Marshall D. Teach commonly referred to as Blackbeard, is the captain of the Blackbeard Pirates[1] and one of the Yonko who rule over the second half of the Grand Line, the New World. He was once a member of the Whitebeard Pirates' second division[4] until he murdered Fourth Division commander, Thatch for the Yami Yami no Mi, and defected from the crew. He briefly held the position of Shichibukai after handing Ace over to the Marines before resigning upon returning from Impel Down with prisoners from Level Six.
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, curly black hair falls down the back of his neck, underneath a black 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.
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.
Luffy Meets Blackbeard
Teach and Luffy bickering during their first meeting in Mock Town.
Blackbeard's personality seems to be a strange mix of courage and cowardice, intellectual 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.
Relationship:In contrast to his obvious malevolent nature, Blackbeard has shown respect and leadership for his own crew, such as when he told them to stay away from Ace. He has even taken an attack meant for them, despite his Devil's Fruit's weakness of increasing incoming damage. However in true to his way of letting fate decide things, he will allow his crew to get in the way with his Devil Fruit powers. Of particular note when he first gained the powers of the Gura Gura no Mi his efforts put their own lives at risk. They however are more than satisfied with things this way since all of them seem to believe in fate in some shape or form.
After the war, when they had the time to settle down, however, it was implied that Blackbeard receives a fair amount of disrespect from his crew from time to time, especially from the new recruits, but he seems to get over it all, though he did get rather snappish at Wolf for whining so much. He was also willing to perform a trade with the Marines for the sake of one of his crewmates, despite making enemies from the naval forces due to his actions.
Abilities and Power:Blackbeard has become the first and, so far, only user to wield the powers of two Devil Fruits at the same time. Through unknown means, he acquired the extremely destructive powers of the Gura Gura no Mi from the dead body of Whitebeard and is now able to create earthquakes like his old captain. Marco speculated that this was possible due to an unstated peculiarity unique to Blackbeard himself, having to do with an "atypical body structure" of some sort. He also pointed out that the other Whitebeard Pirates should be aware of this fact.Teach also appears to be knowledgeable enough to know how to use the Gura Gura no Mi powers straight away after extracting it.
With the power of darkness (Yami Yami no Mi), which "reduces anything to nothingness", and the power of quakes (Gura Gura no Mi), which "brings destruction to all", Blackbeard claims himself to be truly invincible and the strongest of them all. During the two years, the Blackbeard Pirates went on to hunt down powerful Devil Fruit users to kill them and absorb their abilities, thus Teach (and possibly his comrades) has likely added more abilities to his arsenal.
Yami Yami no MiBlackbeard has eaten the Logia-class Devil Fruit Yami Yami no Mi. With it, he can 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. Due to the Yami Yami no Mi's gravitational ability, Blackbeard, unlike every other Logia user, cannot 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.
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 Yami Yami no Mi 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 "Kurouzu", 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.
Gura Gura no MiWith the newly acquired powers of the Gura Gura no Mi, which is said to be the strongest Paramecia-class Devil Fruit, Blackbeard can create shock waves by shattering the air itself, creating devastating earthquakes that can destroy the Marineford main building itself. He can also focus his quake powers into a "quake bubble" on his fist, greatly increasing the damage in a single punch. He acquired this fruit after wrapping a black tarp over himself and Whitebeard. The process of how he got it is still unknown, though it can be assumed that he used the power of the Yami Yami no Mi in some way to acquire this power.
Teach acknowledged that he still does not have full control of his new destructive power though, so he does not have as much skill as Whitebeard with the abilities involved. This was, perhaps, first demonstrated when he chose not to directly confront Akainu, despite having two Devil Fruit powers at his disposal, whereas Whitebeard himself confronted the admiral directly. This strongly insinuates a difference between the skills of both Blackbeard and Whitebeard at wielding the fruit's powers initially.
However, it should be mentioned that Blackbeard, who has a much more careless and vicious personality than Whitebeard, can be considered as a far greater threat to the world than Whitebeard himself. A perfect example of this is when Marshall D. Teach was creating random earthquakes to test his acquired power in Marineford. He also sent a giant tsunami towards Sabaody Archipelago without even realizing it.
Haki:On Jaya, he first hinted at his use of Haki to measure Luffy's Haki. He used it again in a similiar cirumstance to measure the growth of Luffy's Haki during the Impel Down Arc, stating that Luffy's Haki had grown since they had last met.
When the Whitebeard Pirates started protecting Fishman Island, he is seen with metal claws on his left hand. Seeing their shape, he most likely used them to give Shanks his three scars.
He was seen using a flintlock pistol when dealing the deathblow to Whitebeard along with the other Blackbeard Pirates, and also has three pistols tied in his sash. His accuracy with them is not completely shown, as he was only seen emptying his ammunition into Whitebeard at point-blank rang.
Rise in Power: Sometime during the two-year timeskip, Blackbeard used his knowledge of Whitebeard's former territory to conquer it and become one of the Yonko. The Blackbeard Pirates are currently in the process of hunting down powerful Devil Fruit users in order to absorb their abilities.
Dressrosa ArcDuring the tournament for the Mera Mera no Mi at Dressrosa, Teach was heard discussing the possibility of recruiting Kuzan to join their crew with Jesus Burgess via Den Den Mushi, to which Burgess asserted that the former admiral could not be trusted. When Burgess announced that Luffy had arrived, Blackbeard greeted the young pirate and voiced surprise that he was a combatant as well. Knowing why Luffy entered the tournament, Teach assured him that Burgess would be the combatant to obtain the devil fruit and that it would be the same as having Ace join his crew since the latter rejected his previous offer. Luffy then angrily stated that he would never allow him to steal Ace's power .
