With Taskmaster set to step into the upcoming Black Widow movie, it's time to dive into
a long history that's strange even by the standards of the Marvel Universe.
From a school for supervillains to the South American village populated by Hitler clones,
here's the truth behind the Taskmaster.
The Taskmaster made his first appearance in 1980's Avengers #195, arriving on the last
page to set up his full appearance in the next issue and kick off a long career of supervillain
exploits.
Created by David Michelinie and George Pérez, he has a super-power usually referred to as
"photographic reflexes."
That's a fancy way of saying that if he sees someone doing something, he can replicate
that action exactly, and he keeps that skill for the rest of his life.
That would be a pretty impressive ability in the real world, but this is a dude who
lives in the Marvel Universe.
He can settle in with some footage of Spider-Man or Black Panther, and hop off the couch a
few hours later with the ability to perfectly replicate their movements.
Of course, there's a limit to all this: photographic reflexes are Taskmaster's only power.
That means that while he can watch Captain America throwing his shield and replicate
the movement, he doesn't have Cap's super-strength behind it.
Still, he's come away from his many battles against the Avengers with some pretty impressive
abilities.
While he's done his share of hands-on villainy, the Taskmaster's true calling has always been
in education.
Of course, his "school," the Taskmaster Academy, is less of a learning institution and more
of a for-profit training center for henchmen.
For a low price, Taskmaster teaches classes of aspiring supervillains not only how to
fight like superheroes, but, more importantly, how to fight against them.
While this mostly functions as a pretty fantastic explanation for where all the masked members
of Hydra and AIM get the confidence to try to punch out Iron Man, it's worth noting that
it's not just the bad guys who've taken advantage of the Taskmaster's skills.
He's also been responsible for training a few of the good guys as well.
As a supervillain mercenary, the Taskmaster doesn't have a whole lot of friends, but one
of his more enduring acquaintances came in the form of another mercenary: Deadpool.
The two characters had a rocky start to their relationship, first meeting when Taskmaster
attempted to use Deadpool as a training dummy for his students, only to be foiled when Deadpool
threw him off by breaking into a dance-off during their fight.
It turns out he can only counter your moves if he can predict them, and as you may already
know, Deadpool can be pretty unpredictable.
After that, one of the Taskmaster's most prominent roles in the comics came when he was a member
of Deadpool's supporting cast, and in more recent years, the two mercenaries have had
a more back-and-forth frenemy relationship.
They've occasionally come to blows while on opposite sides of a conflict, but Deadpool
was also willing to help Taskmaster out by going easy on him in a fight so the skull-faced
opportunist could still get paid.
Here's where it gets weird.
While he's mostly shown up as a villain or a supporting character, the Taskmaster has
dabbled in being a protagonist in his own right thanks to two self-titled miniseries.
The first is a relatively straightforward action adventure, but that second story is
full-on bananas.
The main premise is that the Taskmaster, ironically enough, has a memory problem.
His brain is so loaded up with Shang Chi's punches and Daredevil's backflips that his
muscle memory has overwritten other, less important things, like his past.
To solve that, he tries to track down his own memories.
That leads him through things like an encounter with the Don of the Dead, a Latin-American
drug dealer who turns out to be a white American S.H.I.E.L.D.
agent who'd taken the "Don of the Dead" identity after Taskmaster trained him.
That, however, pales in comparison to where that series ends up: Wewelsburg II, a small
town in the South American Andes where Nazi scientists escaped to after World War II to
attempt to clone Hitler.
The most successful result was the long-time Marvel villain the Hate-Monger, who first
showed up back in 1963, but the scientists wound up with a gigantic stockpile of cloned
Hitler-brains, which leaked the Fürher's "biochemical essence" into the local water
supply.
The result?
Every man, woman, and child in the town essentially has Hitler's brain, leading to constant warfare
among themselves for control of the area.
So, you know, the next time someone tries to tell you how serious the Punisher is or
whatever, remind them that he lives in the same world as Hitler Town.
Beyond Wewelsburg II and the Don of the Dead, the big reveals of the Taskmaster series are
the title character's origin and real name.
For years, the Taskmaster had been getting his orders from a secret organization called
"the Org."
But as it turns out, the Org doesn't actually exist.
Instead, it's the wife that Taskmaster doesn't remember having, Mercedes Merced, who was
also his partner back when he was a S.H.I.E.L.D.
agent named, wait for it, Tony Masters.
As Nick Fury tells Steve Rogers, the Taskmaster has been a good guy all along.
He just doesn't remember it
As Masters, he was sent to infiltrate the supervillain community for S.H.I.E.L.D., taking
the Taskmaster identity as his cover.
Unfortunately, thanks to a flawed prototype of the Super Soldier Serum that expanded his
powers, all of those skills he'd absorbed overwrote the personal parts of his memory.
Mercedes has been minimizing the damage for years by acting as Taskmaster's handler and
pointing him in the right directions.
Of course, once he discovers all this, his brain immediately erases it in favor of another
new fighting style, putting a heartbroken Mercedes right back into the role of working
with a husband who doesn't remember she exists.
While it's doubtful that, say, the Don of the Dead will show up, it's not difficult
to imagine how Taskmaster might fit into Black Widow movie.
Most of Natasha Romanoff's history has to do with her training in the Red Room, a secret
Soviet program designed to create a series of highly trained agents who are given the
codename of Black Widow.
With the Taskmaster's history and his ability to serve as the perfect teacher in virtually
any style of combat, it's easy to picture him as one of Natasha's trainers…and maybe
even the person who's sent to clean things up once she defects to S.H.I.E.L.D.
Sure, that's a pretty straightforward espionage plot, but it's also one that could fit neatly
into the world of the MCU.
Then again, given that we've seen Infinity Stones, the Celestials, and a talking raccoon
in those movies, there's always a chance that Taskmaster and Widow will end up fighting
a climactic battle in Wewelsburg II.
Seeing Marvel characters beating up a couple hundred Hitlers might just make Black Widow
the feel-good movie of the year.
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