Taskmaster isn't really an edgelord character, at least in stories I've read. He debuted a long time ago and is basically a mirror-match for numerous superheroes with limited superpowers. He isn't going to last long against Thor or Vision or something but he can hold his own against a dude with a bow or a shield. He's a genuine mercenary and, in a field chock full of ideological villains and revenge-mad crazies, he's an interesting change of pace.
I didn't mind the change from the comic character to the one in the movie. I'm not overly attached to him, but he does have a fanbase of people who really like him. Maybe the Boba Fett effect at work: masked guy, good at fighting, tough, cares for nothing but money. More of a power fantasy than an edgelord one, I think.
It was something I didn't really see coming until he started talking about his daughter. The face mask swap of Milena and BW also surprised me, but I figured out the nose breaking thing ahead of time.
Still, the bit where she slammed her head into the desk made me bring my hand up to my mouth and say oof louder than I wanted.
No character, though, is so obscure or weird that someone somewhere won't be mad at their portrayal. There's a guy just waiting to unleash his Not My Sugar Man campaign on social media the second he makes it to the screen.
No character, though, is so obscure or weird that someone somewhere won't be mad at their portrayal. There's a guy just waiting to unleash his Not My Sugar Man campaign on social media the second he makes it to the screen.
What edgelord? He's just a mercenary with a superpower. But he has a personality at least.
He’s a dude with a sword and a skull face wearing a cape who has bullshit “I can beat anyone” powers
get outta here with this
Hmm I don't know what you're looking at, my knowledge of him is from pld captain America comics where he's a mercenary and trainer who looks like a pirate. He's pretty fun there and not in an edgelord way. I know there's a more recent story where everytike he gains a skill he loses his memory which is a shitty and overly dramatic reinvention of someone who is literally just loyal to the money.
Like he can be female, that's not an issue, the complete lack of a character and not really using his unique talent is.
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
He's the bottom of the barrel for characters anyway.
This is like the LOTR nerds getting in a tizzy over Radagast being missing in LOTR.
He’s not Victor von Doom but he’s not bottom of the barrel. If you think Taskmaster is the bottom of the comics villain barrel you are very much mistaken.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
What edgelord? He's just a mercenary with a superpower. But he has a personality at least.
He’s a dude with a sword and a skull face wearing a cape who has bullshit “I can beat anyone” powers
get outta here with this
What? No. He's got a very specific powerset that makes him good at dealing with very specific people. He doesn't do well against people he hasn't studied, people with legitimate superpowers he can't copy, Deadpool, and people with healing factors in general (because they will take hits that should be lethal and keep going).
The dude is sardonic and witty, and is a great foil to other characters.
Saying that he's an edgelord is basically seeing that he has a skull on his costume and making a value judgment on his character.
My favorite Taskmaster series has him get his ass kicked. And he barely survives the whole ordeal. He doesn't 'win' in the traditional sense, because his enemy lives and continues to run her organization, but he 'wins' in that he makes her miserable by having to be constantly on guard for the rest of her life. Kinda like the guy in B:TaS who ripped off the riddler.
Also during that series he gets into a fight with iron man, and his cunning plan to defeat him is...to critically injure a guard and run the fuck away because Iron Man is way above his pay grade.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
He’s not Victor von Doom but he’s not bottom of the barrel. If you think Taskmaster is the bottom of the comics villain barrel you are very much mistaken.
Gail Simone's run on Deadpool/Agent X did a good job on expanding Tasky personality. I always liked him as a foil to Deadpool, someone who's both his friend and can barely stand him.
And I always appreciate that he's usually self aware enough of his line of work that he knows when he's over his head.
He also has a backstory that is interesting, though I don't think it's been touched on much.
He was a shield agent, who went undercover as a bad guy but his power keeps overwriting his memories, so he doesn't even remember that.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Gail Simone's run on Deadpool/Agent X did a good job on expanding Tasky personality. I always liked him as a foil to Deadpool, someone who's both his friend and can barely stand him.
And I always appreciate that he's usually self aware enough of his line of work that he knows when he's over his head.
He also has a backstory that is interesting, though I don't think it's been touched on much.
He was a shield agent, who went undercover as a bad guy but his power keeps overwriting his memories, so he doesn't even remember that.
That backstory sucks and I appreciate whenever a writer ignores it because that backstory basically retcons his entire comics history and makes him boring.
And yeah, what made me love Tasky was his appearances in Deadpool/Agent X where he plays the foil to Deadpool/X. That's also when his first miniseries came out, which keeps the same character. I will note that the 'backstory' you mention is essentially incompatible with how he's portrayed in Deadpool/Agent X/His first miniseries.
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joshgotroDeviled EggThe Land of REAL CHILIRegistered Userregular
Amy. Stop forgetting Taskmaster has a bow. Please.
Who’s to say that she doesn’t build a personality similar to the comics now that she’s not a mindless drone. We get the sense that the films and TV show are building towards either the Dark or Young Avengers and someone is going to need to train them.
I think that what appeals to a lot of people is that it really is just a job to him. He's got a (weak-ish) power that he doesn't use to be either a hero or a capital-V Villain, but to get paid (mostly by people who want to be the latter, and/or want their mooks to be slightly more competent and effective). This sort of pragmatic materialism is refreshing to those who find the whole "people in underwear beating on each other while earnestly spouting melodramatic dialogue/monologues" thing to be kind of silly. He's not a full-on fourth-wall-aware genre buster, like Deadpool or Gwenpool, but he does push the envelope a bit.
I mean, we've all seen (and/or written) those articles with the theme of "if I had [power], I wouldn't put on tights and do/fight crime, hell no; I'd use it for [practical and/or lucrative applications obvious to anyone who isn't all about writing fiction based on cool fights]." Taskmaster isn't quite that guy, 'cause he still does the tights and fights; but he's a step in that direction.
He’s not Victor von Doom but he’s not bottom of the barrel. If you think Taskmaster is the bottom of the comics villain barrel you are very much mistaken.
Yeah like... there are so so many villains. So many. Great villains show up once or twice every couple years in the mainline books. But for every Doctor Doom there are 500 people like Turner D. Century or Kangaroo or Past-Pot Pete.
Taskmaster is a fun mid-tier villain. Rarely the endgame of a big plot, but often a fun single issue.
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I’m enjoying the visual image of a roomful of Marvel villains taking numbers like at a deli counter, waiting to be cast in a movie. Marvel buys out Fox and suddenly Dr Doom jumps the line.
“What the hell?” mumbles Taskmaster, “Crossbones and Batroc got multi-film deals! And now this asshole gets to cut in line?”
“THE LINE FORMS BEHIND DOOM,” the Lataverian booms out, hearing everything.
“What a jerk,” offers Leap Frog, sitting right next to Taskmaster, “Don’t worry, bud, we’ll get our movies next, I bet.”
Taskmaster scoots down the bench slightly, away from the man in a frog costume.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Taskmaster actually trains John Walker on how to use the shield in the books, because no one else knows how.
Hey, it's a paycheck.
He does that in the comics, too.
what books did you think they meant?
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited July 2021
Why do people like taskmaster?
It's because of shit like this:
Spoilered for big:
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
What edgelord? He's just a mercenary with a superpower. But he has a personality at least.
He’s a dude with a sword and a skull face wearing a cape who has bullshit “I can beat anyone” powers
get outta here with this
Huh? That's not the point of his character at all.
Comics takes it for granted that there's an endless supply of henchmen for the heroes to defeat in battle. But where do those henchmen come from? That's how you come up with Taskmaster. That alone makes him a fun and memorable character, because he adds an additional layer of realism.
You know the saying about how the real money in gold mining isn't the mining, it's in the selling of shovels? Taskmasker is the guy who sells the shovels. He likes to hang out in the shadows, away from the spotlight, because the people who are in the spotlight inevitably lose. But even if they lose, Taskmasker still makes money.
Taskmaster has no real villainous aims. He could be an excellent hero if he wanted to, but he's not really interested in risking his life if he doesn't has too. But he knows that villains have a much worse track win-loss record in comic books, hence, selling shovels. That's the opposite of an edge lord. He wears a mask because he doesn't want to be identified. He carries a sword because he doesn't have to worry about ammunition.
I know he lists "assassin" in his bio... but it seems more like an a piece of exposition than a central part of his character. If he has worked as an assassin, then it's most likely going after people who deserved it who no one will miss.
Anyway, the problem with the movie version is that the only thing the movie version has in common with the comic version is the ability. That's it. And even the nature of the ability is different.
And at that point... why not just invent an entirely new character with the same ability?
Heck, why not just make the character a standard martial artist who was just really good at fighting? The ability itself was kind of wasted if the character doesn't do anything really interesting or creative with it.
Who’s to say that she doesn’t build a personality similar to the comics now that she’s not a mindless drone. We get the sense that the films and TV show are building towards either the Dark or Young Avengers and someone is going to need to train them.
That doesn't make as much sense in the MCU. In the MCU, you could have that role served by a standard martial artist.
In the comics, his ability comes in handy for training henchmen because he can say, "Okay, this is what it's like to fight Captain America."
There's only one situation where that role might have made any sense
tzeentchlingDoctor of RocksOaklandRegistered Userregular
I would love to see a mini-story or something between a sleeper/secret agent of Wakanda and a sleeper/secret agent of the Widows/Red Room. Both movies establish that they have a legion of operatives out there ready to topple governments at a moment's notice/with the right equipment - but do they ever interact? What happens if one side wants to assassinate someone and the other regards them as necessary to protect? Are they ever frenemies? Do they ever fall in love? There's a lot that could be mined there.
Taskmaster's thing is being a compentent goon. The mimicry thing is just the gimmick that gets written in so he can compete with everyone else's gimmick
Even if you don't like Taskmaster from the comics, I'd at least think one would still want a character in a movie to at least have a semblance of a personality. The soulless Terminator-esque killer worked well for Winter Soldier since Bucky had an established personality in the first Captain America movie which makes the lack of personality shocking and makes for a sympathetic villain. Maybe they'll do the opposite for Taskmaster later, allowing for character development, but it doesn't really save the execution in this movie.
Overall, I enjoyed Black Widow, but Taskmaster was indeed a low point just because there just wasn't much there. And I don't really have a strong opinion on comic Taskmaster, as I don't read comics and have only really gotten what little knowledge I have through cultural osmosis.
I also wasn't too fond of the action sequences towards the end, the effects just felt like too much. But the overall story was pretty good and the character interactions with Natasha and her family, especially Yelena, were great. Personally, I'd like them to just tone down the action stuff a little bit. I like action sequences, but the heavy effects are a bit of a sensory overload which, in my opinion, hampers the action on screen. I'd say less is more in this situation, and they just need a bit less.
You can still give Taskmaster more of a personality when she shows up in later films. Until the fight at the end she was under the Red Room mind control, and a witty style of banter didn’t seem high on their priority list.
Now free of the mind control, you can have TM remain a villain/mercenary and let some personality come through.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited July 2021
Guys, please don't put unmarked blatant spoilers for a movie that just came out days ago.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Who’s to say that she doesn’t build a personality similar to the comics now that she’s not a mindless drone. We get the sense that the films and TV show are building towards either the Dark or Young Avengers and someone is going to need to train them.
Why not? Yilena is already working for Elaine Menace, so Taskmastercould do the same.
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I didn't mind the change from the comic character to the one in the movie. I'm not overly attached to him, but he does have a fanbase of people who really like him. Maybe the Boba Fett effect at work: masked guy, good at fighting, tough, cares for nothing but money. More of a power fantasy than an edgelord one, I think.
Still, the bit where she slammed her head into the desk made me bring my hand up to my mouth and say oof louder than I wanted.
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Yeah, they said as much in the Pitch Meeting, but hey, it's a start.
I’m still waiting on the real Bucky costume
He’s a dude with a sword and a skull face wearing a cape who has bullshit “I can beat anyone” powers
get outta here with this
Hmm I don't know what you're looking at, my knowledge of him is from pld captain America comics where he's a mercenary and trainer who looks like a pirate. He's pretty fun there and not in an edgelord way. I know there's a more recent story where everytike he gains a skill he loses his memory which is a shitty and overly dramatic reinvention of someone who is literally just loyal to the money.
Like he can be female, that's not an issue, the complete lack of a character and not really using his unique talent is.
This is like the LOTR nerds getting in a tizzy over Radagast being missing in LOTR.
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What? No. He's got a very specific powerset that makes him good at dealing with very specific people. He doesn't do well against people he hasn't studied, people with legitimate superpowers he can't copy, Deadpool, and people with healing factors in general (because they will take hits that should be lethal and keep going).
The dude is sardonic and witty, and is a great foil to other characters.
Saying that he's an edgelord is basically seeing that he has a skull on his costume and making a value judgment on his character.
My favorite Taskmaster series has him get his ass kicked. And he barely survives the whole ordeal. He doesn't 'win' in the traditional sense, because his enemy lives and continues to run her organization, but he 'wins' in that he makes her miserable by having to be constantly on guard for the rest of her life. Kinda like the guy in B:TaS who ripped off the riddler.
Also during that series he gets into a fight with iron man, and his cunning plan to defeat him is...to critically injure a guard and run the fuck away because Iron Man is way above his pay grade.
It’s a very deep barrel
And I always appreciate that he's usually self aware enough of his line of work that he knows when he's over his head.
He also has a backstory that is interesting, though I don't think it's been touched on much.
That backstory sucks and I appreciate whenever a writer ignores it because that backstory basically retcons his entire comics history and makes him boring.
And yeah, what made me love Tasky was his appearances in Deadpool/Agent X where he plays the foil to Deadpool/X. That's also when his first miniseries came out, which keeps the same character. I will note that the 'backstory' you mention is essentially incompatible with how he's portrayed in Deadpool/Agent X/His first miniseries.
Hey, it's a paycheck.
He does that in the comics, too.
I mean, we've all seen (and/or written) those articles with the theme of "if I had [power], I wouldn't put on tights and do/fight crime, hell no; I'd use it for [practical and/or lucrative applications obvious to anyone who isn't all about writing fiction based on cool fights]." Taskmaster isn't quite that guy, 'cause he still does the tights and fights; but he's a step in that direction.
Yeah like... there are so so many villains. So many. Great villains show up once or twice every couple years in the mainline books. But for every Doctor Doom there are 500 people like Turner D. Century or Kangaroo or Past-Pot Pete.
Taskmaster is a fun mid-tier villain. Rarely the endgame of a big plot, but often a fun single issue.
Edit:
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what books did you think they meant?
It's because of shit like this:
Spoilered for big:
Steam: MightyPotatoKing
Yeah, that was literally the inspiration for his character and it's great.
And writer was just like "Where are all these disposable mooks coming from? Somebody has to be training them"
Huh? That's not the point of his character at all.
Comics takes it for granted that there's an endless supply of henchmen for the heroes to defeat in battle. But where do those henchmen come from? That's how you come up with Taskmaster. That alone makes him a fun and memorable character, because he adds an additional layer of realism.
You know the saying about how the real money in gold mining isn't the mining, it's in the selling of shovels? Taskmasker is the guy who sells the shovels. He likes to hang out in the shadows, away from the spotlight, because the people who are in the spotlight inevitably lose. But even if they lose, Taskmasker still makes money.
Taskmaster has no real villainous aims. He could be an excellent hero if he wanted to, but he's not really interested in risking his life if he doesn't has too. But he knows that villains have a much worse track win-loss record in comic books, hence, selling shovels. That's the opposite of an edge lord. He wears a mask because he doesn't want to be identified. He carries a sword because he doesn't have to worry about ammunition.
I know he lists "assassin" in his bio... but it seems more like an a piece of exposition than a central part of his character. If he has worked as an assassin, then it's most likely going after people who deserved it who no one will miss.
And at that point... why not just invent an entirely new character with the same ability?
Heck, why not just make the character a standard martial artist who was just really good at fighting? The ability itself was kind of wasted if the character doesn't do anything really interesting or creative with it.
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That doesn't make as much sense in the MCU. In the MCU, you could have that role served by a standard martial artist.
There's only one situation where that role might have made any sense
and that time has already passed.
Overall, I enjoyed Black Widow, but Taskmaster was indeed a low point just because there just wasn't much there. And I don't really have a strong opinion on comic Taskmaster, as I don't read comics and have only really gotten what little knowledge I have through cultural osmosis.
I also wasn't too fond of the action sequences towards the end, the effects just felt like too much. But the overall story was pretty good and the character interactions with Natasha and her family, especially Yelena, were great. Personally, I'd like them to just tone down the action stuff a little bit. I like action sequences, but the heavy effects are a bit of a sensory overload which, in my opinion, hampers the action on screen. I'd say less is more in this situation, and they just need a bit less.
Now free of the mind control, you can have TM remain a villain/mercenary and let some personality come through.