This article contains spoilers for Thunderbolts*.
The writing was on the wall for Taskmaster. The moment Marvel decided to announce the cast of Avengers: Doomsday ahead of the release of Thunderbolts*, we could surmise what Antonia Dreykov’s, aka Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), fate was going to be. But I still held out hope that Marvel would surprise us. They didn’t.
The brief history we have of Antonia in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is tragic. And what’s worse is that Antonia’s spirit cast a pall on the life of one of the original Avengers. Marvel chose to introduce a character with such a strong hold on one of its heroes, and yet they ended up treating Antonia as nothing but disposable.
What Happens to Taskmaster in Thunderbolts*?
In the film, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is secretly running a black ops group named O.X.E. At her disposal are Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), John Walker/US Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Taskmaster.
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When Valentina’s secret doings are about to be found out, she hatches a plan to incinerate the evidence, including her charges. Each character is sent to kill another because they’ve become ‘traitors’. Ghost is sent to kill Taskmaster. Ghost succeeds. In the midst of a four-way fight between the future Thunderbolts, Ava is able to sneak in a headshot that downs Taskmaster.
Kurylenko gets one moment of face time, and one line. And then she’s a prone body in the back.
Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier defended this decision. Admittedly, it’s not a bad idea to kill off a lead character. Marvel (and frankly, most tentpole properties these days) is terrified to kill their darlings. There are no stakes because the characters won’t die.
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This issue isn’t that a character had to die. But it’s who died, when, how, and what it signifies.
Taskmaster’s Avengers Connection
If there was one thing we knew about Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson)—another of Marvel’s dead female superheroes—it was that she felt guilty about what she’d done to “Dreykov’s daughter.” This seed was planted in 2012’s The Avengers and came to a conclusion in 2021’s Black Widow.
When the promos for Black Widow dropped, one of the many new characters stood out—Taskmaster. This faceless, helmeted baddie seemed formidable. And come time for the actual film, they were unstoppable. The wordless villain had the ability to mimic any fighting style they saw, essentially making them an invincible force.
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Who Is Taskmaster?
During the final act of Black Widow, Natasha discovered the true identity of Taskmaster; hidden underneath the armor was Antonia Dreykov, the brainwashed daughter of General Dreykov. Up until this point, Natasha had believed that she had accidentally killed Antonia as a child. Natasha wasn’t aiming for young Antonia; in fact, she was tasked with killing the evil General Dreykov, back before she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and defected to the US.
In actuality, Antonia was left scarred and brain-damaged by the explosion. Her father chose, instead of rehabilitation, to turn his daughter into the ultimate weapon—a programmable fighter with absolutely no agency. This isn’t necessarily surprising considering the General was the director of the Red Room program, where young girls, like Natasha, were inducted, trained to become Black Widow assassins, and sterilized.
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By the end of Black Widow, Natasha had broken through to Antonia, giving her back her agency, voice, and her identity. This was Natasha’s gift to Antonia and herself—she’d scrubbed off a little bit of the red in her ledger.
But to what end?
Some Fans Disliked the MCU Twist
Taskmaster is not a new character to the Marvel canon. In the comics, Anthony “Tony” Masters has the ability to mimic actions that he observes. The character was introduced in 1980, so he’s been knocking about the universe for a while.
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Since the Taskmaster suit in the MCU is deliberately genderless (more of that, please), many comic fans watching the Black Widow trailers assumed they’d be seeing Masters. Now, a significant change in a character is always hard to stomach. But of course, some Marvel fans took it to a whole new level, as writer Eric Pearson revealed.
Hate mail for rewriting a character so she has a more emotional and personal connection to our hero? Let’s be honest here, the hate was because Taskmaster was now a woman. One can’t help but wonder, then, if fan outrage about Taskmaster led to the decision to kill Antonia off so early in Thunderbolts*.
Unpacking Taskmaster’s Demise
The problem with how Taskmaster is treated in Thunderbolts* is that it’s an insult on many levels. Not only is it a trivial end to a character who has known nothing but tragedy for most of her life, but it also undermines the reason Antonia was introduced at all.
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Natasha Romanoff sacrificed her life to save the universe so that people like Antonia could live their lives. It may not be the best life ever, but at least Antonia finally had some control over it. For a hot second, anyway.
Thunderbolts is made up of characters whose lives have been (and may continue to be, in some capacity) under the control of someone else. But while Yelena, John, Ava, Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) and Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour) get to live as themselves, Antonia never got that chance.
An Early Death
What’s worse is that Antonia’s death in Thunderbolts* was meaningless. It happens early on in the film. And it happens at the hands of one of the heroes of the film. We’re just supposed to go along with that? At least Ghost acknowledges the death, but her guilt—and the viewer’s sadness—are dissipated by a quick line from Yelena.
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“Yeah, she had a tough life. She killed a lot of people, and then she got killed, just like us someday.”
But Antonia didn’t choose to kill. Antonia didn’t choose anything because Antonia didn’t exist—it was only Taskmaster. And then Natasha saved her. Yelena and Ava have killed, and while they weren’t given any choice either, they at least knew what they were doing. Antonia was a robot in human flesh. She was just getting the chance to live by her own rules—even if that meant working under Valentina.
Marvel’s Woman Problem
There’s another aspect to Taskmaster’s death that we can’t avoid. Marvel has precious few female superheroes in their roster. The original Avengers team had one woman on it; it later became two with the addition of Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen). It took the studio more than a decade to make Captain Marvel, a film with a leading heroine, and Brie Larson has been hounded by ‘fanboys’ ever since.
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The MCU’s track record with the ladies is dismal. There’s still not enough of them, and yet there’s a higher chance of them being killed off. Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) and Natasha died in the exact same fashion in back-to-back Avengers films. And neither got a grand funeral like their male colleague Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) got.
Antonia’s death in Thunderbolts* feels like a punchline to a non-existent joke. The film’s creators treat her the same way her father did, even while the film itself takes new swings in a formulaic genre. They could have swung harder by developing Antonia into a character.
A Female Character with Scars
Antonia’s tragic life is obvious on her face. She’s a visibly, physically scarred woman, and that’s not something we see often on screen. Granted, Antonia is played by the blemish-free actor and model Olga Kurylenko, but it could have been a step towards normalizing looks and beauty that don’t fall into the narrow definition created by Hollywood.
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This seems like a huge missed opportunity considering Thunderbolts* star Sebastian Stan referenced this same issue during his Golden Globes speech.
Stan won the Best Actor in a Comedy for his role in Aaron Schimberg’s film, A Different Man. The film followed an aspiring actor with neurofibromatosis, “a genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow on one’s skin and bones”. Stan said: “Our ignorance and discomfort around disability and disfigurement has to end now. We have to normalize it and continue to expose ourselves [and our children] to it. Encourage acceptance. One way we can do that is by continuing to champion stories that are inclusive.”
Taskmaster’s End Was Obvious
The choice to end Taskmaster’s MCU arc in such a dismissive fashion and so early in the film is disappointing. But we saw it coming.
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Of the 27 cast members announced for Avengers: Doomsday, the only person missing from the Thunderbolts team was Taskmaster. Everyone knew this meant she was going to get killed. I kept hoping it simply meant Taskmaster had chosen not to be an Avenger. Perfectly normal choice. I should have known better, but hope springs eternal.
Marvel’s marketing team is cunning, though. Taskmaster appeared on the posters and promos, and though she was hardly in the trailers, they inserted her in one of their promo pictures from later in the film. I really did keep hoping she’d somehow evaded the incinerator and would appear in the Watchtower. She didn’t.
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In the end, Taskmaster’s death is meaningless, diegetically and for the audience. It’s not a big death. It doesn’t signify high stakes. Her not-yet-cold body is even scavenged by John and Ava for her weapons. Director Schreier wants us to believe there is gravity behind this death. There isn’t. Well, I guess she really did die as she lived—without agency, identity, and as nothing but a weapon.
Thunderbolts* is currently screening across theaters.
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