Creation
Henry Gyrich was created by Jim Shooter and John Byrne and first appeared in The Avengers #165.
Character Evolution
Henry Gyrich was first seen with the Avengers, a government agent assigned to keep the them under wrap. He had a policy of no more than six people on the team at once, leading to Hawkeye‘s replacement temporarily with the Falcon. Gyrich since went on to be a thorn in the backside of more than just the Avengers and started targeting mutants. After running for presidency, being brainwashed into being an assassin, trying to depower all of Earth’s super humans, he eventually came to oversee The Initiative where he developed a personal team of superhuman bodyguards known as the Shadow Initiative. After it was discovered he had covered up the death of MVP and had illegally duplicated him, he was fired. However he soon became head of SWORD and tried to rid Earth of all aliens. He was later brainwashed by the Queen Hydra and used to work against America. He brainwashed Demolition Man into becoming the new Scourge and had him kill supervillains in witness protection.
Alternate Earths
Earth-295 (Age of Apocalypse)
Gyrich, a human terrorist, infiltrated Angel‘s nightclub Heaven with explosives strapped to his chest. He was about to set off the bombs with the purpose of killing all the mutants within the club, but was stopped by Elite Mutant Force members Jesse and Terrence Bedlam. He was arrested and sent to prison. Under unknown circumstances he was liberated and continued to fight alongside the Human Resistance, helping to train Horror Show and Jean Grey.
IN OTHER MEDIA
X-Men: The Animated Series
Gyrich was a recurring villain for most of season 1. Voiced by Barry Flatman.
He oversaw the production of Sentinels, and was in charge of the Mutant Control Agency/Mutant Registration Program. Because of this, he was indirectly responsible for the “death” of Morph in the first episode.
Due to the X-Men breaking into the agency and all the public backlash from the program since it started, the President orders Gyrich to shut down the Agency/program as well as his Sentinel project. She also questions Gyrich as to why mutants felt it was important to take the risk of breaking into a government installation in order to sabotage the registration database when it was supposed to be for their benefit? He successfully evades telling the truth, but still leaves in outrage over the President apparently taking the side of freaks.
In the season 1 finale, he and Bolivar Trask implement their plans to have Senator Kelly promise them full endorsement for their Sentinel program when he becomes President, but Master Mold takes complete control and decides to have Sentinels run the entire world in order to have peace.
Gyrich and Trask demand that Master Mold return to his original programming of protecting humanity from mutants, but Master Mold blows their minds by pointing out the basic fact, “Mutants are humans.” Therefore, humanity must be protected from itself by having Sentinels run everything.
The X-Men and Magneto are able to defeat Master Mold, destroy the Sentinel factory, and rescue Gyrich, Kelly, and Trask.
Gyrich appears only two more times for the rest of the series, including the series finale.
In the final episode, “Graduation Day“, Gyrich severely wounds Professor Xavier and exposes his mutant powers to the public during a important debate. As the police take him away, he screams that anyone who defends mutants is a mutant!
Weird thing about this episode is that even though the character is addressed as Gyrich, His appearance and volatile behavior is far closer to Graydon Creed, even sounding more like Creed’s voice actor, John Stocker.