Black Widow made a few significant changes to Taskmaster, and the ultimate reveal of the villain's true identity was met with a mixed response for the Marvel Comics faithful.
Towards the end of the movie, Dreykov (Ray Winstone) unmasks his mysterious enforcer, and much to the titular Avenger's (Scarlett Johansson) horror, it turns out to be his own daughter, Antonia, who Nat had written off as "collateral damage" many years before when she blew up the Red Room leader's apartment.
In many ways, this made more sense than introducing a random mercenary named Tony Masters with no ties to Widow's past, but according to writer Eric Pearson, that was the original plan.
"Taskmaster was going to be involved, and there was a version before I came that was Tony Masters," he revealed while speaking to the Phase Zero podcast. "And it felt, I kept thinking, can this guy somehow not just be a goon? Cause Dreykov and the Red Room is the thing that’s tied into Natasha personally and her past ... Trust me, I looked very, very far for like, how do we get this Tony Masters guy to believably be an agent of the Red Room?"
As for some of the backlash he's experienced from people who were unhappy about the change:
"I made the mistake of looking in direct message requests, and someone said, 'I don’t mean to be out of line, but Taskmaster was the biggest betrayal of my life.' And I was just like, you’ve had a pretty good life then. If that’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, then you should be psyched."
What did you guys make of the big Taskmaster twist? Do you see Antonia's story continuing in the MCU now that she's been "deprogrammed"?
About The Author:
Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.