Alexander Pierce is the main antagonist of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He was a member of the World Security Council, yet was also secretly the leader of HYDRA, the former rogue Nazi faction which had survived after World War II. Pierce was commanding HYDRA from within S.H.I.E.L.D., planning to use S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources to further HYDRA's goals. He was portrayed by Robert Redford.
History[]
Beginnings[]
Alexander Pierce was a HYDRA agent who infiltrated the World Security Council. During a hostage situation in Bogota, he met S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury, who successfully saved the hostages, including Pierce's daughter. Pierce was surprised by Fury's performance and later made him the director of S.H.I.E.L.D..
Project Insight[]
By 2014, the influence of HYDRA over S.H.I.E.L.D. has grown stronger, and a set of three heavily armed Helicarriers were built under "Project Insight." The Helicarriers were allegedly supposed to form a security network to protect the Earth, but HYDRA actually desired to use them to target and kill approximately 20 million people selected by Arnim Zola's algorithm, any individual which would pose a threat for HYDRA's new world order.
After discovering the hijacking of a S.H.I.E.L.D. boat by Georges Batroc was actually planned by Fury in order to recover confidential files related to Project Insight, Pierce deployed the Winter Soldier to kill him.
After being attacked by the Winter Soldier, a heavily injured Fury contacted Captain America and told the Captain not to trust anyone as S.H.I.E.L.D. had been compromised, before seemingly being assassinated.
Following Fury's apparent demise, Pierce spoke with Captain America, and discovered that Rogers had hidden something from him, likely meaning that his plans were compromised due to something Fury may have said to him.
Pierce deployed other corrupt S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to capture Cap, who had gone undercover along with Black Widow. A new assignment was given to the Winter Soldier by Pierce, to kill Steve and Natasha. After gaining information related to the true objective of Project Insight from the hand of Jasper Sitwell, Rogers, Romanoff and their ally Sam Wilson/Falcon were captured by S.H.I.E.L.D., but they soon escaped captivity. Pierce proceeded with his plan, but as S.H.I.E.L.D. prepared to deploy the Helicarriers, Captain America infiltrated the Triskelion and revealed by loudspeaker the truth of HYDRA influencing S.H.I.E.L.D. and prompted every clean agent to stand up against HYDRA.
Death[]
While Captain America and Falcon infiltrated the Helicarriers to modify their programming to change the targets from the people selected by Zola's algorithm to the Helicarriers themselves, Black Widow rescued the rest of the members of the World Security Council, who had been taken hostage by Pierce, and forced him to help her and Nick Fury, who revealed his survival to Pierce, to unlock every single one of S.H.I.E.L.D./HYDRA's secrets and upload them to the Internet. However, Pierce attempted to use a remotely-controlled miniature explosive he had hidden in Black Widow's clothes to force Fury to let him go.
Using a micro-EMP, Black Widow disabled the bomb and Fury subsequently shot Pierce twice through the heart. As he lay dying, witnessing his fleet and plans in destruction, Pierce uttered "Hail HYDRA..." and died.