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You made me realize that life is worth living, and I will do anything to stay alive.
— Pierce to Chloe
in "A Devil of My Word"

Cain, also known by his alias Marcus Pierce, was the first-born son of Adam and Eve, and the elder brother of Abel and served as the unseen antagonist of Season 2, the primary antagonist of Season 3 and as the posthumous overarching antagonist of Season 4.

After murdering his brother Abel, Cain was cursed by God to wander the Earth for eternity, effectively making him immortal. His long life provided him the opportunity to start shadowy criminal organization, earning him the title of "The Sinnerman". Having lived for many millenniums and seeing all people close to him die, Cain became obsessed with finding a way to remove his mark.

He eventually joined the Los Angeles Police Department, surfacing under the name of Marcus Pierce and worked his way to lieutenant. After learning that Lucifer Morningstar became vulnerable around Detective Chloe Decker, Pierce transferred to their precinct to see if what worked for The Devil could work for him. To keep Lucifer out of his way, he orchestrated his kidnapping, but returned early due to his wings returning. Moving up his timetable, he manipulated events to have him shot next to Chloe, only to find that he still couldn't die. With that hope shattered, Cain assisted in the capture and death of his former second-in-command, who went under his criminal alias. However, Lucifer soon figured out who Cain really was, forcing the crime boss to come clean with his intentions. The two formed an alliance to free Cain of his curse, with him learning Amenadiel was the one who placed the mark on him in the first place.

The two eventually absolved their alliance, and Cain started working out new strategy; getting Chloe to fall in love with him believing her love is what makes Supernatural beings vulnerable, allying with Mazikeen, who had her own gain in Cain's plan. He, however, actually fell in love with her and couldn't go through with breaking her heart, unknowingly freeing himself of the curse. With the loss of his Immortality came a new desire and desperation to enjoy life, so he betrayed Maze and tried killing Amenadiel to become cursed again, only to accidently kill Charlotte Richards instead. Cain is eventually killed by Lucifer with his soul being condemned to Hell for his guilt over his accidental murder of Charlotte, but not before laughing at the reveal that Lucifer regained his Devil face due to killing him.

History[]

Cain is the firstborn son of Adam and Eve and the world's first murderer. Cain and his brother, Abel (who Cain described as an "asshat"), had been at each other's throats for years; their fights got progressively worse to the point that they were actively trying to kill each other. Eventually, Cain succeeded. After killing his brother, Cain was marked by Amenadiel on God's orders. Cain believed that this mark made him "doomed to walk the Earth alone for a tortured eternity", his mark making his body as immortal as his immortal soul.

Since the Bronze Age, Cain has been trying to kill himself. He has tried many methods, including dropping into helicopter blades, being eaten by wolves, acidic bath, "grenade down the throat", even once jumping into a volcano, which Cain described as "a rough six months".

In 1958, he worked as a detective in Los Angeles, including on the Broken Hearts Killer case. During this time, he fell in love with a waitress named Kay, but he left LA soon after capturing the killer rather than pursue a relationship with her. His old partner Ray Dwight ended up marrying Kay instead.

Sometime in the 1970s Chicago, he met a boy who later took the alias of the Sinnerman. The Sinnerman was Pierce's right-hand man and the closest thing he had to a friend. Cain himself took the name of Marcus Pierce. Like Pierce, the boy became an accomplished and well-respected police lieutenant.[1]

At the beginning of Season 3, Pierce transfers from Chicago to Los Angeles. There, he joins the L.A.P.D. and becomes the new boss of Chloe Decker, Dan Espinoza, and Ella Lopez. He also agrees to secretly help Lucifer Morningstar to track down the Sinnerman. He claims that while in Chicago, he "butted heads" with the Sinnerman and that the Sinnerman had killed his brother, which was why he decided to transfer.

Throughout the Series[]

In "What Would Lucifer Do?", Pierce is severely injured after being shot by Jerry Blackcrow. It is later revealed that the injury would have been fatal to a regular human. In "The Sin Bin", Lucifer fatally stabs Pierce. A few moments later, Pierce is resurrected, thus revealing his true identity.

In "All About Her", after Lucifer discovers Pierce's true identity as Cain, Pierce admits to being behind Lucifer's kidnapping (at the end of Season 2) as he needed Lucifer out of the way. Pierce found out about Chloe making the devil vulnerable and hoped that she would make him vulnerable too. He had hoped that he would be able to finally die if he was killed in her presence. Unfortunately, for him, it did not work. While admitting to the kidnapping, Pierce says he had nothing to do with Lucifer's wings returning and that it had interfered with his plans. Lucifer theorizes that God restored his wings to stop Pierce from defying him. As a result, Lucifer offered to help Pierce achieve his greatest desire, to permanently die.

Pierce also admits to the fact that the Sinnerman was his subordinate. However, he claims that the Sinnerman went rogue and that he does not know why the Sinnerman did what he did. Thus, Pierce concludes, "I had to take him out."

In "The Last Heartbreak", Pierce decides to get close to Chloe in the hope it would lead to making himself mortal. The pair go to an Axara concert and have dinner together. Lucifer gets jealous of Chloe's attention to Pierce but later realizes that she can have all sorts of relationships in her life.

S3EP18 - 4

In "The Angel of San Bernardino", Pierce asks Chloe to meet him in the evidence room. Once Chloe arrives, they begin their sexual rendezvous, which gets noticed by Ella in the next room. Pierce gets closer to Chloe but struggles to get her to take the next step in their relationship and get her to say that she loves him. When he arrives back in his home, he notices that Maze has trespassed on his property and warns her of the legal repercussions for such a crime to which Maze responded that they would have to catch her first. Maze impatiently asks Pierce whether it is time to kill him to which he said that it wasn't as he still possessed the mark. Maze then asked how Pierce would like to die and if he wanted a painful death, to which he declined as he had had plenty of painful deaths already. Maze then remarks that his death will result in suffering even if he isn't the one experiencing it. Maze begins to tell Pierce how ruthless it would be to make Chloe fall in love with him and then vanish and the pain it would cause to her. When he later arrives at Chloe's apartment with some chocolate cake, he nearly has her tell him that she loves him before realizing how his death would impact Chloe and decides against manipulating Chloe any further in fear of hurting her and ends their relationship. When Lucifer realized what Pierce had been doing and seen how much he had hurt Chloe, he broke into Pierce's home to confront him about it. During their altercation, Lucifer notices that Pierce's mark has vanished.

In "A Devil of My Word", Pierce returns to his old role as the Sinnerman to get rid of Lucifer once and for all. He sets a trap to kill Lucifer before fleeing town as he knows Lucifer will never stop hunting him and he doesn't want to die anymore. With the help of a bunch of men, Pierce pulls Lucifer and Chloe into a trap, rendering Lucifer vulnerable and even threatening to kill Chloe if it means killing Lucifer. However, Chloe shoots Pierce and one of his men shoots Chloe in return. As Pierce's men fire on Lucifer, Lucifer shields himself and Chloe with his wings before flying to the roof with Chloe.

Cain

Cain, before dying, tells Lucifer that he can't change who he is

After seeing that Chloe had a bulletproof vest that blocked the bullet and seeing her wake up, Lucifer returns to confront Pierce, easily dispatching his men with blows from his injured wings. With Lucifer now invincible again, Pierce draws one of Maze's blades, the one thing that can kill Lucifer. After a fight, Lucifer overpowers Pierce and drives the blade into his heart. Without his mark, Pierce is mortally wounded for the last time but is satisfied as he believes he will be going to Heaven as he regrets nothing that he has done. Lucifer points out that Pierce regrets killing Charlotte Richards and he will torture himself over it for eternity in Hell. As Lucifer tells Pierce that he can't outrun what he's done and what he truly is, Pierce notices Lucifer's devil face returning and tells Lucifer that he can't either. Laughing, Pierce dies for the final time, leaving Cain truly dead. Lucifer is found over Cain's body moments later by Chloe with his devil face and she realizes that he was telling the truth the entire time.

In "Expire Erect", after finding Eve in Lucifer's apartment, Amenadiel asks if Eve hurt Lucifer, reminding her that Lucifer had killed Cain, Eve's son. Eve calls Abel sweet and gentle and states that she's pretty sure that Pierce had what was coming to him.

In A Little Harmless Stalking, Mazikeen wanted to give Lilith’s Ring to Eve to make her immortal and avoid feeling the pain of losing her, but Eve chose not to accept it. After seeing what immortality did to Cain, Eve explained that mortality makes people value what little time they have.

In "My Best Fiend's Wedding", while discussing her relationship with Adam, Eve comments that they got busy with the kids and that Cain's terrible twos weren't so great. Maze sarcastically comments that "yeah, well, his 20,000s weren't so hot either."

Legacy[]

Cain had an enormous negative impact on everyone. His death not only revealed Lucifer's true identity to Chloe, which caused an awkward change in their relationship, but it also led Lucifer on a spiral, causing him to embrace his darker instincts after reuniting with Eve. Chloe ran off to Europe with Trixie for a month until she ended up in Rome, Italy, where she met William Kinley, who twisted her into believing that Lucifer needed to be sent back to Hell for eternity.

Cain's murder of Charlotte caused Dan to be more aggressive towards people, even unjustly blaming Lucifer for her death, even though, deep down he knew it wasn't true, all to hide the fact that he blamed himself for waiting too long to start a relationship with Charlotte and not being there to save her. Ella lost her faith in God to the point where she no longer believed he existed, until eventually realizing that it's wrong to base things on whether everything stays positive, but to find the strength to get through the negative.

Personality[]

Pierce was strategic, reserved, and well-respected. Like Lucifer, he was charming, charismatic, sexy, and handsome.[1] He has a disdain for cops who have committed crimes and immediately took a disliking towards Dan for his past actions. He also had a somewhat initial dislike towards Lucifer as he deemed him reckless and called him an idiot for going after the Sinnerman. Pierce is compassionate as he told Lucifer to keep Chloe out of their search for the Sinnerman so they would not put Trixie's life in danger. Marcus was not willing to fall in love with or have an attachment to someone as he fears that they will eventually leave him, and he will remain immortal.

At the eyes of his subordinates, he is stoic, smart, and a dedicated cop, with Chloe stating that the higher upps see Pierce as a "rockstar" in their institution. He also is seen to be somewhat nice with others, such as Ella, who claimed that he is quite observing and he once gave her a cup of coffee exactly how she likes it, without even asking him to do it.

Pierce holds a grudge toward his brother Abel, specifically because he despises how the world sees him as the villain who killed his brother when, in his own words, Abel was the bad guy of the story and was surprised when Lucifer said that Abel resides in Hell and he is its oldest prisoner, but also relieved to realize he was right all those centuries.

However, it is unclear how much of Pierce's persona was an act since he is Cain and had a connection to "the Sinnerman". Pierce admits that he was the true Sinnerman and that the one they were chasing was a decoy, his right-hand man, and friend. However, he claimed that he went rogue, though it is unclear at which point.

Pierce claimed to admire Chloe as a detective. In "What Would Lucifer Do?", he said, "the only reason I came here was so I could finally see you in action firsthand." This, however, is later proven to be a lie. While he did come for Chloe, it had nothing to do with her detective skills, but rather because he knew she made the devil vulnerable.

Pierce's greatest desire is to finally die, to get rid of his curse of immortality. He is tired of being alive. In his words, "I've walked this Earth for thousands of years. I have seen everything; I have done everything. I have watched everything I've ever known turn to ashes over and over again." Pierce agrees to Lucifer's comparison to it being like Hell. He is very determined in his goal, as shown by his multiple, and often extremely painful, suicide attempts. Pierce also claimed to Amenadiel that, if it helped him find peace, he would have no problem murdering an innocent. This shows that when it comes to achieving his desire to die, he is willing to take any action, no matter how ruthless. However, after getting Chloe to fall in love with him, Pierce refused to let her say the words, afraid to hurt her if he were to successfully die, showing that he is not as ruthless as he has made himself out to be. Lucifer later suggested that it was Pierce's selfless desire to keep Chloe from getting hurt that caused him to believe he was deserving of the mortality he so desperately desired and got rid of the mark. Despite willing to do anything to get ride of his curse and die, Pierce is capable of feeling remorse, specially when he takes the life of someone he didn't intent to kill, such as when he killed Charlotte Richards, since his goal was to kill Amenadiel but she happened to be next to the angel and saw him trying to shoot Amenadiel, and tried to convince Dan to get some rest and grieve his loss. He also went into a deep depression after his brother Abel unexpectedly died in front of his eyes being hit by a vehicle.

After the mark disappeared and he was freed from his curse, Pierce initially seemed to still be content with dying. However, after Amenadiel talked to him about how mortality meant they could go at any second, Pierce showed that he was truly afraid of death. This was most likely also because he realized he would be going to Hell if he were to die, whereas before he was incapable of truly dying and he never had to bother with facing mortality or the possibility of hell. This fear has, ironically, led him to want to have his mark and curse back, to prevent his death from being permanent, and it led him to take even more ruthless actions, such as trying to kill Amenadiel to force God to restore the mark. To kill Lucifer, Pierce was even willing to sacrifice Chloe as he knew that Lucifer would never stop hunting him. However, despite this, he still cared about Chloe to the point that Pierce's first question after being mortally wounded was if Chloe was alright, showing that his one believed regret was that in his zeal he may have killed Chloe.

At the end of his life, Pierce was content, stating that he had no idea why he had feared his end so much. Though Pierce claimed to have no regrets over anything he did and would thus be going to Heaven, Lucifer told him that he knew Pierce had regrets over killing Charlotte Richards, accident or not and would torture himself with that for all of eternity.

Powers and Abilities[]

Powers[]

  • Superhuman Strength: Even while not cursed, Cain appeared to possess some form of super strength; as shown how during his final encounter with Lucifer, he was actually able to make the powerful Archangel struggle.

Former Powers[]

Cain shows his mark to Lucifer
  • Cursed Mark: After killing his brother Abel, God had Amenadiel place a mark on Cain to curse and punish him for the very first act of murder. After falling in love with Chloe and truly believing himself worthy, the mark was removed. With the removal of his mark, Pierce lost all of the powers that came with it and became a normal human again.
    • Immortality: Cain has not aged since receiving the mark. When Lucifer encountered him, he appeared to be in his prime despite being alive for hundreds of thousands of years.
    • Infinite Resurrection: Cain was cursed to be unable to die, hence he is immortal. He still can be injured, wounded and killed like a normal human, but when killed he is resurrected after a short amount of time. He can even survive being killed by a demon dagger forged in hell, which Angels cannot do. However, the Flaming Sword is the only object/weapon that can permanently kill him and eradicate him from existence.
    • Regenerative Healing Factor: Pierce's body is constantly healing. While injuries take time to heal, they seem to heal at an accelerated rate compared to regular humans. Any tattoos or scars (except for the mark on his arm) fade and disappear within a few months. He can regenerate from being cut in half and from being engulfed in molten lava, though only one half of his body would regenerate the rest of it. Lucifer simplifies it to being 'Wolverine rules'.

Abilities[]

  • Marksmanship: As a trained member of the police, he is good with firearms. He was able to shoot the Sinnerman multiple times while Lucifer was near his target without hitting Lucifer with any stray bullets.
  • Eidetic Memory: Cain can easily recall every memory and experience from his whole life since ancient times, ranging from ancient languages to his suicide attempts.
    • Arcane Knowledge: As an ancient human that has lived since the dawn of humanity, Cain has a wealth of knowledge. He is aware of Lucifer's true identity and has been tracking celestials who come to Earth.
  • Expert Combatant: Cain was shown to be very capable in hand-to-hand combat and highly skilled in martial arts, able to briefly hold his own against Amenadiel albeit Amenadiel was mortal and vulnerable and was without his godlike superpowers and celestial strength and was killed multiple times. During his final fight with Lucifer, he was even able to very briefly hold his own against him whilst armed with a demon blade, but it still didn't stop him from being quickly defeated and killed in the end.
  • Keen Manipulator: Throughout the series, Cain has shown to be able to talk or forcefully get out of situations where trouble was sure to ensue, especially after his mark was removed. For example, during his fight with Mazikeen, he was able to keep her distracted long enough for him to incapacitate her with a syringe. He was even able to outwit Lucifer during their confrontation at the station, intentionally causing a scene in the precinct so that the officers would keep Lucifer restrained while he got away. He also drew Lucifer and Chloe into a planned ambush that would most certainly have resulted in their deaths had he not faced off against a celestial being. Eventually, this plan leads to his death after being stabbed in the chest with Mazikeen's blade by Lucifer.

Weaknesses[]

  • Flaming Sword: The Flaming Sword (and its component Azrael's blade) could kill humans, even ones cursed into immortality such as Pierce.
  • Self-Actualization: Much like celestial beings, Pierce's powers from his curse are tied to his self-perception. During his long life, Pierce at the very least subconsciously felt that he was unworthy of being freed from his curse and thus he remained cursed. After Pierce finally felt that he was worthy of being free of it due to his love for Chloe Decker, his curse was broken with Pierce not even noticing it until Lucifer pointed out that his mark was finally gone. Notably, this happened after he selflessly ended their relationship rather than use Chloe's love for him as a potential way of removing his mark.
  • Mortality: After the removal of his mark, Pierce became completely mortal and was thus vulnerable to any form of death a regular human was vulnerable to.

Appearances[]

Season Three
#1 "They're Back, Aren't They?" Appears
#2 "The One with the Baby Carrot" Appears
#3 "Mr. & Mrs. Mazikeen Smith" Absent
#4 "What Would Lucifer Do?" Appears
#5 "Welcome Back, Charlotte Richards" Mentioned
#6 "Vegas with Some Radish" Absent
#7 "Off the Record" Absent
#8 "Chloe Does Lucifer" Mentioned
#9 "The Sinnerman" Appears
#10 "The Sin Bin" Appears
#11 "City of Angels?" Absent
#12 "All About Her" Appears
#13 "Til Death Do Us Part" Appears
#14 "My Brother's Keeper" Appears
#15 "High School Poppycock" Mentioned
#16 "Infernal Guinea Pig" Appears
#17 "Let Pinhead Sing!" Appears
#18 "The Last Heartbreak" Appears
#19 "Orange is the New Maze" Appears
#20 "The Angel of San Bernardino" Appears
#21 "Anything Pierce Can Do I Can Do Better" Appears
#22 "All Hands on Decker" Appears
#23 "Quintessential Deckerstar" Appears
#24 "A Devil of My Word" Appears
#25 "Boo Normal" Credit only
#26 "Once Upon a Time" Credit only
Season Four
#1 "Everything's Okay" Mentioned
#2 "Somebody's Been Reading Dante's Inferno" Pictured
#5 "Expire Erect" Mentioned
#7 "Devil Is as Devil Does" Mentioned
Season Five
#7 "Our Mojo" Indirect mention
#10 "Bloody Celestial Karaoke Jam" Flashback
#13 "A Little Harmless Stalking" Mentioned
Season Six
#1 "Nothing Ever Changes Around Here" Mentioned
#4 "Pin the Tail on the Daddy" Mentioned
#7 "My Best Fiend's Wedding" Mentioned
#8 "Save the Devil, Save the World" Flashback

Trivia[]

  • Cain's conflicting personality is understandable as his obsession with dying drove him for millennia. Beyond that it seems he has a small amount of genuine care for people; however, it's dwarfed by his willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve his own agenda.
  • In the Bible, Cain is the son of Adam and Eve. He murdered his brother Abel and was punished to a life of wandering.
  • A throwaway comment Mazikeen makes towards Cain indicates that he is far older than the Biblical chronology of approximately 6,000 made by the Usher-Lightfoot calculations in the 19th century, and more like several hundred thousand years old.
  • Cain's alternate alias "Marcus Pierce" may be a play on words of how God pierced his skin with a mark.
  • Even his curse cannot protect Cain from antimatter, as he has no recollection of Earth-666 being wiped out during Crisis on Infinite Earths; thus he did technically get released from his curse, albeit for a month.
    • The interconnection between Lucifer and Smallville via the Arrowverse makes Cain a potential doppelgänger of Earth-167's Clark Kent, as both are portrayed by Tom Welling.
      • Ironically, Lucifer mentions kryptonite when they were trying to find a way to kill Cain.
  • According to "My Brother's Keeper", Cain considers Game of Thrones "a literal Hell on Earth".
  • In DC comics, Cain is the progenitor of Vampires and the host of the House of Mystery in the Dreaming.
  • When visiting Cain's house, Chloe asked him about his rock collection in which he says that he likes rocks. This could mean that he collected any rock around the that resembled the one that he used to kill his brother.
  • "Marcus" is a traditionally masculine name with Gaelic and Latin roots. It can mean "polite," "shining," and/or "hammer," a somewhat violent reference that makes sense with Marcus' overlap root word with the Roman god of war, Mars.
  • The name Cain is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "spear; possessed".
  • Cain was the first murderer, according to the Bible.
  • His Hell Loop would have him kill Charlotte and get murdered by Lucifer.

Gallery[]

External Links[]

Links[]

Main Characters

Lucifer MorningstarChloe DeckerDan EspinozaAmenadielMazikeenTrixie EspinozaLinda MartinMalcolm GrahamElla LopezGoddessCharlotte RichardsMarcus PierceEveMichaelAurora Morningstar

Humans

Major
Chloe DeckerDan EspinozaTrixie EspinozaLinda MartinElla Lopez
EveCharlotte RichardsMarcus PierceMalcolm GrahamWilliam Kinley

Minor
AbelAdamJamie Lee AdrienneMarie AntoinetteAttilaJimmy BarnesRoberta BeliardBennySergei BokJosh BryantBurtCacuzzaCaligulaJason CarlisleBenny ChoiCorazonCarol CorbettPaola CortezHank CutterPete DailyDetective DancerRose DavisJohn DeckerPenelope DeckerDelilahDougieVanessa DunlearCandy FletcherSigmund FreudLee GarnerReese GettyCarmen GrantJoe HansonSonya HarrisHectorAdolf HitlerTy HuntleyJesúsEarl JohnsonJustinFranz KafkaWilly KincannonFrank LawrenceVincent Le MecAlexa LeeCaleb MayfieldJulian McCaffreyMcMillanJack MonroeOlivia MonroeShirley MonroeJed MooreBeth MurphyNapoleonAdriana NassarLuis NavarroOnyxOwenPaddyAnthony PaolucciSuki PriceDani RamirezDiego RamirezGrigori RasputinRennyBen RiversTJ RossChet RuizErwin ScovellWilliam ShakespeareSinnermanPerry SmithMichelle TourvelTutankhamenOscar WildeJacob WilliamsVincenzoYellow Viper

Reference[]

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