Bishop

"I'm the man who's going to save all of humanity."

—Bishop to Sara Lance^[src]

Bishop (died 1925; original timeline) (died 1943; new timeline) was the founder of AVA Corporation, designer-creator of the AVA clones, and the person responsible for the kidnapping and cloning of Sara Lance.

In an erased timeline, Bishop had a plan to replace humanity, but his plans were prevented by Sara. Soon after, Bishop cloned into a new body thanks to Kayla and recruited John Constantine to find the Fountain of Imperium. Bishop sent an army of Zagurons to fight the Legends in 1925, but the Zagurons were defeated and Bishop ended up being killed by the children of Mick and Kayla. None of this happened to Bishop in the current timeline since Gideon replaced him in the timeline with a robot.

After Bishop had regained his erased memories and realizing the mistakes that he had made, Bishop sacrifices himself to allow the Legends to escape. He is killed by the soldiers; who are revealed to be robot duplicates of the Legends.

Biography[]

Current timeline[]

Taken out of the timeline[]

At one point, Bishop founded AVA Corporation. A young Bishop began the tests to create a clone, which he named Ava Prime, but was surprised to see that an Ava from the future along with Nate Heywood appeared, who asked for his help. Bishop created a cure to cure the disease of Esperanza Cruz. Bishop stayed in 1925 and attended Sara Lance and Ava's wedding, but it all went wrong when an evil futuristic version of him appeared to free the Zagurons. During the invasion, Bishop hid in Gloria's house. After the battle, Bishop was erased from memory and sent back to his time.^[1]

In 2213, Past Bishop finds a copy of Gideon that he downloaded and retrieves his memories. He remembers his future self's death and the Legends from the alien invasion in 1925. He intends to use Gideon against the Legends.^[2] After, he began work on a Waverider using Gideon's information over it.

Revenge on the Legends[]

After Bishop boarded the Waverider he created, he told Gideon she had the whole ship to herself except the bathroom. When Bishop went to destroy the Legend's Waverider, Gideon advised him not to because it would affect the timeline. Like the Legends started messing up 1925, Bishop and Gideon sent out robots to not mess up the timeline. Bishop gave the robots new tasks to eliminate the Legends making Gideon mad. Bishop realized Gideon made a robot of him, and got angry at her. Bishop escaped from the Waverider, because Gideon tried to force him to kill the Legends.^[3]

Realizing his Faults[]

After crashing the Waverider, the Legends questioned Bishop and learned about the "evil Gideon". To teach Nate Persian etiquette, they used Bishop as the guest by teaching Nate how to serve Bishop tea. Later, to continue teaching Nate, they made food for Bishop. When the ladies arrived, they told the others about the factory and brought a missing part Gwyn needed.

Like Bishop was taking advantage of him, Behrad finally said no to Bishop when he asked for doughnuts. To help, Bishop created a neural navigational system (Which he created using Zari's phone) that Gideon could use to navigate the time machine and showed it to Behrad. They tested it on Gideon. "evil Gideon" arrived with robots so Bishop, and Gideon used the time machine to get to the Legends. In order for the Legends to escape, Bishop sacrificed himself, later being killed by the robots.^[4]

Erased timeline[]

None of these events happened to the current version of Bishop since Gideon created a robot version of him and the Bishop robot lived the events instead.^[3]

Early life[]

At one point, Bishop founded AVA Corporation. After witnessing the destruction of Earth by human greed, Bishop made it his goal to create an alien-human hybrid race that could withstand anything. He hired the Necrian couple Kayla and Gary to abduct aliens for him; so he could collect their DNA for his experiments. Keeping tabs on Earth, he hoped to find the quintessential human to serve as the base for his experiments; finding Sara Lance "unkillable", Bishop had Gary infiltrate the Legends through the Time Bureau.^[5]

He also created a system in which he would create a clone of himself to take his place in case something happened. Through this, he was able to become "immortal". He used this opportunity to modify his own body to resist pain and more.^[6] Bishop has cloned himself over 200 times.^[7]

In order to fulfil his plan, Bishop built a base on an Earth-like planet called Pliny X19 which he planned to terraform.^[6]

Cloning Sara Lance[]

"The infamous Sara Lance. I've been waiting a long time for you."

—Bishop to Sara Lance^[src]

After Sara and Gary Green fled from a mutated Amelia Earhart, who had bitten Sara after being experimented on, Bishop sent the AVA Clones to capture Sara but they were eaten by Gary. When she entered Bishop's lair, Bishop was surprised to see that the infamous Sara Lance was here and told her that she has been waiting for her for a long time.^[8]

However, Sara, having been poisoned by Amelia Earhart, was in critical condition which led to Bishop giving her the antidote before she collapsed.^[9] However, in reality, Bishop cloned Sara and put her memory and consciousness in the new cloned body.^[6] He also enhanced the clone with alien DNA, wanting the Sara Lance clone to be the first of his new enhanced human race.^[10]

As Sara recovered, Bishop explained to her his plan which immediately received his captive's disapproval, chiding that humanity can't be saved by depriving them of everything that makes them human which, to Sara, was precisely what Bishop was trying to accomplish. After asserting that no one can get a grand undertaking such as this perfect the first time, and that he was still under the trial and error phase of his research, Bishop then tasked Nurse Ava to take care of her. Nonetheless, Sara attempted to escape with Nurse Ava but the latter tricked her and led Bishop to them and the ship. He reveals that, in light of Sara ejecting all the other captured specimens from the ship that she was on, the containment pods they were all placed in were nonetheless able to procure and secure workable genetic material from each and every one of those species, showing the assembled collection before her, which he needed Sara to lead him to, and proceeded to knock her out although she managed to snap his neck.^[9]

Believed death[]

"You're a clone."

—Sara Lance to Bishop^[src]

Despite dying, a clone of Bishop took his place^[6] and greeted Sara Lance as she woke up.^[9] He explained to her how he survived to which she expressed disgust although decided to play along in order to trick him. She explained wanting a fresh start and he agreed, inviting her to dinner. During dinner, she attacked Bishop. Wounded and disfigured, Bishop kills himself and creates a third clone of him. Later, Bishop's third clone is killed by Mick Rory and Bishop is apparently killed for good when Gary Green detonates his base.^[10]

Infiltrating the Waverider[]

However, Bishop had helped Kayla, who was stranded on Pliny X19. She docked the Waverider where she downloaded from the cloud and printed a new body for Bishop that was mostly human though partly Sara. However, as Sara had blown up his lair, he had been corrupted and said that this was the final version of himself. ^[11][7]

Shocked, Sara captured him and placed him in his cell. During his imprisonment, Bishop revealed that he cloned himself 200 times to escape from death. Bishop was questioned by Ava Sharpe, whom he revealed to be one of many of his clones. Bishop tried to trick Sara into telling her that he changed and had good intentions, but she didn't trust him.

By setting up Gideon, Bishop managed to escape, but was confronted by Sara. Bishop forced Mick's pregnancy and gained the trust of the Legends. Bishop succeeded in stealing a comm device allowing him to manipulate John Constantine into escaping, offering to find the Fountain of Imperium.^[7]

The Fountain of Imperium[]

Finally, Bishop and Constantine find the Fountain of Imperium. But Bishop betrayed Constantine and poisoned him, revealing that the Fountain is not a magic artifact but an alien gift that would safeguard Earth from invasions. He killed him and fled, leaving Constantine to die.^[12]

Death[]

With the Fountain effectively deceased, Bishop then stole Kayla's ship, leaving behind a video message on the Waverider, stating that he could save the Fountain but won't and with the impending Zaguron invasion, he predicted that only he and Sara would be the only humans remaining to start anew.

Bishop later decided to interfere in Sara and Ava's impromptu wedding by covering the skies with dark clouds, giving the impression of nightfall. As the Zagurons started to emerge from their pods, Bishop took note that the Legends recruited his past self to create an antidote to his poison. The Zagurons then swarmed the Legend, forcing them to hole up in the Cruz residence. However, Bishop's master plan ultimately failed; as Sara and Ava sealed their marriage with a kiss, this convinced restored the Fountain of Imperium that humanity was still worthy of its protection and eradicated the Zagurons. Enraged, Bishop landed to kill all the Legends in person. At this moment, Mick and Kayla's 48 eggs hatched and devoured Bishop, killing him once-and-for all.^[1]

Personality[]

"No one gets it right out of the gate, okay?!"

—Bishop to Sara Lance^[src]

Bishop was seen as having a god complex, thinking of himself as the savior of humanity despite his means achieving that goal being outlined by science and more than likely render recipients less-than-human. He was also quite an eccentric, as he was prone to singing his sentences and going into unusual tangents. Bishop also had no patience for healing naturally; if he gets moderately "broken", he sets up a mind transfer into a clone and kills his old body.

Bishop had a poor understanding of emotional connections and free will, as he had no idea his AVAs secretly hate him, and assumed his Sara clone would obey him. He tried to get Sara to abandon her life on Earth, and keep the original's engagement ring from her stating it was "[Sara's] past. [She didn't] need it anymore." When Sara refused to comply, Bishop simply decided to kill her and keep tinkering with cloning Sara; until one obeyed him. It was hinted that his repetitious resurrection by cloning have waned his personal sense of morality somewhat, since his progenitor genetic and template, the first Bishop, was shown to be a meek scientist but otherwise far from amoral.

One defining aspect of Bishop is that he considers himself unique to the point that the very idea of his very being getting cloned or copied by anyone other than himself abhors him; and even though he is not above and chiefly bypasses mortality through cloning technology, Bishop reacts vehemently with the thought of having more than one of himself at a time.

Abilities[]

• Genius-level intellect: Bishop was well experienced in science, having designed and created the AVA Clones showing that he has expertise in genetic replication. He considers himself a pioneer in bio-engineering.^[9] He was even patient enough to guess Gideon's override code by spurting off random gibberish until he got a hit.^[7] His skill at modifying and understanding genetics was such that he even seemed able to affect or alter attributes that defy physics (i.e. magic) along with replication of skills from one clone to the next. Bishop was also brilliant enough to outsmart John Constantine; who has succeeded in outsmarting the Devil himself.
  • Skilled chemist: Bishop primarily using this skill to splice DNA together for his hybridizations and cloning.
  • Skilled biologist: Bishop was able to induce labor in Mick Rory to make him "sneeze" out Kayla's eggs.
  • Skilled engineer: Bishop succeeded in rigging a simple but effective communication array from basic components in his own Waverider's lab; it was seen to be powerful enough to establish technological contact between the Temporal Zone and 2214.
• Musical talent: Bishop had some musical talent such as singing and dancing.^[6]
• Skilled hand-to-hand combatant: Bishop was a skilled hand-to-hand combatant, capable of taking on Sara Lance; although he was quickly overwhelmed.^[6]

Appearances[]

DC's Legends of Tomorrow[]

Season 6 "Meat: The Legends" (mentioned) "The Ex-Factor" "The Satanist's Apprentice" "Bishop's Gambit" "Back to the Finale: Part II" "Bored On Board Onboard" (feet) "Silence of the Sonograms" "There Will Be Brood" "The Fungus Amongus" Season 7 "The Bullet Blondes" (unseen) "wvrdr_error_100 not found" "Deus Ex Latrina" "A Woman's Place is in the War Effort!" "Paranoid Android" "Lowest Common Demoninator" (mentioned)

Comics[]

EARTH-PRIME[]

• "The (Ex) Legends of Tomorrow" (flashbacks)

Trivia[]

• Bishop is the first villain since Thawne to start a domino effect of screw ups for the legends; the one started by Thawne ended with Lachesis' defeat. If Bishop hasn't ordered Sara abducted, the Legends wouldn't have ruined his plans and caused things to get even worse.
• Bishop is one of main antagonists who were killed many times : the others are Vandal Savage, Damien Darhk and Eobard Thawne.
• In his last body, courtesy of Sara destroying his facility, Bishop also has access to all her assassin skills because her DNA was in his data cloud when his body got "3D printed".
• Bishop is indirectly responsible for the events of season 6; since he hired Kayla to abduct aliens, which only got released into the temporal zone when Sara Lance attempted to escape.
• Bishop revealed he has transferred his consciousness from clone to clone over 200 times, meaning he may have lived for centuries. Ironically, the first main antagonist of DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Vandal Savage, was a similarly long-lived and manipulative villain who believed his methods would save humanity, and also had long hair and a beard.
• Since Bishop was replaced with a robot in the timeline, it means the robot version of himself did the events of Season 6 instead of him, erasing them from his timeline.
  • Although, given Bishop's claim that he has transferred his consciousness from clone to clone many times, it is possible that the robot did eventually create the aforementioned cloning cycle using DNA originally collected from the biological Bishop, eventually giving rise to the events of Season 6.

Behind the scenes[]

• Bishop served as the main antagonist of Season 6 of DC's Legends of Tomorrow.
• Bishop has many similarities to Eva McCulloch:
  • Both served as a big bad of the sixth season of their respective shows.
  • Both kidnapped a female lead and replaced them with a clone of some sort.
  • Both are Scientists.
  • Both created various clones.
  • Both resurfaced in the seventh season of the shows they were the big bad in.
  • Both redeem to help the heroes. The difference is that Eva is still alive and Bishop dies to allow the Legends to escape.
• Bishop has some similarities to Ricardo Diaz:
  • Both served as the main antagonist of the sixth season of their respective shows.
  • Both resurfaced in the seventh season of the shows they were the big bad in.
  • Both died in the seventh season of their respective shows, the difference is that Bishop redeem himself to help the heroes while Ricardo remain an antagonist up until his death.

References[]

Other versions of Bishop
To see other versions of this character, click the Earth name below for that Earth's counterpart of Bishop.
New multiverse
Earth: Prime • Robot
Original multiverse
Earth:
Transmultiversal multiverse
Earth: