Marshall D. Teach

**Marshall D. Teach**, also known as **Blackbeard**, is the Admiral of the Blackbeard Pirates and one of the Four Emperors. He started out his pirate career as a member of the Whitebeard Pirates' 2nd division, until he murdered Thatch, the 4th division commander, for the Dark-Dark Fruit and defected. Prior to the two-year timeskip, he briefly held the position of the Seven Warlords of the Sea after handing Ace over to the Marines, before resigning upon returning from Impel Down with Level Six prisoners.

## Profile and Stats

**Name**: Marshall D. Teech

**Alias**: Blackbeard

**Age**: 40

**Classification**: Human, Captain of the Blackbeard Pirates, Four Pirate Emperors, Former Seven Warlords of the Sea, Former 2nd Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, Logia and Paramecia Devil Fruit User

**Affiliation**: Blackbeard Pirates, Four Emperors

**Gender**: Male

**Height**: 344 cm (11'3")

**Weight**: 300 kg (661 lbs.)

**Eye Color**: Black

**Hair Color**: Black

**Status**: Alive

**Powers and Abilities**:

**Weapons**: Flintlock

**Class**:

**Attack Potency**: **Island level**

**Speed**: **Massively Hypersonic**

**Lifting Strength**: **Class T**

**Striking Strength**: **Class EJ**

**Durability**: **Island level**

**Stamina**: **Demigod-like**

**Range**: Several **Kilometers**

**Intelligence**: **Genius**

**First Appearance**:

**Voice Actor**:

## Appearance

Blackbeard is a middle-aged-looking man with a massive build (his body is round with relatively thin limbs), a big mouth with several broken or missing teeth (though sometimes he does have a full set; whether this is an inconsistency error made by Oda or part of the story is unknown), a pronounced crooked nose and a very large and hairy chest and torso. Long, thick, woolly black hair falls down the back of his neck, underneath a grey bandana, and a small scruffy black beard (hence his epithet) grows around his jawline. As the series progresses, his beard becomes longer and scruffier. He is extremely tall, being exactly twice Luffy's (pre-timeskip) height.

Teach wears an open buttoned red shirt with rolled-up sleeves, green trousers with black line patterns, a dark orange sash around his waist, a traditional black tricorne hat over his bandanna, classic black swashbuckler boots complete with large bronze buckles, and a large black and gold captain's coat draped over his shoulders like a cape. His accessories include white beads on each wrist as bracelets and rings with gemstones on all of the fingers of both his hands (similar to his predecessor, Crocodile), a pair of necklaces of red as well as golden-yellow and blue beads, and has three flintlocks and a flask tied to his sash around his waist.

## Personality

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 laugh is not present in the English Dub until the Banaro Incident.

Blackbeard's personality seems to be a strange mix of courage and cowardice, high intellectual capacity and stupidity. While at times his character looks strong and fearsome, in others he will seem weak and ridiculous. He is apparently very deceptive, joining the Shichibukai in an elaborate and convoluted fashion for the sole reason of gaining access to Impel Down in order to find new crew mates and later resigning from it in front of the fleet admiral himself saying that he does not need it anymore. He is also exceedingly power-hungry and greedy, aiming to become the next Pirate King.

His hunger for power lead him to fashion a very cruel way of recruiting only the best prisoners in Impel Down as comrades: he ordered them to murder each other, and would only take the strongest ones who survive. Though he betrayed the Whitebeard Pirates, Teach takes comradeship with the crew he formed to a high level, made evident when he was willing to make a trade with the Marines for a battleship big enough to hold all of them comfortably for the sake of one crew member, Sanjuan Wolf. Despite his obvious malevolent nature, he is also genuinely compassionate, caring, sympathetic and empathetic towards his crew's well-being and is willing to take assaults intended for his crew. He also has an extreme thirst for adventure, regularly traveling from place to place. However, he tends to play it by ear.

Blackbeard, like others who carry the Will of the D., has a strong belief in fate and the dreams of men, but unlike the others, is the only one who truly seems to take it to heart. He shares several attributes with Luffy, including having a voracious appetite, carefree attitude, competitive and reckless nature, persevering even if there may be grave consequences, and huge ambitions to follow his dream of finding One Piece and become the new Pirate King. Despite that, there is also a great contrast between him and Luffy: primarily, Blackbeard fears death whereas other D. carriers embrace it if it comes, and was willing to betray his own friends for power. Just before his death, Whitebeard noted that Teach was not the one Roger had been waiting for and dismissed Teach as being incapable of continuing Roger's legacy.

Perhaps because of his strong belief in fate, Blackbeard is highly amoral. He believes that there is no inherent "good" nor "evil" in the world, jeeringly mocking anyone who expresses such belief. He is also patient and conniving, having spent decades on Whitebeard's ship just to get his hands on the Devil Fruit he wanted, before killing Thatch and leaving the crew. His nihilistic tendencies are in line with the power of the Dark-Dark Fruit he possesses, which is said to reduce everything to "nothingness". 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. He handed Portgas D. Ace to the World Government and finally killed his captain Whitebeard alongside the latter's dog, Stefan. Despite this, 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. He showed his ruthlessness when he killed Thatch, and with his crew's help finished off his former captain, Whitebeard.

Blackbeard is often very calm, composed, relaxed, easygoing, cheerful, and free-spirited, but he can be surprised and startled, such as when Coby told everybody present to stop the war, or when Whitebeard had held him by the throat. He is very politely sarcastic and mocking towards those around him, such as when he taunted Luffy, about Ace's inevitable execution, or when he mocked Whitebeard for his age.

He is also overconfident, and while very powerful, tends to converse and/or taunt his opponents in the middle of battle. He has done this in every battle he has been shown in, and as a result, he always suffers a heavy, painful attack while his guard is down. Such as when he taunted Whitebeard about not being able to use his powers, and nearly got cleaved in half with Whitebeard's bisento or when he boasted himself in front of Magellan and was drowned by the Hydra attack, luckily for him Shiliew gave him and his crew the antidote. His overconfidence also made him believe that he could do a trade with the Marines despite having betrayed them already, which once again proved his mistake. Since having acquired two Devil Fruit powers, he has developed a severe superiority complex, believing himself to be truly invincible and the strongest of them all, while revealing his goal of world domination. Despite his arrogance, Blackbeard does show a sense of caution, as he refused to fight Shanks and his crew, as well as Admiral Akainu when he was aboard the Marine battleship that they wanted.

Blackbeard is a very patient and careful pirate, as stated by Shanks. Unlike other powerful pirates, he never gained renown and remained concealed, and only makes his moves when he sees an opportunity for power.

## Powers and Abilities

**Dark-Dark Fruit**: A Logia type Devil Fruit, this fruit allows the user to control gravity (can use this ability to irresistibly pull the opponent to them, regardless in what state they're in), nullify Devil Fruit abilities by simply touching an opponent and absorb physical matter, energy as well as attacks of any type by sucking it into darkness. It can also absorb the abilities of at least one other Devil Fruit for personal use. It is not known whether more can be obtained in this manner.

* **Black Hole**: Blackbeard creates a curtain of darkness that can spread over a large area and suck everything into another dimension, crushing it.
* **Liberation**: After using Black Hole, Blackbeard expels all of the matter he sucked in, usually reduced to debris.
* **Black Vortex**: Blackbeard creates a gravitational pull to suck an enemy towards him (usually so he can use his Devil Fruit canceling abilities on them).

**Tremor-Tremor Fruit**: A Paramecia type Devil Fruit that turns the user into a **Quake Human**, allowing the user to create vibrations (or "quakes"). This fruit's major strength is that it allows the user to generate massive vibrations, or shock waves, which can travel though virtually any medium, including the ground, the seafloor, or even in the air.

* **Kaishin** (*Seaquake*): Blackbeard swings one of his arms (or both) and literally cracks the air itself, sending devastating shock waves through the air in the direction it is facing. These shock waves are able to pass through and damage almost any substance, literally tearing it apart. The shock waves can also be sent into the sea, generating huge tsunamis, and can be used in conjunction with physical attacks in close-quarter-combat.
* **Kabutowari** (*Halberd Rakshasa*): Blackbeard focuses his great power into a small, spherical area, otherwise known as a hypocenter, to perform a concentrated, explosion-like attack with his fist.
* **Shima Yurashi** (*Island Shaking*): Blackbeard grabs the air around him as if it were tangible and pulls it, causing the area around him to shift. Using this, he was capable of tilting the entire island of Marineford and the sea around it.

**Expert Hand-to-Hand Combatant**:

**Keen Intellect**:

* **Master Manipulator**: Blackbeard has shown himself to be an expert planner and a master at orchestrating manipulative schemes provided he has a sufficiently advanced period of time to prepare: he waited two decades aboard the "Moby Dick" with the Whitebeard Pirates and even integrated with the crew dynamic, solely to increase his opportunities of obtaining the Dark-Fark Fruit (he also collected his original crew members during this timeline, indicating great charisma and leadership skills even as a regular crew mate). He also went for the capture of Monkey D. Luffy in order to guarantee an offer for the vacant position of the Shichibukai by the World Government, which in turn was simply sought for the free access across the Gates of Justice into the notorious Impel Down to recruit powerful "Level Six" prisoners to strengthen his crew.

**Immense Strength**: Blackbeard also possesses incredible physical strength which is demonstrated when he seriously injures both Luffy and Ace in just one hit, sending them both crashing back with incredible force and distance. In the anime, he was shown to be able to knock back and injure Whitebeard with a few punches

**Supernatural Endurance**: Blackbeard has an immense amount of endurance, as demonstrated when he took a point-blank quake bubble attack from Whitebeard, and while being pinned to the ground by the former's feet on his hands, to his head and neck without losing consciousness, especially since his Devil Fruit causes him to receive even more damage. Prior to the above he took a hit from Whitebeard (albeit an indirect hit) from a quake bubble attack and was more annoyed than actually injured anyway. He has also taken a direct slash from Whitebeard's bisento without suffering any lasting damage and was able to shrug off a kick to his head from Supernova Jewelry Bonney.

**Immense Durability**: Blackbeard has a high amount of physical durability. During his fight with Ace, he was pierced in the chest by two fire spears, but after putting out the flames, he was able to shake off the impact of the attack. Another indication of his sheer endurance is that he took a point-blank Gear Second attack from an enraged Luffy, and was hit by Sengoku in his Buddha form only to come out with minor injuries both times.

## Weaknesses

* Blackbeard cannot swim and becomes immobilized if more than half of his body is covered in water.
* He is overconfident in his abilities and inclined to underestimate opponents.
* The Dark-Dark Fruit does not give him access to an elemental state where he can disperse, reform and regenerate, his gravity powers has the perpetual consequence that things such as his opponents attacks are attracted to him, which increases the power of the attacks and consequently the damage he takes from them.

## Relationships

### Friends/Allies

* Blackbeard Pirates