force who serve the corporation's head, Dr. Zander Rice.

Video games

• The Reavers appear in X-Men as Magneto's soldiers.
• The Reavers appear in The Punisher, with Bonebreaker as a stage boss and several Pretty Boy cyborgs appearing in different stages.
• The Reavers appear in Strider Hiryu's ending in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
• The Reavers appear in Marvel Heroes, with Lady Deathstrike and Bonebreaker as prominent members and Dr. Reaversteins, Mighty Max, Reaver Berserkers, Reaver Blitzkriegs, Reaver Hellhounds, Reaver Maniacs, Reaver Psychotics, and Reaver Savages as foot soldiers.

External links

• Reavers at Marvel.com