Major spoilers for Black Widow ahead.
Taskmaster is probably the most surprising character in Black Widow, especially seeing as he’s… not Taskmaster. In fact, he’s not even a he at all. This is not a gender-flipped version of Taskmaster like Karli Morgenthau in Falcon and the Winter Soldier - it’s an original character who just has the same skill set as and a similar costume to him. On one hand, I get why this is controversial. Taskmaster is a great character, and this move means we’ll never see him in the MCU. On the other hand though, it might be exactly what the MCU needs.
On the most basic level, it feels a little strange to see fans complaining about a character who is entirely different and original - isn’t that what we want from our movie characters? For them to surprise us? For them to challenge our expectations and give us something new? There is an air of predictability to the MCU in general - with the exception of double headers like Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the good guy is always going to win and the bad guy will lose. The villain may live to fight another day, or the hero may sacrifice something great (perhaps even their own life), but as Thanos would say, the outcome is inevitable.
Taskmaster typically is Anthony Masters, a villain whose power is learning. That doesn’t sound too special, but it basically means that once Taskmaster has fought you once, he knows everything about your fighting style, and is therefore your ultimate opponent. This new Taskmaster keeps this power, but instead of being Masters, is instead Antonia Dreykov - daughter of the central villain known only as Dreykov. Years ago, Black Widow believed she had killed both of them, with Antonia being collateral damage in Dreykov’s assassination.
Antonia retains Taskmaster’s suit too, meaning her face is covered - we do not learn who she really is until the film’s final act. We also discover that, in the same way Natasha, Yelena, and the other Widows had been brainwashed, so too had Antonia. After the pair fight, Natasha is able to cure Antonia’s condition, freeing her rather than defeating her - she finally gets to wipe out the red in her ledger. It’s a much more fitting ending to the movie than Black Widow fighting a generic bad guy whose motivation is something shallow and villainous, justifying the decision to change the character.
It’s not the only way Black Widow changes things up either. The post-credit scene sets Yelena on a collision course with Hawkeye, with Yelena being deceived that he ‘killed’ Natasha. This is strictly true but not an accurate retelling of the pair fighting over who gets to commit suicide in order to save the other, with both volunteering. Hawkeye’s imminent departure from the MCU complicates matters here - typically, you’d expect the pair to fight, Yelena to discover the truth, and for them both to return to their natural position as good guys, the end. That could still happen. Or, with Hawkeye leaving to be replaced by Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop, we could be in for a surprise. Perhaps Yelena succeeds in killing Clint, providing him with a natural exit while also giving Kate the motivation she needs to step up to the plate - this would likely frame Yelena as a villain moving forwards. We could also see Yelena team up with Kate, Kate and Clint working together to fight Yelena, or any other possible combination of scenarios.
We also know from WandaVision that Wanda will be in Doctor Strange. However, we still have no idea what role she’ll play - her own villain arc, seemingly established in WandaVision’s ending, could cast her as the Strange sequel’s bad guy. The MCU is aware that every little detail in each film and show is analysed and theorised about, and that it needs to keep audiences guessing if it wants to remain fresh. Taskmaster is not the first character to do this, but they’re the first in a while to be so controversial - nevertheless, it’s important that the MCU stays the course.
The Mandarin was the last time this trick caused such a stink, although that was slightly different. There, the character was not the Mandarin at all, but an out of work actor named Trevor Slattery who had been hired to deceive the world. The real Mandarin still exists, and indeed will be hitting our screens later this year in Shang-Chi. But there have been other cases of reinventing existing characters from the comics - Karli Morgenthau, as mentioned at the start, for one, as well as Zendaya’s Michelle in Spider-Man, who is only acknowledged as MJ in the sequel and is a new take on Mary-Jane Watson.
Luis in Ant-Man was invented for the movies, as were SHIELD’s Agent Coulson and Kraglin from the Guardians films. Nebula, Mantis, and M’Baku are all completely different in the MCU, too. Out of those, only MJ is a bigger character than Taskmaster, but Taskmaster is a supporting villain and is only introduced in Black Widow - it’s not as if the movie crumpled up four films’ worth of development to try something new. The film is well within its rights to do something different from our expectations, especially if that means folding Taskmaster into the story naturally.
When you use classic characters who people have been reading about for decades, it’s hard to do something fresh. With Taskmaster, the MCU has got the right idea; keep the bits that work and add new ideas around them. You might lose something someone loves, but it’s worth it if it means the MCU can still keep you guessing almost 30 movies in.
