Taskmaster
Taskmaster is a male comic supervillain who features in Marvel Comics.
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Biography
Tony Masters
From a young age, he demonstrated a trait for being able to copy any moves that he could see with his eyes. He came to utilise this trait when he was a child and by the time he was in high school he came to use the talent to become a pro in American football. By adulthood, he came to seek new uses of his abilities where he considered using them to be a superhero but desired profit leading to him studying the various heroes fighting techniques from broadcasts. He then decided to become a supervillain though did not wish to fight heroes as there was no profit in that and instead he began to establish academies to train a villains henchmen. (Avengers v1 #195)
Masters came to be an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. where he became a skilled operative in the agency. He was deployed on assignment to the Andes to target the headquarters of S.S. Hauptsturmfuhrer Horst Gorscht who was a Nazi scientist that developed a corrupted version of the Super-Soldier Serum. His version had been used to empower a number of Nazi super-powered agents in that time. Upon his relocation, Gorscht came to believe that Nazi Germany's failure in the war was due to not being able to indoctrinate their young quick enough. To solve this, he had created a primer that unlocked the minds potential to absorb knowledge instantaneously. During the attack on the castle, Gorscht was fatally wounded and Masters found his serum which he injected into his body to save it before the knowledge of it was lost forever. The effects of it transformed him allowing Masters to learn physical skills instantly but this came at the cost of his memories. (Taskmaster v2 #3) He was set-up as a super-powered operative where he took the name Taskmaster and was deployed on assignments through a S.H.I.E.L.D. front called the Org with his handler being his wife Mercedes Merced operating as Hub. However, the effects of the serum on his memory caused him to forget his past making him lose track of his mission or nature as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with him instead becoming a mercenary. (Taskmaster v2 #4)
One of his first jobs for the Org was retraining Mexican Special Forces to take over the operations from the drug cartels. (Taskmaster v2 #2)
Trapped in Bagalia, he was left in prison where Crossfire allowed Nick Fury, Jr. to have access to the mercenary. This was because S.H.I.E.L.D. was assembling a covert team to handle threats and intended to recruit Taskmaster for the initiative. However, Crossfire revealed that he had only allowed access to Taskmaster as a trap to capture the agent. However, Fury managed to defeat the villain and attempted to flee with Taskmaster but Bagalia's entire supervillain population chased after them. This caused Fury to abandon Taskmaster to the villains to flee the island leading to the mercenary being taken by Alyosius Thorndrake. However, it was revealed that Thorndrake was simply a disguise used by Mockingbird who smuggled Taskmaster off the island to join the Secret Avengers. (Secret Avengers v2 #2)
Overview
Personality and attributes
Powers and abilities
Much of his powers came as a result of a variant of the super-soldier serum that was developed as a primer designed to allow him to absorb information and skills instantaneously. (Taskmaster v2 #3) He came to claim that he was born with these photographic reflexes allowing him to duplicate any moves that he was able to see. This allowed him to achieve a range of physical skills from those of Captain America, Hawkeye, Daredevil, Iron Fist and Spider-Man. (Avengers v1 #195)
He utilised a mnemonic technique called a memory palace where he built a palace within the hid with rooms that contained items he wanted to remember. These rooms were stocked with objects and associations that triggered the information he was looking for which needed to be recollected. It was said to work best if the rooms of the memory palace were placed the person had been in during his life. (Taskmaster v2 #1) This allowed him to retain skills, random facts and even allowed him to speak eight languages. (Taskmaster v2 #2)
According to him, his photographic reflexes operated by implicit memory making them operate differently from brain maps that controlled his actual memory of past events as this was explicit memory. (Taskmaster v2 #3)
Through muscle memory, his fingers were incapable of inputting passwords without him thinking about it. (Taskmaster v2 #2)
Taskmaster had set up an operation where he aided in the training of henchmen for supervillains. (Avengers v1 #195) This led to him establishing training academies where he took criminals from the streets and taught them skills to improve their work. Taskmaster then rented these criminals out as hired guns for supervillains and thus earned a fortune in the process. (Marvel Team-Up v1 #103)
Notes
- Taskmaster was created by David Michelinie and George Pérez where he made his first appearance in the Avengers v1 #195 (May, 1980).
Alternate Versions
- In Master of Kung Fu v2 (2015), an alternate version of the character appeared on Battleworld in the realm of K'un-Lun with this one being a martial arts master and assassin named Laughing Skull who served Emperor Zheng Zu.
- In Old Man Hawkeye v1 (2018), an alternate version of Taskmaster appeared in a world designated as Earth-807238. This version lived in a world where the Red Skull had led a supervillain uprising against the world's superheroes that were largely killed. He was shown as being an enforcer for the Red Skull who dispatched him to retrieve the rogue Marshal Bullseye.
In other media
Television
- In Ultimate Spider-Man, Taskmaster appeared as an antagonist in the animated television series where he was voiced by actor Clancy Brown.
- In Avengers Assemble, Taskmaster appeared in the animated television series fourth season Secret Wars in the episode "Show Your Work" where he was voiced again by actor Clancy Brown.
Films
- In Heroes United: Iron Man and Captain America, Taskmaster appeared as a supporting antagonist in the 2014 animated film where he was voiced by actor Clancy Brown. He was shown as a mercenary that was hired by the Red Skull who had sought Captain America's blood and Iron Man's Armour. During this time, he acquired a set of Iron Man Armour and adopted the name of Ironmaster.
Video games
Appearances
- Avengers v1:
- Taskmaster v1:
- Taskmaster v2:
- Secret Avengers v2:
- Captain America: Steve Rogers v1:
- Spider-Men II v1:
- Old Man Hawkeye v1:
- Amazing Spider-Man:
External Links
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