BLACK WIDOW SPOILERS: Taskmaster, Hawkeye, and Dark Avengers

Want to find out some potentially big Black Widow spoilers for Taskmaster in the upcoming Black Widow Movie? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Stay tuned to find out more.

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Alright. Let’s talk about Taskmaster. So we just got our hands on Black Widow’s first trailer yesterday. I loved everything about it. It was the down-to-earth Marvel Studios flick that I’ve been dying to see… you know, at least down to earth compared to the events of Avengers End Game or Thor Ragnarok. Black Widow gave off a very distinctively Winter Soldier feel, which I’m hoping means a few ridiculous street-level fights and some more amazing Marvel Cinematic Universe car chases.

But there’s one thing that you’ve all been asking about, Taskmaster!

Who is he, how is he different than the comics, and what big spoilers did that trailer potentially leak to us.

Let me give a special thanks to youtube users Sir Bevin and Half a Dozen for the recommendation on this topic.

Alright… Taskmaster. Let’s talk about his comic book origins, then talk about what potential spoilers we might be able to pull from the trailer.

Taskmaster’s given name is Tony Masters. Once upon a time, he injected himself with a special steroid to enhance his mind. The result was pretty amazing. Taskmaster has the ability to remember and recreate the movements and voice of people around him. That means whenever he fights someone, or even watches a video of someone fighting, he can immediately replicate their fighting style and even predict the moves that they’ll make. This makes him an incredibly frustrating opponent, and one that’s rarely tested… unless you’re Deadpool. Apparently Deadpool’s mind is too much of a jumbled mess for Taskmaster to predict.

The downside of this steroid was pretty massive, though. Taskmaster’s lost all of his memory making ability. He’s basically like a supervillain version of that guy from Memento. He relies on his wife, and secret SHIELD operative Mercedes Merced, to keep his mind and affairs on track…. All of Which is actually part of a mini-series that many fans wish was never made. So, if you want to just know the most basic cool part of Taskmaster, just think of him as a really talented mercenary for hire
His comic origins leaves a lot of room for cool stories in the upcoming Black Widow film, but I think these are the most important.

1. The MCU Taskmaster has fought Hawkeye. Kevin Feige and the crew at Marvel Studios loves to tie up every plot point in a nice, interconnected bow. That’s why every cosmic relic in the first 3 phases were actually retconned into Infinity Stones, instead of being independent relics like they are in the comics. So if Taskmaster is an expert marksman in the comics, with a Bow & Arrow being one of his favorite weapons, I’m almost certain that that specific trait will be explained with an anecdote: Taskmaster fought Hawkeye and captured his abilities.

2. One of the movie’s antagonists will be SHIELD. Taskmaster is a kinda, sorta double agent who doesn’t really know he’s a double agent at times in the comic books. Because of his memory problem, he doesn’t really know that his wife is a SHIELD operative, and that his missions are often for Nick Fury. Again, that’s from a particular mini-series that some folks want to disregard, but it would feel right at home in the MCU. In the Captain Marvel movie, Marvel completely reimagined the Skrulls as a cosmic refugee race, instead of the insidious baddies they are in the comics. They also vilified the Kree, and in The Winter Soldier, they turned SHIELD into HYDRA, which was another massive bold move. So, it would only make sense that they’d like to subvert our expectations and cast SHIELD, and by extension the USA, as the villains in a story about Soviet Russia.

3. You know what, point number three is just going to be me doubling down on point number 2. Guys, did you forget that we saw Thaddeus, Thunderbolt Ross in the trailer. That guy is notorious for recruiting baddies to do his dirty work. He unleashed The Abomination in New York City in The Incredible Hulk, he imprisoned The Avengers in Civil War, and in the comics he’s the mastermind behind one of the iterations of the Dark Avengers, or the ‘Thunderbolts’ as they were in the tales not involving Norman Osborne. This dude is all about using villains to do questionably good things.

Well, what do you think? Are you psyched for Taskmaster to make his official MCU appearance? Do you think that he’ll be working for SHIELD? Let me know in the comments. And if you want to get your hands on one of those PS4’s, make sure that you like, subscribe, and comment. Catch you next time.