Marshall D. Teach

Marshall D. Teach (マーシャル・D・ティーチ, Māsharu D. Tīchi), commonly referred to as Blackbeard (黒ひげ, Kurohige), is the captain of the Blackbeard Pirates. He was formerly a member of the Whitebeard Pirates' 2nd division led by Portgas D. Ace, up until he killed 4th division commander Thatch for the Dark-Dark Fruit, and defected from the crew. He also briefly held the position of a Warlord after handing Ace over to the Marines, but has since forfeited the title. He is one of the series' main antagonists.

Appearance

 * Voice Actor: Not Known (English), Akio Ōtsuka (Japanese)

Blackbeard is a middle-aged looking man with a massive build and a big mouth with several broken or missing teeth, a pronounced crooked nose and a very large and hairy chest and torso. Long, thick, curly black hair falls down the back of his neck, underneath a blue bandanna, and a long scruffy black beard (hence his epithet) grows around his jawline. He's extremely tall, at 344 cm. (11'2") in height, being exactly twice of Luffy's. His age is 38, and birthday is August 3rd.

Blackbeard wears an open buttoned red shirt with rolled up sleeves, a large yellow, black and gold captain's coat on his shoulders, pair of necklaces of red as well as golden-yellow and blue beads to his dark orange sash and a traditional black tricorne hat over his grey bandana. He also has three flintlocks and a flask tied to his dark yellow sash around his waist.

Personality
Japanese version, most characters are given a distinct laugh. Blackbeard follows this tradition by starting his laughs with "Ze" (i.e Zehahahahahaha!).

Blackbeard's personality seems to be contrasts of courage, strategy, in-consequence, cunning, stupidity and somewhat insane. While at times his character looks strong and fearsome, in others he will seem weak and ridiculous. He is apparently very deceptive, joining the Warlords in an elaborate 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 doesn't need it anymore. He is also exceedingly power-hungry and greedy, aiming to become the next King of the Pirates. 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 survives. Though he betrayed the Whitebeard Pirates, Teech takes comradeship with the crew he formed to a high level, made evident when he was willing to make a trade with the Navy for a battleship big enough to hold all of them comfortably for the sake of one crew member, San Juan 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 let fate decide things.

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 he also shares with others who carry either Will of D., including having a voracious appetite, carefree attitude, competitive and reckless nature, persevering no matter what happens, and huge ambitions to follow his dream of finding One Piece and become the new King of the Pirates.

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. He is also patient and conniving, having spent traveling around the seas with the Roger Pirates just to get his hands on the Devil Fruit he wanted, before killing the original 2nd divison commander of the Whitebeard Pirates. His nihilistic tendencies are in line with the power of the Devil 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 has developed a severe superiority complex, believing himself to be truly invincible and the strongest of them all. Despite this, he still displayed respect for others during the events, referring to Ace as commander (as a Whitebeard pirate), and said that he aspired to be like Whitebeard. He showed his ruthlessness when he killed Thatch.

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 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 Shiryu 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. Despite his arrogance, Blackbeard does show a sense of caution, as Admiral Akainu when he was aboard the Marine battleship that they wanted.

Friends/Allies

 * Blackbeard Pirates

Neutral

 * Crocodile

Rivals

 * Edward Newgate

Enemies

 * Gol D. Roger
 * Whitebeard Pirates
 * Ward Newgate
 * Portgas D. Ace
 * Straw Hat Pirates
 * Monkey D. Luffy
 * Jimbei
 * Impel Down
 * Magellan
 * Marines

Abilities and Powers
At some point in his life, of his betrayal, Teech once fought Tiger and Shanks and gave them the scars on Shanks' left eye, although the Four Emperors' strength at the time is unknown.

One of the more impressive feats he has committed was defeating two commanders of the Whitebeard Pirates; Portgas D. Ace and Thatch, when few other people would even dare touch a member of the Whitebeard Pirates for fear of incurring their captain's wrath. Ace also stated that Blackbeard could have been a commander when he was recommended for the position, indicating that his strength was on par with any of the other commanders, which is notable, as he had not yet eaten a Devil Fruit.

He has shown to be knowledgeable of Haki as demonstrated in Impel Down when Luffy angrily attacked him, commenting on how his spirit has improved. As of yet, it is unknown if he can use any of the three kinds of Haki.

However, Blackbeard has a ridiculous habit of conversing with his opponents, letting his guard down in the process, a flaw he has demonstrated in his fights against Whitebeard, Luffy, Ace, and Magellan. This usually results him in suffering some critical injuries; in fact, if not for Shiryu's help, Teach's entire crew would have died from Magellan's poison.

Physical Prowess
Teach has an incredible endurance, as demonstrated when he took a point-blank quake bubble attack from Whitebeard, to his head and neck without losing consciousness. 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 one of Whitebeard's allies, Jewelry Bonney. During his fight with Ace at Thriller Bark, he was pierced in the chest by two fire spears, but after putting out the flames, was he 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 angry Luffy and was hit by Sengoku in his Daibutsu form and came out with only minor injuries both times. Teach also possesses an 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.

Weapons
He has three pistols tied in his sash. His accuracy with them is not completely shown.

When he was a member of the Whitebeard Pirates, he is seen with metal claws on both of his hands. Seeing their shape, he most likely used them to give Shanks his scars.

Cursed Fruit
Blackbeard has eaten the Logia-class Devil Fruit: Dark-Dark Fruit. With it he can control, become the element of darkness and manipulate gravity, shown as an ebbing shroud of darkness. Teach 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.

Blackbeard even shows he holds even greater 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 Teech to physically hit Ace, whose body was composed of intangible flames, and injure Luffy, whose body was made of rubber. estates 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. Another disadventage is while using his "absorbtion" or gravitational abilities, he becomes temporarily unable to disperse 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.