Henry Peter Gyrich - Fictional Character Biography

Fictional Character Biography

When Henry Peter Gyrich first appears, he is the first person to be given the title of U.S. Government Liaison to the Avengers by the National Security Agency later by the National Security Council. With his status, Gyrich is one of only two people (the second being the President of the United States) who could affect the Avengers in many difficult ways. During his tenure with the Avengers, Gyrich revokes their priority status after taking issue with the team. The Avengers have to accept Gyrich's "suggestions" or have their Quinjets and other sensitive equipment taken away. He limits the Avengers’ active membership to seven members, forces the Falcon to join against his will to fill an affirmative action quota he sets and installs various security measures for the team.

Gyrich oversees the Avengers' activities for the next several months without incident, until he forbids them to go on a mission to help Quicksilver. The next incident involves a security leak. Gyrich takes part in a Senate investigation involving the Avengers which claims they are threats to national security. When the investigation ends, the Senate committee gives the Avengers new guidelines to follow; they also name Raymond Sikorski as his successor.

Writer Peter David has indicated that Shooter based Gyrich on himself. David attempted to humanize him by giving him some backstory in The Incredible Hulk (vol. 2) #456 (August 1997), which touched upon Gyrich's family life. After Betty Banner criticizes Gyrich for appearing callous and unfeeling when she mentions the pain of her father dying in her arms, Gyrich cuts her off, saying "My father died of Alzheimer's, lady. I took a year’s leave to care for him so he wouldn’t be watched over by strangers that my crummy salary couldn’t even afford. I cleaned up after him, tended to him, and his last words as I cradled his dying body were, 'Who in heck are you?'". As a result, it is revealed in Avengers: The Initiative that Gyrich’s greatest fear is contracting the same disease that killed his father. After a confrontation with Iron Man, Gyrich is apparently fired from his Initiative position, as he later makes a statement claiming at a press conference that he had decided to "retire" to spend time with his family. When a reporter points out that Gyrich has no living family, he declines to elaborate.

Prior to his involvement with the Avengers, Gyrich was NSA Liaison to Canada's Department H. While there, he met and had repeated issues with their chief agent, Wolverine.

Gyrich becomes a member of the Commission on Superhuman Activities, the oversight body on superhuman activities in the United States; there he is part of the team that forces Captain America to resign. Gyrich also takes part in Project Wideawake as a special consultant. This project is a covert government commission designed to deal with the problems concerning mutants in the United States. The project is instrumental in creating a team of mutants to counter the threat of foreign mutants. This team is called Freedom Force.

Gyrich is later involved in war efforts against the alien Dire Wraiths. This time, he works alongside Forge, a mutant who works as a weapons maker for the U.S. government and S.H.I.E.L.D. Gyrich takes Forge's specially designed superhuman power-neutralizing gun to capture the mutant Rogue because she had broken into a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility. In an encounter with Rogue, Storm, and government forces, Gyrich accidentally shoots Storm. This specialized weapon strips Storm of her powers and abilities as a mutant, although she regains them some time later. Gyrich continues attempting to use Forge’s own version of the Spaceknight Rom’s Neutralizer, planning to use an orbital version to wipe out all superpowers on Earth. Rom and Forge stop him, however, and he can only watch, tied up, as Rom banishes the home world of the Dire Wraith, Wraithworld, instead of destroying all the heroes and villains. Gyrich is also involved in hunting the Hulk after the events of Onslaught.

Gyrich is a key player in Bastion’s Operation: Zero Tolerance. He is a faithful believer in the operation until he himself becomes a target of Prime Sentinels. After being rescued by Spider-Man, Marrow, and Callisto, Gyrich demands the operation be shut down.

He is promoted to succeed Valerie Cooper as the head of the Commission on Superhuman Activities. While there, Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker secretly places Gyrich under the control of nanites. Gyrich uses Commission resources and remolds the vigilante Nomad into the assassin Scourge and attempts to live out his “fantasy” of killing all the world’s superhumans, before being stopped by the Thunderbolts.

Following that incident, he is reassigned to the U.S. State Department and is made the liaison for Black Panther as well as the Avengers’ new liaison (this time, by Captain America’s suggestion) to the United Nations. During this time, he redeems himself in the eyes of the team when he refuses to deliver information on the Avengers to the Secretary of Defense, Dell Rusk (secretly the Red Skull). He never breaks, even under severe torture, which impresses the others. Gyrich is a faithful liaison officer to the Avengers. Gyrich’s job comes to an end after the United Nations ends their relationship with the Avengers.

Following the Civil War storyline, Gyrich is the Secretary of the Superhuman Armed Forces. His base of operations is Camp Hammond, the superhuman training facility in Stamford, Connecticut. It is under his orders that the Gauntlet is drafted as the camp’s Drill Instructor. This comes after Gauntlet saves him from a HYDRA attack in Iraq. Gyrich gives orders to cover up the death of MVP. He makes arrangements to provide a special tutor to Trauma through his old friend Hank McCoy. The tutor is revealed to be depowered mutant Dani Moonstar. They do not get along well and Gyrich fires her for training Trauma to use his powers to help people with debilitating phobias instead of using them as a weapon. After the KIA debacle, Gyrich was removed from the Initiative program completely by Iron Man after a heated argument between the two in which Gyrich throws out the line "I don't have Captain America's blood on MY hands!" during the inquiry into why the KIA disaster happened in the first place. At a press conference at the end of the issue, Gyrich claims he is retiring, and walks off.

Henry Gyrich becomes the main antagonist for Kieron Gillen and Steven Sander's new ongoing series, S.W.O.R.D. He joins the Sentient World Observation and Response Department, under Norman Osborn's orders and becomes the co-leader alongside Abigail Brand.

In the first volume, Henry Gyrich manages to kidnap several notable aliens including Noh-Varr, Adam X, Jazinda, Karolina Dean, and Hepzibah, all in his desire to send aliens home. He also arrests both Brand and Lockheed. Gyrich survives an alien takeover of the installation simply by being too dosed on intruder-neutralization gas to be much of a threat. Brand, with the assistance of several super-powered beings, takes back her job and blackmails Gyrich into leaving S.W.O.R.D. alone.