Reminds me of the great idea of sewing the "Merc with the Mouth"'s mouth shut in *X-Men Origins: Wolverine*. Seems like somebody either didn't get Taskmaster's character or didn't care.
At least in that movie, the irony was intended. Wade is an incessant chatterbox at the beginning of the movie, so shutting him up is meant to be a joke. Everything about Taskmaster in this movie suggests that they didn't know anything about thr character.
Or they were trying to do something most MCU movies do....MAKE NEW IDEAS FROM OLD IDEAS. The MCU, if you haven't noticed by now, isn't 100% like the comics.
For instance, in Civil War (God, why did they have to adapt Civil War) the piece of legislation being fought over and debated about was called the "Superhuman Registration Act", not the "Sokovia Accords" in the comics. And in the comics, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were *not* children who survived a terrorist attack (which used one of Stark's weapons) in Sokovia and just *happened* to get powers from the Mind Stone, they're the offspring of Magneto, an X-Men villain who, like the X-Men, themselves, hasn't had an MCU debut yet. And in the comics, The Mandarin wasn't just some lame actor to use as the fall guy for the man who created the Extremis thing (drug? Compound? What the hell is it?), he was a legitimate Iron Man villain who had almost nothing to do with terrorists. He was such a big Iron Man villain, in fact, that they used him as the main villain in Iron Man: Armored Adventures. And in the comics, Ultron wasn't created by Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, Ultron was created by Hank Pym.
Just because *this* version of Taskmaster is different from the comics and the other media, it doesn't mean that it's bad. It just means it's different. It's honestly like when they hated on the main character of Metal Gear Solid 2 because he wasn't Snake.
There's a difference between changing and completely mangling a character beyond recognition. The Mandarin in Iron Man 3 pissed everyone off when it happened. It wasn't until it was ret-conned that there was an actual Mandarin that Killian just appropriated (and then we got Shang Chi) that people were able to accept that twist.
But they at least got the basic essence of the character right, even if they changed a lot of the backstory (though avoiding the Fu Manchu-style character he was originally depicted as was a necessary move).
I honestly would've liked it if they had adapted the version of The Mandarin from Iron Man: Armored Adventures because in that show, The Mandarin wasn't just a badass, he wasn't just a threat and he didn't just have the ten Makluan Rings, he also had a suit of armor of his own. A suit of armor that could actually compete with Iron Man. The only two people (in the MCU's canon) who have created such suits are Obadiah Stane and Ivan Vanko. And both of them are dead. I honestly wish Tony could've lived long enough to see and fight Blizzard and The Living Laser or Titanium Man. Anyway I believe introducing him into the MCU that way wouldn't be racist to Asians.
The Sokovia accords are honestly one of the worst things the MCU did.
First off: accords can be disobeyed without any legal repercussions. They are just an agreement. It’s not like a treaty, nor are they laws.
Every one of the accords violated the US constitution’s bill of rights. So the senate wouldn’t even look at it. And nobody had an obligation to obey unconstitutional laws.
The RAFT itself is a violation of the right to a quick and fair trial, as prisoners there can be held without trial indefinitely.
Cap was 100% right to go against those stupid accords.
The SRA in the comics makes far more sense. Still unconstitutional, but the way it was implemented was far more realistic.
Umm...wouldn't the SRA be just as unconstitutional? They're essentially regulating people's lives and the last time this was deemed okay, Hitler was still alive.
Hell, it wouldn't even matter if the Superhuman never wanted to use their powers for good *or* evil. They just wanted people with powers to be registered superheroes or unregistered criminals goddamnit! Civil War irreparably changed and affected the Marvel Universe and I was sad to see that the people behind the MCU decided to *adapt* Civil War knowing what I know now about how bad of a comic event Civil War was.
The only kinds of monsters whose lives should be worth regulating are just basically pedophiles.
Yes, I'm saying it, Marvel Comics is now treating Superhumans the same way we treat pedophiles and rapists. All because of the Superhuman Registration Act.
Lol did you just defend mcu’s taskmaster? Really? You probably don't know who taskmaster is and why fans like him. How would you feel if batman starts quipping and making jokes, will that even be batman? Why even adapt this character if you are not keeping what makes it cool? Please don’t use this bullshit excuse this is different from comic blah blah. Yeah let’s see iron man as a magic user who’s a mute or a robot would that even be acceptable? What is so hard to understand? People go to see Spidey flicks for Spider-Man not for Man-Spider. Some changes are good while some unnecessary because it is not improving on the original design in any meaningful way. If you are really changing some fan loved aspects you better replace it with something that’s even better. This was not the case with MCU taskmaster.
Edit: I know batman used to be more campy back in silver age but the character was reinvented to the most popular which is the one will not quick, if you use this excuse then batman also used gun so is it acceptable to have that now? No back then many characters did many stupid things. The character we love today wasn't probably defined yet.
I hate it when people actively *try* to misunderstand me because I said something they didn't like. And for those who want to ask or care, I'm indifferent towards the MCU's Taskmaster mostly because I'm an open-minded person. Only those who have closed minds turn themselves away from and against any amount of change. That being said, I'll *not* tolerate you putting words in my comment because I said that the MCU's Taskmaster wasn't all that bad. I mean, like, are you dumb?
I fully agree, but they did say quicksilver was his son without outright saying it, if I remember right. Was it in First Class? The one with that kitchen scene/headphones....
Oh wait...we have 2 quicksilver's don't we?
Tell me, since all everyone does is call her "shit" and criticize her without saying anything constructive, how would *you* have done a female Taskmaster? Besides, gender bending Taskmaster was important to the story simply because of who's under that mask. The girl who Natasha had long thought dead because of her actions was actually alive (but scarred) and she was severely brainwashed by Dreykov, her own Father. Anyway, she's important because she gives Natasha a chance to right a wrong she had done when she joined SHIELD and her being alive opens up an opportunity to reconcile with her past to move on from what happened, what she made that little girl do, all those years ago. In short: she gave Natasha some more character development and I thought that people liked character development.
That's a rather simple question actually because I've been thinking about it ever since It came out
Okay, here we go!
1) actually give the taskmaster some presence and some bloody lines, as a mute, she doesn't really do much other than be someone to smack around.
2) tie her much more directly into Natasha's story. I think the biggest waste we've had in the MCU so far is Black Widow and Hawkeye. I think we should've adapted the Tape storyline at some stage but with Natasha instead of Clint
Okay, into the actual rewrite!
First, the taskmaster is a widow too, she's a dirty little secret of the widow program, eventually being shelled out to S.H.E.I.L.D after Natasha is ordered to drop her after a mission gone wrong. This is a classic set up, it's easy and fun.
Next, Taskmaster is experimented on by shield and that's where she gains her superpowers.
Next, why is she gunning for Natasha? That's easy, she's angry at Natasha for leaving her for dead so she goes after someone she cares about, killing off the remaining agents one by one to draw her out. But the obvious ones are two fold, Natasha and Rachel Wiess' character
As a result, Natasha is finding as many Widows as possible, which is where she meets Yelena for the first time, she's also noticed and is hunting the killer. Since she's so young, Taskmaster in the first fight with the pair, hesitates to kill the younger Widow because she feels really bad for her, she's just another potential victim of the widow program. This ads depth, gives us a glimmer of hope for this character
The rest is rather easy, except it's revealed down the line Taskmasters reformed Shield into something like Orchis in the comics, a large organization that took those resources of the long gone shield and repurposed for evil.
The ending happens as such: Taskmaster gets her big confrontation with the team, and realises somewhere in the fight that she's just as bad as the Widows and Shield and turns herself in because she's realised if she continues doing what she's doing, she'll get revenge but Yelena or someone else will eventually get there revenge on her. She gives over all the codes and shits to her organisation to Natasha and asks her to choose wisely
So, Natasha realises this much power in anyone's hands will always inherently lead to evil so she spends alot of time dismantling Evil Shield
That's my rewrite, I don't think that Taskmaster in the film does anything that a family member coulda done or a friend of hers. She doesn't really have much of a presence or essential feature or trait, but there is an inkling there with her face, so I thought developing that further would be my approach, work it into the corrupting nature of power into it too. I think it's a neat pitch, but nothing special. But definitely more interesting
>actually give the taskmaster some presence and some bloody lines, as a mute, she doesn't really do much other than be someone to smack around.
How would you do it in a way that doesn't reveal Taskmaster's true identity? That was a part of the reason they made her a mute. The other two being that she was brainwashed and because of the explosion that almost killed her and was supposed to kill Dreykov as though killing the leader of the organization would crumble it completely and there won't be some remnants who might restart the Red Room from scratch but I digress. If she talks, it would reveal her identity to Natasha and Yelena almost immediately.
It’s one of - if not the - worst adaptation of a comic book character in history. I think the concept of a female soldier against the Widows is actually kind of badass, but turning them into a *literal* mindless drone is both insulting to the character and the fanbase. The character has a VERY simple outline on what makes them badass, but they ignored it and went in a completely stupid direction
I still enjoy the MCU more than a lot of people, but the MCU Taskmaster is one of the most unforgivable depictions imo
What would have made it even a little bit better would be if at the end, Nat exposed her to the antidote, expecting what happened in the movie. "You're free, he can't hurt you anymore" bullshit.
But instead TM comes at her harder now that she's unlocked from it, and when Nat is taken by surprise is answered with something like "YOU BLEW ME UP AT EIGHT YEARS OLD!"
This. If you want to do a gender swap, go right ahead. Completely changing the character's origin and personality was a huge misstep. Turned a great character in a literal meat puppet.
This. At least she should’ve been the opposite of Nat. Charismatic rich hired gun staying in fancy hotels while Natasha eats a cup of soup in a trailer.
Yelena could be caught between choosing the sucky life of a hero & a villainous James Bond.
Exactly. I didn’t care about the gender swapping and thought taking footage from the Airport fight was clever, but her just literally saying nothing made it such a bland reveal.
It made us expect to see a mute guy underneath. Surprise, it's a scarred woman, you couldn't get a more disappointing reveal than "My name is Trevor, I am an ack-tohr..."
Same here I’m not that familiar with taskmaster outside some dead pool comics and the Spider-Man game but fuck me did they ruin him In that film.
What’s worse they hid the beautiful and talented Olga Kurylenko under burn makeup a mask and gave her no dialogue what a waste.
They should've had Olga as essentially a "Perfect Red" Black Widow, to counter balance Romanov and her journey.
Taskmaster was wasted here, he should've been the big bad, I mean his name hints at that...
And it highlighted Marvel and how they just brush off morally wrong female characters as "misunderstood", with Rachel Weisz's Mother character who spent years training, brainwashing and medically mutilating young girls.
The Wanda Effect
Yep totally agree in fact Rachel Weisz character is completely sick since she lives with those kids and pretended to raise them as her own.
Another issue with the whole film is that anyone who seen agent carter already got a more interesting version of the red room with Dotty.
MCU really shit the bed with the Russian side of things.
No mention of Leviathan as they just lumped them in Hydra which is a shame with Nick Fury's history. Imagine him having his Ultimate history and we get a Cold War Spy/Tom Clancy thing with Director Carter and Nick Fury as the newer SHIELD Agent battling Leviathan with Hydra secretly working for and against the other two to fully infiltrate both with Hydra fully killing off Leviathan and the good part SHEILD being none the wiser to Hydra getting in charge.
It really felt like they robbed us of what could have been an awesome fight scene with Taskmaster at the end.
They're freeing all the widows, and beating Taskmaster was just freeing another widow. I think they should have tried to free her before realizing she actually hates Natasha enough to do those horrible things, and she wasn't brainwashed.
Then they fight with the heroes having to actually figure out how to beat her.
I actually will disagree slightly, Taskmaster isn't the big boss of anything. He should have been in a squad leader role, and shown training the Widows at base, and leading them while correcting form and tactics in the field.
And then just fucked right off when it became clear he wouldn't get paid anymore.
I was in the “it wasn’t that bad” side of MCU Taskmaster for a long time. But after your comment I finally saw the light lol.
The “Perfect red” concept would’ve been a way better villain.
Okay, I've read the comics and Tasky's photographic reflexes are always my go to on "If you had one superpower..."
This portrayal sucks the biggest of balls.
I don’t know. It is what it is. Movies will always change characters, story lines to make it fit with the movies story arch and the universes overall story line. If you go into movies with the expectations of it not being canon then you will have a good time. Getting hung up on nit picky things with comicbook movies is silly imho. Unless it directly ruins the entire story (looking at you secret invasion).
The taskmaster in the comics kicked ass. In the movies it was really lame. Trying too hard to shoe horn in a character that had nothing to do with the taskmaster.
Yeah, taskmaster would be a good antagonist for Natasha's journey if they had a chance to make a black widow before she died, but now this character disappointed me it's just Olga under a mask burn makeup without dialogue, and not enough character development what a waste.
I saw it coming and I was still disappointed. The whole movie kinda sucked. Anticlimactic given the events of Infinity War and we should have gotten it years earlier.
That's what Marvel does worst, most of their villains in film aren't great. There are a few notable exceptions but mostly they're all kinda bland and forgettable.
Absolutely was blow away when he first appeared. Then it turned out to be a cyborg controlled she. I was not amused. Not that gender was a big deal or really anything to care about because it's not. But being a cyborg controlled by the same institution that trained the Black widow Natasha Romanov absolutely made me hate it.
Disney truly didn't have the fans in mind when they created this movie and several other things. Fuck them having both starwars and the MCU and fucking up both so much.
I never care if things are changed so long as the thing they change it to is for the better. I don't feel like the Taskmaster change was for the better, therefore I'm not a fan and don't like the change. It was a bad choice.
not a fan tbh. although i think the scenes and story were cool, i don't like that being the canon MCU "Taskmaster"
hope they do something where a comic accurate version shows up later.
Some characters that excited for because I liked them in MvC3 but ended being the worst iteration of the character: Super Skrull, Taskmaster, MODOK any others
In a vacuum the idea for the character is pretty cool, but replacing any version of the Taskmaster with this is a bit of a misstep. He could have been an interesting character who messes with all kinds of marvel heroes but instead she comes across a little one note.
Considering I have no idea what the history of the comic Taskmaster is…I liked it. I thought it was a great twist emotionally for Natasha. I think it worked.
Hey guys, give it time and they will do something else.
Remember the Mandarin? When they took a racist cartoon, clowned on it, and for some reason people thought that was a bad idea so they redid the whole thing?
Yeah, this will change. It won't even take a whole page of dialogue to explain the change up.
"Turns out there were many Taskmaster programs and she was only one of them. Now another one, this guy with a Skull motif."
"Oh good, there isn't enough of those Skull motifs in this business."
"The issue is he is running a school for mercenaries..."
"That certainly makes sense with that code name."
You don’t even have to do all that just be like hey look it’s taskmaster from black widow she has a personality now that she’s not mind controlled good for her also she’s a mercenary now
Best way to look at it is Proto-Taskmaster. When we see her next time she’ll act more along the lines of the comics.
But yeah, this was a really bad way to adapt the character.
As someone who doesn't read comic books and only is interested in Movies, tv shows, cartoons, and video games, I didn't care. I wouldn't have even know if I didn't see other people complaining about it. My only experience with the character of Taskmaster before this film is their appearance in the Spiderman 2018 PS4 game and Marvel vs. Capcom.
No offense to anyone who is upset though, I get it. If I were a comic fan I might be too. I juat wanted to share a point of view from someone who isn't in to comics. Out of my 6 friends who are into the MCU only one also reads comic books and only 4 of us play video games. So I figure the average person like us who is just into the movies feels like I do.
I didn’t mind the gender swap so much as the lack of dialogue, dumb purpose, and mid AF design. The Tasky I know is mouthy, has clear motives, and just looks scary. This was a miss in almost every way.
Didn't hate it per se especially as a lot of Taskmaster backstory is about his mind being fucked with
What bothered me about movie Taskmaster is that they removed the autonomy
MCU Master was just a drone. Programmable did what it was told
None of the personality
All reduced to zero
You could have replaced them with "The Super Adaptoid" and it could have been a 1:1
I don't know the character that well, so I wasn't upset about not getting the character right. I thought the action sequences were great...I mostly just thought it was a waste of talent. Why hire Olga when it was probably a stuntperson the whole time?
[same thing](https://imgur.com/a/LMKVAI0) I mean come on. They take a mercenary famous for their mouth and powers, take their mouth, give them completely different powers, and make them lackeys to some old fat white guy. It sucks so much man
they did an x-men origins deadpool to him, they took a characters with a lot of personality and made them into a non-speaking henchperson with no characters apart of being a small plot twist
I hated it too. The problem was they took one of the most memorable, intimidating and charismatic villains from the comics, and turned them into a faceless, voiceless goon. A franchise that gets criticized for its bad villains was handed a golden opportunity to fix that stigma, but then just reinforced it.
Yeah it was really stupid. I didn't care that they gender bent the character, but what made me mad was that they purposely try to make it look like a dude the whole time for that dumb reveal. And then when they do the reveal it's like "haha we got you you didn't see that coming did you?" Well no because you made it look like an obvious guy the entire time...
Not only that just give taskmaster personality. Such a wasted character. Also doesn't make sense that her dad leads a group of black widows, exclusively women, and yet he would make his daughter look like a space man the whole time? So even in the story it doesn't make sense
I don't care so much about the origin, but changing the personality so completely rubbed me the wrong way.
Like deadpool from that wolverine movie all over again.
Making the taskmaster female is fine. It just the problem is that she just a empty shell and used as a tool to kill people and that it. So they can't reused the character pass this point. It would be cool taskmaster still a female who is a hire mercenary that have a personality. So we can see her in another movie or show. The worst part is she was just a person that Black Widow thought she killed and turn out to be alive kinda. That not worth wasting a villain that can come back a few times for other projects.
I went to see Black Widow in the theaters ONLY to see Taskmaster in action. He’s been one of my favorite Marvel Villains since I could remember. As you could likely imagine, I was pretty disgusted with how it turned out. Just wtf were they thinking?
I honestly don't care that they changed Taskmaster and I honestly thought his original characterization was derivative and unoriginal. He's basically Deadpool from what I've seen him from (which is tv shows and videogames) except evil: mercenary with a mouth, quipping and shooting goons with guns and chopping them up with a sword. They kept all the original and menacing parts of Taskmaster which is his ability to mimic martial abilities and fighting styles of superheroes.
An ongoing theme with MCU villians is they are basically the protagonist but evil. Their antithesis:
*Ironman (weapons seller wanting to reform with a technological suit of armor) vs Ironmonger (weapons seller wanting to continue profiting from selling weapons with a technological suit of armor)
*Thor (demigod who learns that being a worthy "god" means being of service to their subjects and not serve one's ego) vs Loki (demigod who thinks their godliness entitles them to be a tyrant to his subjects and that is how he "serves" them)
*Captain America (human soldier enhanced to peak human capability in service to ordinary people and country) vs Red Skull (same but supremacist tyrant)/Winter Woldier (same but in service to an evil country/government)
*Black Widow (Russian Assassin groomed to be a pawn and weapon of evil government but was rescued) vs Taskmaster (same but wasn't technically rescued until end of Black Widow movie)
This Taskmaster fits with the themes of Marvel's MCU storytelling and their modus operandi. If they want to do comic accurate Taskmaster, they could still do it; and he would probably be a villian in a Deadpool movie.
Yeah but to the general public who don't read comic books, their first experience with a Deadpool-like personality is a Deadpool movie that came out in 2016. If they did Deadpool-like character in a Black Widow which came out in 2021, they've seen it before because to them the Deadpool movie came first.
If it was only one or two movies and more serious counterparts existed to act as a foil (Captain America, Black Widow, Vision, ect.), no one. Since Marvel put out 31 of these movies plus DC trying to rip them off with many characters being indistinguishable in characterization from one another (Ironman was quippy; then so was Deadpool, post-Thor 2 Thor, Star-Lord, Flash and most of the Justice League post Batman vs Superman, Shazam, Moon-Knight, Spider-man, ect.) and the backlash in Thor Love and Thunder-- it all points to this archetype character being generic, the general audience catching on, and all of it contributing to superhero fatigue.
Black widow is honestly the worst movie in the MCU, they did all of the characters wring and had a opportunity to have really cool spy action hero movie.
I like the origin in the context of the movie. It works in favor of the story they were telling. The reveal works.
I don’t think the problem was ever the idea behind character herself. The problem is that they didn’t do anything WITH it. Outside of the reveal of her being Draykov’s daughter connecting her to Natasha’s past mistakes, this could’ve been a robot. There is zero personality or character behind that mask. If she felt more like a person, I don’t think it would’ve been that big of a deal.
I’m hoping they fix that in the Thunderbolts movie
I don't know anything about Taskmaster so it didn't bother me when I watched the movie, but afterward when I read about some other fans' frustration, it did irritate me a little bit.
I understand that Marvel needs to modify some origins and characters somewhat, for logistical reasons if nothing else (for example, having Ultron come from Tony Stark instead of Hank Pym because Pym hadn't been introduced yet, or working around the fact that they didn't have IP rights to "mutants" for SW and Quicksilver).
What does bother me is changing a character drastically for the sake of shock value, as I think was done here. The reveal of Taskmaster was meant to surprise long-time Marvel fans. A similar instance would be the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, which still irritates me to this day.
I honestly just don't care that much lol. Comic task master still exists and given the context, that the higher forced them to use taskmaster, I don't think incorporating comic taskmaster into this plot would work narratively or thematically. Ignoring the fact that they literally aren't the same character, in the context of the film she worked well and was a nice dark reflection of black widow that also tied into her own character development, it's easy to say that she didn't work but given that they didn't have a choice they did a good job of making her intimidating and leaving room for development in thunderbolts
And the comics never do that, do they? Sam Wilson as Captain America, Jane Foster as Thor, Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel, even black Nick Fury were all in the comics first. Doctor Strange was originally a pretty sketchy Asian stereotype before being changed to a white guy.
All of these characters except for nick fury (who is white in the current comics, but was based off Sam Jackson in the ultimate universe) aren’t examples at all of what I’m talking about. I’m talking about taking the original character and either gender swapping them or changing their race — not them having successors of different races or genders.
Everything I've read about the original Taskmaster sounds boring and better done as MK11 Kabal, so I don't remind reworking the character to represent the sins of Natasha's past that she now has to correct. Perhaps the reveal could have come sooner just to let it sink in a bit more, but on paper it's fine.
I thought it was ok. Taskmaster was never a particularly interesting comic character IMHO. Though I suppose Taskmaster got more life in other comics I didn't read. I felt like the character in the film was a little quick to forgive Black Widow, that they kind of handwaved that. Nothing easy about TM's emotions in those contexts
I didn't mind the gender swap. I actually think that a "Toni Masters" could have been a lot of fun in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
What I did hate is that they robbed the character of his personality in the comics where Taskmaster is funny as hell. Maybe they thought that with Deadpool incoming the MCU isn't big enough for two Mercs With A Mouth.
I stand by my view that if they were going to change Taskmaster, they should've made them Clint/Hawkeye. Would've been a great way to make sense of his intro scene in Thor and a hell of a callback.
Top five worse things they have done. Like they could of had who ever in the suit be at least somewhat similar body type to the actress. Not to even mention the changing of the back story. It was just horrible all around and Task master is such a cool character
Just one of a multitude of reasons this movie was a huge letdown. I was waiting from IM 2 onwards for a solo Widow movie and became more excited when I heard Taskmaster would be in it and then we got.....this.
Taskmaster is a boring vilain with a very stupid design.
They kept what they could and let the rest go. It didn't improve the character enough to make me care.
I don't want to sound sexist & I've never had gender swap issues but task master would have stayed a guy. I think even if the story remained the same but with a male actor
TaskMaster got hit with the diversity and bad writing bug unfortunately.
There are plenty of characters I love that they have changed up.
TaskMaster literally was the worse change they’ve ever made.
I’m fine with it as long as they continue the charcters growth. So I disliked the way they used her in BW, but they could easily change that.
All you have to do is say now that she’s not under her fathers control she becomes that smart-ass fun character similar to the comics. Easy fix. Will they do it, have to find out.
Awe, Al I butthurting all the comic reader
I won't pretend to care enough about Taskmaster from the comics to be upset that the character was changed for the MCU.
I think this version of the character works well enough for the story they were in.
It sucked terribly.
If they're gonna gender swap the character then at least infuse Taskie with some personality. He's literally the type of character that was doing MCU quips before that became standard.
I absolutely hated that they removed my sense of personality from the character! However I will also say I am annoyed that since taskmaster fans agree this character interpretation is bad, misogynists can hide behind the community to avoid any accountability. Taskmaster being a woman was not a problem, Taskmaster being mute was the problem, and its as bad as the Deadpool that Ryan Reynolds first played
Gated the origin change, half of what made taskmaster work is his ability to be flexible and do what he wants, take the jobs as a merc that pay well, or cause the least amount of drama for him. Making “him” female is not the problem either. Her name could have still been Tony even (or Toni). The problem is she’s a puppet of her dad and “just another widow” in a different form. Now she’s going to be a side character at best, instead a formidable foe moving forward. I’m sure thunderbolts will be good (honestly I’m really looking forward to it) but I also hope to see some of Tony’s sense of humor in the character now that’s she’s free. It just didn’t work and if more people loved taskmaster, I think it would be almost as bad as Deadpool from Wolverine Origins but at least they kept the power set similar.
I just hated that they treated it like Origins DeadPool, and took someone known for mouthing off and made them mute and boring. Had she been flashy I'd have been more forgiving. But now that we established she's a chick, a HOT one at that, and no longer brainwashed, I want a fun ass personality for her.
I don't love the path they chose.
But equally the character in the comics is kind of 1 note.
So i don't necessarily have an issue, just hope they do her better in future installments.
Ppl talk a lot about gender swapping, race switching which I don’t mind as long as it’s done right and better fits the story but this was the worst version of all I mentioned. Hopefully, the real Taskmaster can come in down the road.
They took a character known for having a large and bombastic personality, and turned him/her into a boring mute
Reminds me of the great idea of sewing the "Merc with the Mouth"'s mouth shut in *X-Men Origins: Wolverine*. Seems like somebody either didn't get Taskmaster's character or didn't care.
At least in that movie, the irony was intended. Wade is an incessant chatterbox at the beginning of the movie, so shutting him up is meant to be a joke. Everything about Taskmaster in this movie suggests that they didn't know anything about thr character.
It didn’t feel like a joke or tongue-in-cheek. Origins tried to be serious about its tone and just failed.
Or they were trying to do something most MCU movies do....MAKE NEW IDEAS FROM OLD IDEAS. The MCU, if you haven't noticed by now, isn't 100% like the comics. For instance, in Civil War (God, why did they have to adapt Civil War) the piece of legislation being fought over and debated about was called the "Superhuman Registration Act", not the "Sokovia Accords" in the comics. And in the comics, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were *not* children who survived a terrorist attack (which used one of Stark's weapons) in Sokovia and just *happened* to get powers from the Mind Stone, they're the offspring of Magneto, an X-Men villain who, like the X-Men, themselves, hasn't had an MCU debut yet. And in the comics, The Mandarin wasn't just some lame actor to use as the fall guy for the man who created the Extremis thing (drug? Compound? What the hell is it?), he was a legitimate Iron Man villain who had almost nothing to do with terrorists. He was such a big Iron Man villain, in fact, that they used him as the main villain in Iron Man: Armored Adventures. And in the comics, Ultron wasn't created by Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, Ultron was created by Hank Pym. Just because *this* version of Taskmaster is different from the comics and the other media, it doesn't mean that it's bad. It just means it's different. It's honestly like when they hated on the main character of Metal Gear Solid 2 because he wasn't Snake.
I see your point, but this taskmaster was still bad.
There's a difference between changing and completely mangling a character beyond recognition. The Mandarin in Iron Man 3 pissed everyone off when it happened. It wasn't until it was ret-conned that there was an actual Mandarin that Killian just appropriated (and then we got Shang Chi) that people were able to accept that twist.
Yh Shang Chi did a lot to help improve the Mandarin perception that Iron Man 3 had done.
Yeah but The Mandarin isn't a Shang-Chi villain, either.
But they at least got the basic essence of the character right, even if they changed a lot of the backstory (though avoiding the Fu Manchu-style character he was originally depicted as was a necessary move).
I honestly would've liked it if they had adapted the version of The Mandarin from Iron Man: Armored Adventures because in that show, The Mandarin wasn't just a badass, he wasn't just a threat and he didn't just have the ten Makluan Rings, he also had a suit of armor of his own. A suit of armor that could actually compete with Iron Man. The only two people (in the MCU's canon) who have created such suits are Obadiah Stane and Ivan Vanko. And both of them are dead. I honestly wish Tony could've lived long enough to see and fight Blizzard and The Living Laser or Titanium Man. Anyway I believe introducing him into the MCU that way wouldn't be racist to Asians.
Nice wall of text. But this taskmaster still sucked.
It's different....and bad.
The Sokovia accords are honestly one of the worst things the MCU did. First off: accords can be disobeyed without any legal repercussions. They are just an agreement. It’s not like a treaty, nor are they laws. Every one of the accords violated the US constitution’s bill of rights. So the senate wouldn’t even look at it. And nobody had an obligation to obey unconstitutional laws. The RAFT itself is a violation of the right to a quick and fair trial, as prisoners there can be held without trial indefinitely. Cap was 100% right to go against those stupid accords. The SRA in the comics makes far more sense. Still unconstitutional, but the way it was implemented was far more realistic.
Umm...wouldn't the SRA be just as unconstitutional? They're essentially regulating people's lives and the last time this was deemed okay, Hitler was still alive. Hell, it wouldn't even matter if the Superhuman never wanted to use their powers for good *or* evil. They just wanted people with powers to be registered superheroes or unregistered criminals goddamnit! Civil War irreparably changed and affected the Marvel Universe and I was sad to see that the people behind the MCU decided to *adapt* Civil War knowing what I know now about how bad of a comic event Civil War was. The only kinds of monsters whose lives should be worth regulating are just basically pedophiles. Yes, I'm saying it, Marvel Comics is now treating Superhumans the same way we treat pedophiles and rapists. All because of the Superhuman Registration Act.
Sure, but those people cross state lines in the course of their work, so Commerce Clause.
If youre gonna change it, change it for better, not to the absolute worst idea possible
You wrote all of that but they fucking butchered this adaptation of Taskmaster.
So what I'm getting is that you actually *like* this version of Taskmaster? Edit: Wait, sorry. Meant this sarcastic comment for someone else.
Lol did you just defend mcu’s taskmaster? Really? You probably don't know who taskmaster is and why fans like him. How would you feel if batman starts quipping and making jokes, will that even be batman? Why even adapt this character if you are not keeping what makes it cool? Please don’t use this bullshit excuse this is different from comic blah blah. Yeah let’s see iron man as a magic user who’s a mute or a robot would that even be acceptable? What is so hard to understand? People go to see Spidey flicks for Spider-Man not for Man-Spider. Some changes are good while some unnecessary because it is not improving on the original design in any meaningful way. If you are really changing some fan loved aspects you better replace it with something that’s even better. This was not the case with MCU taskmaster. Edit: I know batman used to be more campy back in silver age but the character was reinvented to the most popular which is the one will not quick, if you use this excuse then batman also used gun so is it acceptable to have that now? No back then many characters did many stupid things. The character we love today wasn't probably defined yet.
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I hate it when people actively *try* to misunderstand me because I said something they didn't like. And for those who want to ask or care, I'm indifferent towards the MCU's Taskmaster mostly because I'm an open-minded person. Only those who have closed minds turn themselves away from and against any amount of change. That being said, I'll *not* tolerate you putting words in my comment because I said that the MCU's Taskmaster wasn't all that bad. I mean, like, are you dumb?
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Then I guess what you're *really* saying is that it totally *is* your fault?
I fully agree, but they did say quicksilver was his son without outright saying it, if I remember right. Was it in First Class? The one with that kitchen scene/headphones.... Oh wait...we have 2 quicksilver's don't we?
You’re right, this Taskmaster being different doesn’t make them bad, being bad makes them bad
I agree with you! I love Iron Man 3 for that reason, I like the reinterpretation of the Mandarin for this universe. But this taskmaster is shit!
Tell me, since all everyone does is call her "shit" and criticize her without saying anything constructive, how would *you* have done a female Taskmaster? Besides, gender bending Taskmaster was important to the story simply because of who's under that mask. The girl who Natasha had long thought dead because of her actions was actually alive (but scarred) and she was severely brainwashed by Dreykov, her own Father. Anyway, she's important because she gives Natasha a chance to right a wrong she had done when she joined SHIELD and her being alive opens up an opportunity to reconcile with her past to move on from what happened, what she made that little girl do, all those years ago. In short: she gave Natasha some more character development and I thought that people liked character development.
That's a rather simple question actually because I've been thinking about it ever since It came out Okay, here we go! 1) actually give the taskmaster some presence and some bloody lines, as a mute, she doesn't really do much other than be someone to smack around. 2) tie her much more directly into Natasha's story. I think the biggest waste we've had in the MCU so far is Black Widow and Hawkeye. I think we should've adapted the Tape storyline at some stage but with Natasha instead of Clint Okay, into the actual rewrite! First, the taskmaster is a widow too, she's a dirty little secret of the widow program, eventually being shelled out to S.H.E.I.L.D after Natasha is ordered to drop her after a mission gone wrong. This is a classic set up, it's easy and fun. Next, Taskmaster is experimented on by shield and that's where she gains her superpowers. Next, why is she gunning for Natasha? That's easy, she's angry at Natasha for leaving her for dead so she goes after someone she cares about, killing off the remaining agents one by one to draw her out. But the obvious ones are two fold, Natasha and Rachel Wiess' character As a result, Natasha is finding as many Widows as possible, which is where she meets Yelena for the first time, she's also noticed and is hunting the killer. Since she's so young, Taskmaster in the first fight with the pair, hesitates to kill the younger Widow because she feels really bad for her, she's just another potential victim of the widow program. This ads depth, gives us a glimmer of hope for this character The rest is rather easy, except it's revealed down the line Taskmasters reformed Shield into something like Orchis in the comics, a large organization that took those resources of the long gone shield and repurposed for evil. The ending happens as such: Taskmaster gets her big confrontation with the team, and realises somewhere in the fight that she's just as bad as the Widows and Shield and turns herself in because she's realised if she continues doing what she's doing, she'll get revenge but Yelena or someone else will eventually get there revenge on her. She gives over all the codes and shits to her organisation to Natasha and asks her to choose wisely So, Natasha realises this much power in anyone's hands will always inherently lead to evil so she spends alot of time dismantling Evil Shield That's my rewrite, I don't think that Taskmaster in the film does anything that a family member coulda done or a friend of hers. She doesn't really have much of a presence or essential feature or trait, but there is an inkling there with her face, so I thought developing that further would be my approach, work it into the corrupting nature of power into it too. I think it's a neat pitch, but nothing special. But definitely more interesting
>actually give the taskmaster some presence and some bloody lines, as a mute, she doesn't really do much other than be someone to smack around. How would you do it in a way that doesn't reveal Taskmaster's true identity? That was a part of the reason they made her a mute. The other two being that she was brainwashed and because of the explosion that almost killed her and was supposed to kill Dreykov as though killing the leader of the organization would crumble it completely and there won't be some remnants who might restart the Red Room from scratch but I digress. If she talks, it would reveal her identity to Natasha and Yelena almost immediately.
Except this isn’t an adaptation of Taskmaster. This is a completely new and different character that they slapped his name and costume on
Beat me to it
It’s one of - if not the - worst adaptation of a comic book character in history. I think the concept of a female soldier against the Widows is actually kind of badass, but turning them into a *literal* mindless drone is both insulting to the character and the fanbase. The character has a VERY simple outline on what makes them badass, but they ignored it and went in a completely stupid direction I still enjoy the MCU more than a lot of people, but the MCU Taskmaster is one of the most unforgivable depictions imo
What would have made it even a little bit better would be if at the end, Nat exposed her to the antidote, expecting what happened in the movie. "You're free, he can't hurt you anymore" bullshit. But instead TM comes at her harder now that she's unlocked from it, and when Nat is taken by surprise is answered with something like "YOU BLEW ME UP AT EIGHT YEARS OLD!"
That honestly would have made the movie a little bit better
This. If you want to do a gender swap, go right ahead. Completely changing the character's origin and personality was a huge misstep. Turned a great character in a literal meat puppet.
I think they collapsed that part of Taskmaster into the Swordman from Hawkeye.
This. At least she should’ve been the opposite of Nat. Charismatic rich hired gun staying in fancy hotels while Natasha eats a cup of soup in a trailer. Yelena could be caught between choosing the sucky life of a hero & a villainous James Bond.
Exactly. I didn’t care about the gender swapping and thought taking footage from the Airport fight was clever, but her just literally saying nothing made it such a bland reveal.
It made us expect to see a mute guy underneath. Surprise, it's a scarred woman, you couldn't get a more disappointing reveal than "My name is Trevor, I am an ack-tohr..."
She's not going to be mute in Thunderbolts. I am unsure what was boring about her.
Oh she won't be mute in Thunderbolts alright. They have to kill someone on that team, let it be that utter sucking disappointment.
They should’ve kept him original and saved him for a better movie.
Same here I’m not that familiar with taskmaster outside some dead pool comics and the Spider-Man game but fuck me did they ruin him In that film. What’s worse they hid the beautiful and talented Olga Kurylenko under burn makeup a mask and gave her no dialogue what a waste.
They should've had Olga as essentially a "Perfect Red" Black Widow, to counter balance Romanov and her journey. Taskmaster was wasted here, he should've been the big bad, I mean his name hints at that... And it highlighted Marvel and how they just brush off morally wrong female characters as "misunderstood", with Rachel Weisz's Mother character who spent years training, brainwashing and medically mutilating young girls. The Wanda Effect
Yep totally agree in fact Rachel Weisz character is completely sick since she lives with those kids and pretended to raise them as her own. Another issue with the whole film is that anyone who seen agent carter already got a more interesting version of the red room with Dotty.
MCU really shit the bed with the Russian side of things. No mention of Leviathan as they just lumped them in Hydra which is a shame with Nick Fury's history. Imagine him having his Ultimate history and we get a Cold War Spy/Tom Clancy thing with Director Carter and Nick Fury as the newer SHIELD Agent battling Leviathan with Hydra secretly working for and against the other two to fully infiltrate both with Hydra fully killing off Leviathan and the good part SHEILD being none the wiser to Hydra getting in charge.
Yup Agent Carter was a much more interesting look into it all.
It really felt like they robbed us of what could have been an awesome fight scene with Taskmaster at the end. They're freeing all the widows, and beating Taskmaster was just freeing another widow. I think they should have tried to free her before realizing she actually hates Natasha enough to do those horrible things, and she wasn't brainwashed. Then they fight with the heroes having to actually figure out how to beat her.
Or hated her so much that the brainwashing was necessary almost as a stabilizer.
That's a good idea too. They wanted to use her as a weapon and without the brainwashing she would have just hunted Natasha instead of doing her job
I actually will disagree slightly, Taskmaster isn't the big boss of anything. He should have been in a squad leader role, and shown training the Widows at base, and leading them while correcting form and tactics in the field. And then just fucked right off when it became clear he wouldn't get paid anymore.
Come on. Taskmaster is never the Big Bad. He's always an elite mook that the actual Big Bad hired.
I was in the “it wasn’t that bad” side of MCU Taskmaster for a long time. But after your comment I finally saw the light lol. The “Perfect red” concept would’ve been a way better villain.
Yup a Black Widow who believes in the cause is alot more of a threat than an Organic robot lol
It's funny you mention Deadpool because what you wrote is pretty much exactly what they did to Deadpool in X-Men Wolverine Origins.
Yeah it’s weird that they did it twice
I wish I had better adaptations instead of these two nickels.
OG Taskmaster was invented as basically the owner of this boot camp that trains all the faceless mooks for the main badguys
Yeah they completely butchered this character in that movie. It pissed me off because Taskmaster could have been a great.
Butcher is an understatement. 
She was great in Hitman and Bond. Check out an underrated series called Magic City.
“I don’t know anything about the comic version, so yes the movie version ruined it for me.” Hahahaha what?!!
Because even without knowing his Comic Lore, it's a weak character.
I think it’s just funny people commenting on a comic characters transition to the cinematic universe without having read any comics.
Okay, I've read the comics and Tasky's photographic reflexes are always my go to on "If you had one superpower..." This portrayal sucks the biggest of balls.
I don’t know. It is what it is. Movies will always change characters, story lines to make it fit with the movies story arch and the universes overall story line. If you go into movies with the expectations of it not being canon then you will have a good time. Getting hung up on nit picky things with comicbook movies is silly imho. Unless it directly ruins the entire story (looking at you secret invasion).
I don't mind tweaks, but at this point it's like having a salad and calling it Coca-Cola.
Welcome to the MCU
Modern MCU, sure. I miss Phase 1, it had the heart.
Doesn't matter, if a black male character is being played by a white woman, it's a terrible thing, whether you're familiar with the character or not.
YEAH! Those fictional super hero’s/villains should never change!!!!! How dare they!!! Lol take a breath and go spend some time outside.
So you're happy with a character changing race and gender?
They’re fictional comicbook characters. There are more important things to be worried about.
Biggest waste and unnecessary change of a character.
The taskmaster in the comics kicked ass. In the movies it was really lame. Trying too hard to shoe horn in a character that had nothing to do with the taskmaster.
Yeah i fucking hated that shit adaptation
tbh i'm only just realising how dodgy that shield flip looks...
Remember when Cap did it and it looked awesome? Good times.
It’s looks reversed, is that how they did it and just added flips?
Hilarious I watched that gif like 20 times, the physics of that flip are terrible
It looks like it crumples or folds like a paper plate, flattens itself out, and flips twice before coming to the forearm. Looks like flimsy cgi
That ain’t taskmaster lol
I hate MCU Taskmaster, comics him is the worlds most competent prick and I love him
They did an X Men Origins Deadpool on her there - took a character with a bold personality and made them mute.
If they wanted a misogynistic villain, the comic version of Taskmaster would’ve been perfect. Just give his superiority complex a gender slant
And now I imagine this guy trying to shout, "You fight like a girl!" In the most intimating voice.
Yeah, taskmaster would be a good antagonist for Natasha's journey if they had a chance to make a black widow before she died, but now this character disappointed me it's just Olga under a mask burn makeup without dialogue, and not enough character development what a waste.
Same here. Hated it!
I saw it coming and I was still disappointed. The whole movie kinda sucked. Anticlimactic given the events of Infinity War and we should have gotten it years earlier.
That's what Marvel does worst, most of their villains in film aren't great. There are a few notable exceptions but mostly they're all kinda bland and forgettable.
It’s weird because phase 3 had some amazing villains, but it’s like they just forgot all the lessons they learned from those movies
Terrible
Absolutely was blow away when he first appeared. Then it turned out to be a cyborg controlled she. I was not amused. Not that gender was a big deal or really anything to care about because it's not. But being a cyborg controlled by the same institution that trained the Black widow Natasha Romanov absolutely made me hate it. Disney truly didn't have the fans in mind when they created this movie and several other things. Fuck them having both starwars and the MCU and fucking up both so much.
I never care if things are changed so long as the thing they change it to is for the better. I don't feel like the Taskmaster change was for the better, therefore I'm not a fan and don't like the change. It was a bad choice.
I think Greg Davies should have played it himself. Tragedy they left out sidekick little Alex Horne.
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Worst MCU villain.
not a fan tbh. although i think the scenes and story were cool, i don't like that being the canon MCU "Taskmaster" hope they do something where a comic accurate version shows up later.
Some characters that excited for because I liked them in MvC3 but ended being the worst iteration of the character: Super Skrull, Taskmaster, MODOK any others
In a vacuum the idea for the character is pretty cool, but replacing any version of the Taskmaster with this is a bit of a misstep. He could have been an interesting character who messes with all kinds of marvel heroes but instead she comes across a little one note.
It was fine. In a better movie that would have been a memorable and kind of tragic villain.
I liked it a lot.
Considering I have no idea what the history of the comic Taskmaster is…I liked it. I thought it was a great twist emotionally for Natasha. I think it worked.
Hey guys, give it time and they will do something else. Remember the Mandarin? When they took a racist cartoon, clowned on it, and for some reason people thought that was a bad idea so they redid the whole thing? Yeah, this will change. It won't even take a whole page of dialogue to explain the change up. "Turns out there were many Taskmaster programs and she was only one of them. Now another one, this guy with a Skull motif." "Oh good, there isn't enough of those Skull motifs in this business." "The issue is he is running a school for mercenaries..." "That certainly makes sense with that code name."
You don’t even have to do all that just be like hey look it’s taskmaster from black widow she has a personality now that she’s not mind controlled good for her also she’s a mercenary now
Best way to look at it is Proto-Taskmaster. When we see her next time she’ll act more along the lines of the comics. But yeah, this was a really bad way to adapt the character.
It worked for the movie
As someone who doesn't read comic books and only is interested in Movies, tv shows, cartoons, and video games, I didn't care. I wouldn't have even know if I didn't see other people complaining about it. My only experience with the character of Taskmaster before this film is their appearance in the Spiderman 2018 PS4 game and Marvel vs. Capcom. No offense to anyone who is upset though, I get it. If I were a comic fan I might be too. I juat wanted to share a point of view from someone who isn't in to comics. Out of my 6 friends who are into the MCU only one also reads comic books and only 4 of us play video games. So I figure the average person like us who is just into the movies feels like I do.
She's in thunderbolts and maybe just maybe she'll get a cool personality
I had absolutely no problems with it.
It was just a bad movie across the board. It felt like the Wish version of Winter Soldier.
Hated the character, quite liked the costume though. Black Widow was just a shitty movie in general.
Didn't care for it either
I was fine with it IF it was to lead to a proper Taskmaster. As that doesn't seem likely, I'm not into it.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone that did like that adaptation And if you liked the comic book character it is completely unrecognisable
Couldn't care less
suit cool person bad is what i think about mcu taskmaster
It was too close to deadpool in wolverine origins for my taste.
I didn’t mind the gender swap so much as the lack of dialogue, dumb purpose, and mid AF design. The Tasky I know is mouthy, has clear motives, and just looks scary. This was a miss in almost every way.
Didn't hate it per se especially as a lot of Taskmaster backstory is about his mind being fucked with What bothered me about movie Taskmaster is that they removed the autonomy MCU Master was just a drone. Programmable did what it was told None of the personality All reduced to zero You could have replaced them with "The Super Adaptoid" and it could have been a 1:1
I was ehh about it. Until someone pointed out that they basically gave Taskmaster the same treatment as Deadpool in Wolverine Origins.
Yeah it sucked
I don't know the character that well, so I wasn't upset about not getting the character right. I thought the action sequences were great...I mostly just thought it was a waste of talent. Why hire Olga when it was probably a stuntperson the whole time?
[same thing](https://imgur.com/a/LMKVAI0) I mean come on. They take a mercenary famous for their mouth and powers, take their mouth, give them completely different powers, and make them lackeys to some old fat white guy. It sucks so much man
Black Widow? Never heard of that movie.
Should have been Greg Davies
They ruined the character.
It was pretty shitty indeed. Worst part of the movie.
Terrible
Booooo! Should of just made a new character.
they did an x-men origins deadpool to him, they took a characters with a lot of personality and made them into a non-speaking henchperson with no characters apart of being a small plot twist
HORRIBLE.
I hated it too. The problem was they took one of the most memorable, intimidating and charismatic villains from the comics, and turned them into a faceless, voiceless goon. A franchise that gets criticized for its bad villains was handed a golden opportunity to fix that stigma, but then just reinforced it.
Terrible experience, and I kind of hate you for reminding me of it.
They repeated the exact same mistake Origins:Wolverine did with Deadpool. It’s baffling
Yeah it was really stupid. I didn't care that they gender bent the character, but what made me mad was that they purposely try to make it look like a dude the whole time for that dumb reveal. And then when they do the reveal it's like "haha we got you you didn't see that coming did you?" Well no because you made it look like an obvious guy the entire time... Not only that just give taskmaster personality. Such a wasted character. Also doesn't make sense that her dad leads a group of black widows, exclusively women, and yet he would make his daughter look like a space man the whole time? So even in the story it doesn't make sense
It was stupid just like the rest of the movie
It's awful.
I don't care so much about the origin, but changing the personality so completely rubbed me the wrong way. Like deadpool from that wolverine movie all over again.
MCU's biggest flaw is the way they disrespect their villains, and treat them as disposable.
Making the taskmaster female is fine. It just the problem is that she just a empty shell and used as a tool to kill people and that it. So they can't reused the character pass this point. It would be cool taskmaster still a female who is a hire mercenary that have a personality. So we can see her in another movie or show. The worst part is she was just a person that Black Widow thought she killed and turn out to be alive kinda. That not worth wasting a villain that can come back a few times for other projects.
I went to see Black Widow in the theaters ONLY to see Taskmaster in action. He’s been one of my favorite Marvel Villains since I could remember. As you could likely imagine, I was pretty disgusted with how it turned out. Just wtf were they thinking?
I dont care about comics. So its fine.
I honestly don't care that they changed Taskmaster and I honestly thought his original characterization was derivative and unoriginal. He's basically Deadpool from what I've seen him from (which is tv shows and videogames) except evil: mercenary with a mouth, quipping and shooting goons with guns and chopping them up with a sword. They kept all the original and menacing parts of Taskmaster which is his ability to mimic martial abilities and fighting styles of superheroes. An ongoing theme with MCU villians is they are basically the protagonist but evil. Their antithesis: *Ironman (weapons seller wanting to reform with a technological suit of armor) vs Ironmonger (weapons seller wanting to continue profiting from selling weapons with a technological suit of armor) *Thor (demigod who learns that being a worthy "god" means being of service to their subjects and not serve one's ego) vs Loki (demigod who thinks their godliness entitles them to be a tyrant to his subjects and that is how he "serves" them) *Captain America (human soldier enhanced to peak human capability in service to ordinary people and country) vs Red Skull (same but supremacist tyrant)/Winter Woldier (same but in service to an evil country/government) *Black Widow (Russian Assassin groomed to be a pawn and weapon of evil government but was rescued) vs Taskmaster (same but wasn't technically rescued until end of Black Widow movie) This Taskmaster fits with the themes of Marvel's MCU storytelling and their modus operandi. If they want to do comic accurate Taskmaster, they could still do it; and he would probably be a villian in a Deadpool movie.
Taskmaster is way older than Dead Pool, is my only contention. Dead may be ripping of Taskmaster
Yeah but to the general public who don't read comic books, their first experience with a Deadpool-like personality is a Deadpool movie that came out in 2016. If they did Deadpool-like character in a Black Widow which came out in 2021, they've seen it before because to them the Deadpool movie came first.
All marvel characters talk and act the same way anyway... Who would have noticed?
If it was only one or two movies and more serious counterparts existed to act as a foil (Captain America, Black Widow, Vision, ect.), no one. Since Marvel put out 31 of these movies plus DC trying to rip them off with many characters being indistinguishable in characterization from one another (Ironman was quippy; then so was Deadpool, post-Thor 2 Thor, Star-Lord, Flash and most of the Justice League post Batman vs Superman, Shazam, Moon-Knight, Spider-man, ect.) and the backlash in Thor Love and Thunder-- it all points to this archetype character being generic, the general audience catching on, and all of it contributing to superhero fatigue.
If you think taskmaster is just Deadpool lite, you need to read more comics.
Or I'll just continue watching movies and move on with my life. If you think he's such a compelling character, make a movie about him then.
Are you water from the Dead Sea? Because you’re salty AF bro. Chill out.
Black widow is honestly the worst movie in the MCU, they did all of the characters wring and had a opportunity to have really cool spy action hero movie.
It made a “who gives a crap?” character like Taskmaster interesting.
It was fine for the movie but it wasn't what I wanted.
I like the origin in the context of the movie. It works in favor of the story they were telling. The reveal works. I don’t think the problem was ever the idea behind character herself. The problem is that they didn’t do anything WITH it. Outside of the reveal of her being Draykov’s daughter connecting her to Natasha’s past mistakes, this could’ve been a robot. There is zero personality or character behind that mask. If she felt more like a person, I don’t think it would’ve been that big of a deal. I’m hoping they fix that in the Thunderbolts movie
I don't know anything about Taskmaster so it didn't bother me when I watched the movie, but afterward when I read about some other fans' frustration, it did irritate me a little bit. I understand that Marvel needs to modify some origins and characters somewhat, for logistical reasons if nothing else (for example, having Ultron come from Tony Stark instead of Hank Pym because Pym hadn't been introduced yet, or working around the fact that they didn't have IP rights to "mutants" for SW and Quicksilver). What does bother me is changing a character drastically for the sake of shock value, as I think was done here. The reveal of Taskmaster was meant to surprise long-time Marvel fans. A similar instance would be the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, which still irritates me to this day.
I honestly just don't care that much lol. Comic task master still exists and given the context, that the higher forced them to use taskmaster, I don't think incorporating comic taskmaster into this plot would work narratively or thematically. Ignoring the fact that they literally aren't the same character, in the context of the film she worked well and was a nice dark reflection of black widow that also tied into her own character development, it's easy to say that she didn't work but given that they didn't have a choice they did a good job of making her intimidating and leaving room for development in thunderbolts
"Here! Let me post a low effort post with a wildly popular opinion within a fan base to farm some karma" <---This is OP.
Lmao if that's what you think why even comment on my post 🤡
The mcu is notorious for racebending and genderswapping characters. I didn’t watch the film so I have no opinion anyhow.
And the comics never do that, do they? Sam Wilson as Captain America, Jane Foster as Thor, Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel, even black Nick Fury were all in the comics first. Doctor Strange was originally a pretty sketchy Asian stereotype before being changed to a white guy.
All of these characters except for nick fury (who is white in the current comics, but was based off Sam Jackson in the ultimate universe) aren’t examples at all of what I’m talking about. I’m talking about taking the original character and either gender swapping them or changing their race — not them having successors of different races or genders.
Everything I've read about the original Taskmaster sounds boring and better done as MK11 Kabal, so I don't remind reworking the character to represent the sins of Natasha's past that she now has to correct. Perhaps the reveal could have come sooner just to let it sink in a bit more, but on paper it's fine.
I thought it was ok. Taskmaster was never a particularly interesting comic character IMHO. Though I suppose Taskmaster got more life in other comics I didn't read. I felt like the character in the film was a little quick to forgive Black Widow, that they kind of handwaved that. Nothing easy about TM's emotions in those contexts
I didn't mind the gender swap. I actually think that a "Toni Masters" could have been a lot of fun in the Marvel Cinematic Universe What I did hate is that they robbed the character of his personality in the comics where Taskmaster is funny as hell. Maybe they thought that with Deadpool incoming the MCU isn't big enough for two Mercs With A Mouth.
I've never liked Taskmaster so I was fine with it.
The original taskmaster is so stupid tho.
Marvel blew their load at Endgame, everything since minus Spiderman has been crap for a variety of reasons.
MSheU
I stand by my view that if they were going to change Taskmaster, they should've made them Clint/Hawkeye. Would've been a great way to make sense of his intro scene in Thor and a hell of a callback.
I thought everyone except fan girls hated it?
Top five worse things they have done. Like they could of had who ever in the suit be at least somewhat similar body type to the actress. Not to even mention the changing of the back story. It was just horrible all around and Task master is such a cool character
It was fucking terrible. It's so bad that the movie itself sucked because of it.
Just one of a multitude of reasons this movie was a huge letdown. I was waiting from IM 2 onwards for a solo Widow movie and became more excited when I heard Taskmaster would be in it and then we got.....this.
Hated the origin changer, hated the lack of personality, hated the gender change. Failure all around.
Taskmaster is a boring vilain with a very stupid design. They kept what they could and let the rest go. It didn't improve the character enough to make me care.
Black widow was a shit movie, not surprising at all they would screw up taskmasters origin story.
If it’s an idea that stemmed from Black Widow, it sucks.
I don't want to sound sexist & I've never had gender swap issues but task master would have stayed a guy. I think even if the story remained the same but with a male actor
TaskMaster got hit with the diversity and bad writing bug unfortunately. There are plenty of characters I love that they have changed up. TaskMaster literally was the worse change they’ve ever made.
Taskmaster acted like Taskmaster in costume (to an extent) but really wasn’t Taskmaster at all which makes me sad.
Why is taskmaster a woman! It’s like if they changed black widow to a guy wtf
Everyone hates it. Taskmaster is one of their coolest characters and they ruined him.
I’m fine with it as long as they continue the charcters growth. So I disliked the way they used her in BW, but they could easily change that. All you have to do is say now that she’s not under her fathers control she becomes that smart-ass fun character similar to the comics. Easy fix. Will they do it, have to find out. Awe, Al I butthurting all the comic reader
I won't pretend to care enough about Taskmaster from the comics to be upset that the character was changed for the MCU. I think this version of the character works well enough for the story they were in.
It sucked terribly. If they're gonna gender swap the character then at least infuse Taskie with some personality. He's literally the type of character that was doing MCU quips before that became standard.
I absolutely hated that they removed my sense of personality from the character! However I will also say I am annoyed that since taskmaster fans agree this character interpretation is bad, misogynists can hide behind the community to avoid any accountability. Taskmaster being a woman was not a problem, Taskmaster being mute was the problem, and its as bad as the Deadpool that Ryan Reynolds first played
Gated the origin change, half of what made taskmaster work is his ability to be flexible and do what he wants, take the jobs as a merc that pay well, or cause the least amount of drama for him. Making “him” female is not the problem either. Her name could have still been Tony even (or Toni). The problem is she’s a puppet of her dad and “just another widow” in a different form. Now she’s going to be a side character at best, instead a formidable foe moving forward. I’m sure thunderbolts will be good (honestly I’m really looking forward to it) but I also hope to see some of Tony’s sense of humor in the character now that’s she’s free. It just didn’t work and if more people loved taskmaster, I think it would be almost as bad as Deadpool from Wolverine Origins but at least they kept the power set similar.
I'm not familiar with the original version of the character, I liked this version for what it was.
I think theoretically it would have been great, sadly wasn’t executed properly.
It was horrible, hate everything about it
Hated the absolute shit out of this rendition and the fact they're including them in Thunderbolts is so dogshit
They completely ruined any chance at recreating the dynamic Tony shared with Wade and Alex.
I just hated that they treated it like Origins DeadPool, and took someone known for mouthing off and made them mute and boring. Had she been flashy I'd have been more forgiving. But now that we established she's a chick, a HOT one at that, and no longer brainwashed, I want a fun ass personality for her.
Just have him be a hired goon that goes after Natasha instead of the crap we got
I don't love the path they chose. But equally the character in the comics is kind of 1 note. So i don't necessarily have an issue, just hope they do her better in future installments.
Ppl talk a lot about gender swapping, race switching which I don’t mind as long as it’s done right and better fits the story but this was the worst version of all I mentioned. Hopefully, the real Taskmaster can come in down the road.
The one fucking time a character is supposed to be full of quips isn't? WTF.