Will Marvel’s Thunderbolts Revamp Taskmaster After Black Widow Criticisms?

The first trailer for Marvel’s Thunderbolts* arrived this week, offering our first official look at the team along with the new costumes that some characters are getting. One member of the Thunderbolts team that has gotten major upgrade for the new MCU movie is Olga Kurylenko’s Antonia Dreykov, aka Taskmaster, last seen in the MCU in the Black Widow movie. Though Marvel Studios largely has a great track record with bringing the Marvel Comics characters to life, there was some notable outcry after the MCU version of Taskmaster was revealed in the 2021 feature. With her appearance in Thunderbolts* now being prominently advertised, is Marvel making a pivot with their version of Taskmaster?

Why was Taskmaster controversial in Black Widow?

Ahead of the premiere of the Black Widow solo movie, fan-favorite Marvel villain Taskmaster was confirmed as one of the antagonists. In the pages of Marvel Comics, Taskmaster is a mercenary with a snarky personality and the ability to mimic any kind of fighting style or move he observes. He ranges from formidable to funny, with his trademark skull mask a main signifier and his mood capable of shifting from hilarious to ruthless from panel to panel.

In the Black Widow film, this was partially brought to life. The live-action Taskmaster maintains the “photographic reflexes” of the character, with some MCU liberties, but also has major ties to Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow’s larger storyline. As a result of the changes to the character’s origin, where she’s tied into the larger mythos of the Red Room and the operatives therein, the version of Taskmaster present in the movie has almost no dialogue, and nearly no personality at all. Taskmaster’s place in Black Widow makes sense for that film, and even making the character a woman feels like a change that doesn’t alter their core, but in terms of adapting Taskmaster into live-action, this version was met with confusion by Marvel fans.

Seeing Taskmaster’s powers handled well in live-action was one thing, but the fact that the character is deliberately made into a near-silent automaton with no charisma or identity was like Marvel not utilizing their potential. Within in the context of Black Widow, this is a fundamental component of Natasha and her family’s personal journeys, realizing what they were forged into by the Red Room and how they can break out of it; but it begs the question: why use Taskmaster within this role if it meant the character would have to be fundamentally altered?

Upon release, the MCU Taskmaster was compared unfavorably by some Marvel fans to the original version of Deadpool that Ryan Reynolds played in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Others noted that it was similar to the way that The Mandarin was handled in Iron Man 3 (though that twist on the character was baked into the story, and the subversion it brought to the screen made it all worth it). Granted, we know how the response to THAT change went, and how Marvel Studios very quickly did an about-face and pivoted to something more in line with what fans wanted. Could the same thing be on the horizon with Taskmaster?

How Thunderbolts* could fix Taskmaster

Marvel fans may recall that at the end of Black Widow, Taskmaster, like all the other former soldiers of the Red Room, was set free from their brainwashing techniques. Since that movie took place after the events of Captain America: Civil War and years before Avengers: Infinity War, there’s a major gap of time between when the MCU’s Taskmaster was last seen on screen and when Thunderbolts* takes place in the timelines. As a result, Taskmaster has seemingly been wandering about the world and has perhaps grown off screen to reflect what fans are expecting for them. We know they’ve already got a whole new outfit, so that’s progress.

In addition though, everyone on this Thunderbolts team has a bit of a mean streak to them, so if Taskmaster returns and has nothing to say (literally) that will make them stand apart, and not in a good way. This isn’t to say that Taskmaster should arrive on the scene in Thunderbolts* talking a mile a minute with a Deadpool-like sensibility for comedy, but a character that has become free of her father’s influence and whose entire powerset is observing and copying other characters… probably has something to say about her teammates and their moves. The MCU Taskmaster seemingly thrives in the darker corners of the MCU’s espionage web. Let’s hope they really make that work in Thunderbolts* .

MCU’s Thunderbolts team explained

There are two major things of note about this entire team of characters on the Thunderbolts. First, they’re all wayward characters that don’t really have a place in the larger MCU machinations. That’s not only true from an external, meta perspective about the franchise as a whole, but where they all were left after their previous appearances. Red Guardian, US Agent, Yelena, Bucky, Ghost, and Taskmaster were all kind of abandoned, not because they were uninteresting or not useful, but because their place wasn’t clear. Taskmaster certainly fits this bill, and is in keeping with the original idea of the Thunderbolts, where supervillains were posing as heroes. 

Second, they’re all enhanced soldiers, either via a serum or some other means that have made them more like weapons than people. It’s clear that this element of the characters will be a driving force behind why they’re all brought together and will likely play into the fact that The Sentry, aka “Bob,” is also present in the film, but how that will all tie together remains to be seen. Considering Taskmaster’s own powerset, it makes sense that they be the character to unveil the connection, revealing to everyone else that the reason they’ve been brought together is actually a relatively simple one. Maybe, in Thunderbolts*, Taskmaster will get the chance to show the team, and the world, who they really are.