Character history[]
Donald Pierce and the Hellfire Club[]
The first of the future Reavers to encounter any of the X-Men was Donald Pierce, when he was the White Bishop of the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club, who bears bionic arms and legs. Once, when Wolverine broke into the Club's Manhattan mansion, he severed Pierce's cybernetic arm from the rest of his body. Months later, Pierce rebelled against the rest of the Inner Circle, which was dominated by mutants led by Black King Sebastian Shaw. Pierce abducted Shaw's aide Tessa and held her and Professor Charles Xavier captive to siphon off their powers into himself. However, Pierce was thwarted by Xavier and his new team, the New Mutants. Tessa regained her freedom, and Pierce was expelled from membership in the Inner Circle.
Three other future members of the Reavers, Cole, Macon, and Reese, were formerly mercenaries employed by the Inner Circle. On the same night that the X-Men first met Pierce, Wolverine was lost into the New York Sewers by Leland's mass-increasing power. When he reentered the club through a sub-basement entrance, he encountered a squad of Hellfire Club mercenaries who had been sent to find and kill him. Wolverine lashed out at three of them with his adamantium claws, leaving the three of them severely wounded; the Inner Circle then had the three men converted into cyborgs.
Cole, Macon, and Reese took Wolverine prisoner when the Inner Circle attacked the X-Men's Westchester County headquarters months later, but Wolverine overcame the three men once more. They were seen again working directly for Donald Pierce when he rebelled against the rest of the Hellfire Club and was defeated by Xaver and the New Mutants. Following this, they went underground for a while. Lady Deathstrike had herself transformed into a cyborg by the other-dimensional being called Spiral, in an attempt to gain the means to kill Wolverine, as adamantium had been bonded to his bones in a process stolen from her father, Lord Dark Wind. She then led Cole, Macon, and Reese in an unsuccessful attempt to slay Wolverine in Manhattan. Wolverine was assisted in his escapes by the young Katie Power.
Ghost town[]
Meanwhile, a group of cyborg thieves calling themselves the Reavers had been operating out of a base in Australia, in an underground complex beneath the town of Cooterman's Creek in North Central Australia. The Reavers acted as a commando-style team of thieves, with apparently dozens of members. Their base was a ghost town which was inexplicably equipped with advanced computers and a sub-basement and tunnel system. The Reavers coerced the mutant teleporter Gateway to teleport them from Australia to locations around the world to conduct their violent robberies. In one such instance, Bonebreaker led the Reavers in a robbery of Hoan International Bank in Singapore, and abducted and brainwashed Jessan Hoan. Informed of the Reavers' existence by Roma, the X-Men defeated the Reavers in battle and expelled them from their Australian base, which they then co-opted for their own use. The X-Men destroyed some of the Reavers and forced most of the rest to enter the mystical Siege Perilous to meet unrevealed fates. However, three Reavers (Pretty Boy, Skullbuster, and Bonebreaker) escaped. The Reavers were then reassembled under the leadership of Donald Pierce, who reorganized the team as an assassination squadron to undertake para-military style commando operations, and dedicated to taking vengeance on the X-Men in particular and eliminating superhuman mutants in general. Pierce combined the three survivors of the original Reavers with Lady Deathstrike and the three former Hellfire Club mercenaries into a formidable team. While the X-Men, whose numbers had dwindled, were away from their Australian base, the Reavers retook the ghost town. When Wolverine returned from a leave of absence in Madripoor to find the X-Men gone, he was taken by surprise, captured, tortured and crucified by the Reavers. Meanwhile, Psylocke who had a premonition (her sporadic powers of precognition combining with Gateway's Aboriginal "dreamtime") of danger waiting in the ghost town, took drastic action to escape when the X-Men were teleported back to the ghost town. Through telepathic mind control, she forced the remaining X-Men (herself included) to travel through the Siege Perilous, barely escaping the approaching Reavers and mystically rebirthing the X-Men elsewhere with no memory of their real lives. Wolverine later escapes the Reavers only with the aid of Jubilee. The Reavers then attacked the Muir Island Mutant Research Center, theorizing that it was Wolverine's most likely destination. They fought Freedom Force and Moira MacTaggert's alternate X-Men team, and killed Stonewall and Sunder. During the assault on Muir Island, Skullbuster was rendered inoperative by sniper fire from Forge. Donald Pierce rescued a gravely wounded pilot named Cylla Markham, who agreed to be converted into a cyborg. Around this time, three Reavers, 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 Micro enough time to evacuate and set up resistance. One of the Reavers' biggest obstacles is a device designed by Micro, nicknamed Dalek. Its telescoping guns and multi-directional fire become very difficult to overcome. Even though, Punisher and Microchip barely survive. The Dalek and the warehouse are destroyed and the two escape through the sewer. The Reavers face off against the Punisher again, this time he is wearing a Robotic Exoskeleton he receives from Microchip's cousin. In the firefight, the Reavers kill Microchip's cousin along with damaging the Exoskeleton. In the end, the Punisher escapes and blows up the Exoskeleton with the Reavers on top of it. The explosion causes heavy damage to the three Reavers (particularly Bonebreaker, whose cyborg lower half was demolished), who then retreat, beaten. The Reavers then successfully attacked Emma Frost's company, Frost Technotics. They soon captured Rogue, who had returned from inside the Siege Perilous, although Rogue was then rescued by a recreation of Ms. Marvel. Donald Pierce successfully transformed Cylla Markham into the new Skullbuster (although she usually just went by the name Cylla). Lady Deathstrike later sought Wolverine in Madripoor and Vancouver. Pierce created an android named Elsie Dee and a Wolverine android double named "Albert" to kill Wolverine. The attempted failed, however, when Elsie Dee rebelled 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 found 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 was "killed". Cylla later resurfaces, allying herself with Bloodscream in an attempt to murder Wolverine. However, Bloodscream betrayed her and sucked 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. This includes Elixir, who at the time was unaware that he was a mutant. They are defeated by a de-facto new version of the New Mutants. Pierce himself has the skin decayed from his body by Wither. He is turned over to the police. Pierce had injured Wallflower during the battle. Elixir saves her, when his former comrades learn of this, they give him a beating and kick him out of the organization. The group later breaks Pierce out of prison and makes another attempt on Elixir's life, but they are defeated by the surviving core members of the original New Mutants team.
Messiah Complex[]
The Reavers returned to play a role in the current 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 revealled 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.
Members[]
First Team:[]
- Bonebreaker
- Skullbuster
- Pretty Boy
- Various unnamed other members (deceased)
Second Team:[]
- Donald Pierce (leader)
- Lady Deathstrike
- Cole (deceased)
- Macon (deceased)
- Reese (deceased)
- Bonebreaker (arrested)
- Skullbuster
- 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)