In the Black Widow film, the physical threat to Natasha Romanoff was Taskmaster, an assassin who could copy any of the movements they saw to near perfection. In fact, there were multiple occasions when the Taskmaster nearly killed Natasha because she wasn’t ready to face the killer. But with the reveal that the villain was Antonia Dreykov and her eventual cure from her father’s brainwashing, Antonia retired the persona. But just because she won’t be wearing the helmet doesn’t mean the character shouldn’t return.
The Taskmaster twists caused some division among the fanbase, but the reveal that the character was a ghost from Natasha’s past fit the narrative and her arc perfectly. Regardless, the choice came at the cost of the real Taskmaster from the comics, Tony Masters. But even though Antonia did a great job establishing the Taskmaster brand in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the dark legacy she left behind could make room for Masters’ iteration of the villain.
Tony Masters was an ex-SHIELD Agent who became a highly-skilled mercenary in the comics. He adopted the Taskmaster persona and various weapons from the Avengers that he used to battle them when he made his first appearance in Avengers #195-196 by David Micheline and George Pérez. Using his photographic reflexes, Masters would study the various teams of Avengers and copy their movements to better combat them. As a result, he was the physical representation of a shortcut — in that, he had to do zero training to copy moves from the likes of Black Panther and Captain America.
Of course, Masters has yet to appear in the MCU, but that doesn’t mean his origin hasn’t gotten mapped out. At the end of Black Widow, Antonia was fled, while in the Taskmaster suit, from General Ross and his men. But the helmet, which featured all of the information from previous missions and footage from past Avengers battles, remained. Therefore, Ross could’ve confiscated the helmet in hopes of making a new Taskmaster, similar to his efforts in creating a super-soldier. A deleted scene could even further solidify this theory because it saw Antonia get taken into US custody.
However, suppose Ross had the helmet and also saw Taskmaster in action through his connections and the chase in Budapest. In that case, he could easily reactivate the program and find others with photographic reflexes, such as Tony Masters, an ex-SHIELD agent. Now, a new, more wisecracking iteration of the villain could appear, at first as a tool for Ross following The Blip, hunting down targets to maintain diplomatic peace. Eventually, the freedom provided from half of the population getting wiped out could entice Masters to go solo as a free agent, becoming the mercenary fans know.
Antonia Dreykov kickstarted a change in the MCU that has seen more comics-accurate designs and origins cleverly come to life. And while she didn’t get ripped out of the comics, she helped push a powerful narrative forward introduced in the first Avengers film. But Antonia also closed the door on an era of villains that resembled the source material but were narratively standalone. Now, the stage is set for Taskmaster to make a deadly return using the history of the MCU and the comics to create a distinct version of the villain built on the legacy Antonia left behind.
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