Marshall D. Teach

**Marshall D. Teach** (マーシャル・D・ティーチ, *Māsharu D. Tīchi*), also better known by his moniker as "**Blackbeard**" (黒ひげ, *Kurohige*), is both a fictional character and antagonist of the *One Piece* series created by Eiichiro Oda. He is the admiral and captain of the Blackbeard Pirates and a member of the Four Emperors. He first started out his pirate career as a member of the Whitebeard Pirates' 2nd division, until he killed the 4th division commander Thatch, before defecting and starting out his own pirate career, for the Devil Fruit he has sought for several decades.

With the Logia-type **Dark-Dark Fruit** (ヤミヤミの実, *Yami Yami no Mi*; literally meaning "Fruit of the Darkness-Darkness"), Teach is granted him the ability to manipulating, creating, and transforming into flowing darkness and its black holes, and manipulating gravity, as well as the ability to disable the Devil Fruit powers of others, as long as he is touching the person.

For betraying Whitebeard's crew, and the murder of his fellow crewmate, he is pursued by Ace who eventually confronts him. After defeating Ace and turning him in to the World Government Marines, he was briefly appointed Crocodile's replacement as one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, a position he promptly abuses to expand and strengthen his crew with prisoners from Impel Down's Level Six and resigns once he is finished.

His actions resulted in him being considered a part of the Worst Generation along with the Eleven Supernovas, and he manages to take Whitebeard's place and received the title of Emperor after slaying Whitebeard with the help of his new crew, during the Battle of Marineford and defeating the Whitebeard Pirates during the timeskip.

"*.*"

—Marshall D. Teach.

## Appearance & Biography

*Voice Actor*: Not Known (English), Akio Ōtsuka (Japanese), Not Known (Albanian), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Basque), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Cantonese), Not Known (Catalan), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (French), Not Known (Galician), Not Known (German), Not Known (Greek), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hong Kong), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Indonesian), Not Known (Isralian), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Mandarin), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Tagalog), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Turkish), Not Known (Valencian), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin Spanish)

### Biography

Captain of the Blackbeard Pirates. Also known as "Blackbeard". Once in the Seven Warlords of the Sea.

He is now one of the Four Emperors.

With the power of the Logia Devil Fruit, "Dark-Dark Fruit", he can create, control, manipulate, and change his body to darkness. He can also use gravity to pull everything to him and into his dark control. He gave Shanks the 3 scars he carries on his left eye.

### Appearance

Blackbeard is an extremely tall man, being exactly twice Luffy's (pre-timeskip) height. He has a massive build as his body is round with relatively thin limbs. He has a big mouth with several broken or missing teeth (though sometimes he does have a full set, which is an inconsistency error made by Oda), 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 black bandana, and a long and scruffy black beard (hence his epithet) grows around his jawline.

At his first appearance in Mock Town, Teach wore an open buttoned red shirt with rolled up sleeves, green trousers with black line patterns, a yellow sash around his waist and classic black swashbuckler boots complete with large bronze buckles. He also has three flintlocks and a flask tied to his sash around his waist.

At some point after that and before coming to Impel Down, he had added a large black and gold captain's coat like a cape over his attire, along with a pair of necklaces of red as well as golden-yellow and blue beads to his sash and a traditional black tricorne hat over his grey bandana.

* Hair Color: Black
* Skin Color: Brown
* Eye Color: Black
* Age: 38 (debut), 40 (after timeskip)
* Birthday: August 3rd
* Height: 344 cm (11'3½")
* Weight: Not Known

## Background

Prior to the two-year timeskip, The Straw Hat Pirates first encounter Blackbeard at Mock Town when he hears that the Sky Islands exist and boasts how the pirate's dreams will never cease. He then tries to capture Luffy for the bounty on his head for his plans, but failed. Later, Blackbeard was made and briefly held the position of one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea after a brutal fight, defeating and capturing Ace, and then handing him over to the Marines, before resigning upon returning from Impel Down with Level Six prisoners.

## Relationships

### Friends/Allies

* Blackbeard Pirates
	+ Jesus Burgess

### Neutral

* Seven Warlords of the Sea
* Crocodile
* Bartholomew Kuma

### Enemies

* Whitebeard Pirates
	+ Whitebeard
	+ Marco
	+ Portgas D. Ace
	+ Jozu
	+ Vista
* Red-Haired Pirates
	+ Shanks
* Bliking Pirates
	+ Wapol
* Straw Hat Pirates
	+ Monkey D. Luffy
	+ Jimbei
* World Government
* Marines
	+ Sengoku
	+ Akainu

## Abilities and Powers

### Devil Fruit

*Main article:* *Dark-Dark Fruit*
The **Dark-Dark Fruit** (ヤミヤミの実, *Yami Yami no Mi*; literally meaning "Fruit of the Darkness-Darkness") the Logia-class Devil Fruit, which was stolen and eaten by Teach, allows him to create, control, become the element of darkness and manipulate gravity, shown as an ebbing shroud of darkness, shown to possess a strong gravitational pull, thus making him a **Darkness Human** (闇人間, *Yami Ningen*). Teach also demonstrates that the "darkness" is a void which devours anything, able to pull in (much in the manner of an actual black hole), and crush his surrounding environment into a pile of rubble. Due to the Dark-Dark Fruit's gravitational ability, Blackbeard does have a certain but strong disadvantage; while using his "absorbtion" or gravitational abilities, he becomes temporarily unable to disperse to non-solid and let attacks simply pass through him, drawing the attacks faster towards himself instead, meaning he takes equivalent or more damage than a normal human would.

However, Blackbeard states that the deficiency 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 the 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 Dark-Dark Fruit truly holds the power of the devil. As such, Blackbeard's style revolves around getting close to his enemy and grabbing them, canceling out any defensive abilities they have, forcing their own natural resilience to take Blackbeard's massive strength.

Blackbeard must, however, physically touch his enemy to cancel out their powers. This puts him at a huge disadvantage against enemies he cannot reach out and grab, even more so when the enemy can hurt him at a distance. However, this weakness can be rectified somewhat by his signature technique "Black Vortex", which utilizes his suction powers to drag his opponents towards him. This technique opens up another weakness since right after he uses it he is left open for an attack at close range.

##### Techniques

The named techniques that are used by Blackbeard that involve the Devil Fruit are as follows:

* **Black Hole** (ブラック･ホール, *Burakku Hōru*): Blackbeard spreads his darkness over a large area and, much like an actual black hole, swallows up anything he chooses. When swallowed, the person or object is subjected to a large amount of gravity and crushed, such as an entire castle and forests of Thriller Bark. This technique was first seen as it was demonstrated in front of Trace.

* **Liberation** (リベレイション, *Ribereishon*): Used following **Black Hole**, Blackbeard expels all of the destroyed remains of what his darkness had swallowed up at once. This is especially good at demonstrating his power. This was first seen being demonstrated before Ace. In the anime, Teach foreshadowed that this attack can possibly be used to launch cannon balls and swords like projectiles.

* **Black Vortex** (くろうず, *Kurōzu*; literally meaning "Dark Water"; phonetically read as "Black Spiral"): Extending one arm towards his opponent, Blackbeard activates the gravity power of his darkness to pull them into his grasp. Blackbeard can then attack them with his massive strength. This move is particularly useful when used in conjunction with the fruit's power-nullifying abilities, since the target could easily avoid it by fighting at a distance from Blackbeard, as Ace attempted. This was first seen being used on Ace in order to grab him. However, this technique has also proven to be a great weakness, as most opponents he draws near him have attacked him while at close range, such as Ace launching two fiery spears into Blackbeard's chest, or Whitebeard slamming his bisento into Blackbeard's shoulder. The name of the attack is also a pun on the English word "close", and it can also mean "black vinegar", a vinegar commonly used in Chinese cooking.

* **Black World** (ブラック･ワールド, *Burakku Wārudo*): Blackbeard covers the area surrounding his opponent in darkness, blocking their vision. This attack was shown and named in *One Piece: Pirate Warriors*.

* **Black Opening** (闇開, *Yamiagari*; literally meaning "Dark Opening"): Similar to a unique combination of **Black Hole** and **Liberation**, Blackbeard draws surrounding enemies into a pool of darkness in front of him before ejecting them, causing heavy damage in the process. The attack first appeared in *One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2*, and is also in *One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3*.

* **Dark Matter** (ダーク・マター, *Dāku Matā*): Blackbeard creates a big ball of darkness and throws it at his opponent. This attack was shown and named in *One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2*, and is also in *One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3*. This attack is very similar to the unnamed one Teach used against Ace's Flame Emperor at the end of their battle.

## External links

* Marshall D. Teach *One Piece Encyclopedia*
* Marshall D. Teach *Koei Wiki*