Bolivar Trask

Creator of the Sentinels, machines that hunt mutants.

History

Bolivar Trask was an anthropologist who saw the rise of mutants as a threat to humanity. Bolivar was also the father of Larry Trask, who ironically is revealed to be a mutant precognitive. Bolivar had realized this, and given his son a medallion which suppresses his power. Bolivar's other child, Tanya, was also a mutant and her ability to travel through time causes her to vanish. Tanya would be rescued by Rachel Summers in a far future and become a part of the Askani under the alias Madame Sanctity. Tanya's travels through time would result in property damage to Trask's land. This mysterious situation would only further cement his attitudes.

Bolivar decides that humanity has to fight back against the mutants and develops robotic guardians for humanity, known as the Sentinels. His son Larry was protected from the Sentinels' ability to detect mutants due to the medallion Bolivar had given him. Bolivar publishes articles on the threat of mutants. One of these articles showed an illustration of mutant overlords keeping humans as slaves. This illustration would become a symbol for human/mutant relations and several years later Quentin Quire and his Omega Gang would base their appearance on this picture.

Professor Charles Xavier invites Trask for a public debate on human/mutant relations. Xavier's arguments that mutants were just like humans and not evil did not convince Trask and he reveals the Sentinels. Trask and his scientists had apparently created an adaptive, open-ended tactical/strategic programming. Trask was not a very skilled programmer though and the Sentinels turn against him, claiming that they were superior to humans. The Sentinels left with Trask and brought him to his first creation, the Master Mold, who orders him to construct more Sentinels.

To stop the Sentinels, Xavier summons his X-Men. The X-Men fight the Sentinels, but Beastis captured. To reveal the X-Men's secrets, the Sentinels tell Trask to use a device to read Beast's mind. Trask discovers that the X-Men were mutants protecting humanity and realizes that he had been wrong. He helps the X-Men defeat the Sentinels by sacrificing himself to destroy the Sentinel's base.

Bolivar's death would not be the end of the Sentinels though; Master Mold would return and Bolivar's son, Larry, still unaware of his own mutant status, would follow in his father's footsteps and create new Sentinels to avenge his father.

Later, a relative of Bolivar, Donald Trask, would be recruited by the villainCassandra Nova to gain control of a group of Sentinels in. The machines, now varying in size, will not harm Trask DNA. They obey Donald's orders. However, once Nova is done copying all of Donald's DNA, she kills him and takes over the robots.

Recently in X-Force, Bastion who has been reactivated by the Purifiers has apparently resurrected Bolivar Trask through use of a Technarch to be part of a team of the world's foremost mutant killers.

Alternate Versions

Age of Apocalypse (Earth-295)

In this reality, Bolivar is married to Moira MacTaggert. Together they developed the Senitnel robots, whose role is to protect the humans.

House of M (Earth-58163)

In this reality, Bolivar is the Vice President of the USA who created the Sentinel robots to fight Magneto in a political power struggle.

Ultimate Universe (Earth-1610)

In this reality, Bolivar is named the head of the "Sentinel Initiative", in response to Magneto's attack on Washington. The Sentinel's programing gives them instruction in killing any human with the mutant gene inside them. When the Savage Land was discovered, Bolivar was ordered by the President to attack it, but Magneto easily reprogrammed the robots into attacking humans and began in Washington again. After that the Sentinel Initiative was shut down.
Later on, a Mark II version of the Sentinels were produced. These were SHIELD agents in body armor that was similar to that of the sentinels, brandishing machine guns. 
Even later, the Sentinel program was restarted privately by the Fenris twins, using Bolivar Trask to advance them and give the designs to them. When the X-men defeated the Fenris Twins adn their new ally, Strye, Trask told them that a fail-safe had been activated, and he could not stop the fleet of Sentinels. Trask promised to try and find a way, because he has realized that his hatred towards mutants was unfounded. and wrong. The X-men left to go stop them, leaving Angel behind to make sure Trask kept his word. Trask succeeded, but only by overloading the generators in the factory. He told Angel to get out of the building, but Angel grabbed him too. Trask stuggled against Angel, wanting to die for what he had done. Angel lost his grip, and Trask fell into the explosion, and to his death.

Strangely enough, Bolivar Trask is also the name of a man who Peter Parker and Eddie Brock's fathers worked for. He stole the idea of "the Suit" from them for military applications, rather than the cancer-curing ones that the two scientists had wanted. Years after they die in a plane crash, which Eddie and Peter have suspicions was caused by Trask, he kidnaps Eddie and tries to steal the Suit from him. Eddie escapes from his labs after the Beetle breaks him free. This is probably not the same man who developed the Sentinels, seeing as he has a different appearance and personality and is alive after the first Trask died.
Other Media

Wolverine and the X-Men

Wolverine and the X-Men

As Senator Kelly treated the mutants as a danger to humanity, Bolivar created the Project Sentinel which aims to terminate unregistered mutants. The first mutant to be detected by these robots was Rogue who was later saved by her co-X-Men members. Senator Kelly was then abducted by Quicksilver and was brought to Genosha. This scenario gave the chance for Mystique to take over Kelly's position while she is under disguise. She told Trask to create a set of Sentinels to fight the mutants. Trask created 15 but Mystique asked for more and wanted to cause war between the humans and the mutants.