When Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow makes her way back onto movie screens this year, she’ll have another formidable opponent to face in Taskmaster.
With the arrival of the latest trailer for the Avengers character’s standalone film comes a closer look at the villain Taskmaster. Based on what’s shown in the Black Widow movie trailer, fans are getting a better idea of who the villain is and what they bring to battle.
New Black Widow movie trailer
The newest trailer from Marvel Studios gives fans many of the scenes they saw when the first official Black Widow trailer arrived weeks ago. There are a few new lines about what Natasha’s up to and why she’s back to see her family. Red Guardian (David Harbour) gets in another one-liner, and there are some more glimpses of battle scenes.
In particular, viewers are seeing much more of the villain that Black Widow will go up against named Taskmaster.
In the several scenes that appear in the trailer, the masked villain is in full battle mode wearing armor and wielding a shield that can deflect bullets. Taskmaster also shows another interesting aspect of his (or her) battle abilities, in that they can mimic the various moves of the Avengers.
Examples include hurling that shield like Captain America and performing an exact replica of Natasha’s flip up from the ground as she does. There’s also a cool chase scene in which Taskmasker is diving through the sky blasting a rapid-fire weapon at a diving Black Widow.
In the first trailer released a month ago, viewers saw Taskmaster popping up from a tank and preparing to shoot a bow and arrow.
Who is the Taskmaster villain from Marvel?
The movie villain comes straight out of the Marvel comics, just as the majority of the MCU characters do.
So far, the character doesn’t have an official actor credited to the role, leaving it a mystery much like the character was in comics. The Taskmaster was the villain alter ego for Anthony Masters who made their comic book appearance in The Avengers No. 195 back in May 1980. A full debut came in the follow-up issue No. 196.
He even got his own Taskmaster comic standalone series from Marvel in 2002 which spanned four issues. Although the villain is a mysterious character in the comics, he has the power to mimic the physical moves of anyone he’s witnessed. That explains the abilities shown off in the trailer as he is copycatting Natasha and showing off Cap’s shield skills.
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In the comics, he learned of his abilities to mimic the physical movements of those observed and used them to enjoy a successful football career during school. While he first considered becoming a crime fighter, he deemed a career as a professional criminal a better career path.
In addition, other abilities that could pop up in the film include masterful hand-to-hand combat, martial arts, as well as having sword and archery skills. The latter of those abilities would seem to be a replica of Natasha’s good Avengers pal Hawkeye.
In the comics, the Taskmaster character was also a master of disguise and could perform voice mimicry, so watch out for those to be part of his master plan in the upcoming film.
The villain was a male in the comics world. However, that doesn’t mean Marvel couldn’t switch things up and make this movie based on a female supervillain going against the female superhero.
Fans will have to wait for more trailers or footage to arrive, or until the movie hits the big screen to see if there’s any reveal of who this particular Taskmaster is.
Black Widow is scheduled for release into theaters on May 1, 2020.