'Black Widow': Final trailer proves Taskmaster existed during 'Iron Man 2' events and studied Natasha Romanoff
The final 'Black Widow' trailer trained its focus on Taskmaster. His photographic reflexes are in full display as he accurately mimics Black Panther, Captain America and Black Widow's combat moves. The clip also dropped a crucial piece of information — the villain and the Red Room in-charge was studying Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff ever since she was introduced as Natalie Rushman in 'Iron Man 2' (2010).
Taskmaster, whose identity is a heavily-guarded secret, is shown observing Natasha's fight sequence in the H.A.M.M.E.R. facility to free James Rhodes' (Don Cheadle) War Machine armor from Ivan Vanko's (Mickey Rourke) control. With this, it is also clear that the foe has been observing the moves of the other Avengers as well.
While Taskmaster has been heavily criticized in 'Black Widow' for the suit, fans seem to have a newfound respect for the baddie and are calling him a "sheer badass". The trailer, currently climbing well over five million views, saw fans dissect every bit of footage that had the villain in the frame.
"A guy who has Captain America shield, claws of Black Panther, the bow of Hawkeye and he has a jetpack so he can fly like Iron Man. Damn he so badass," wrote a fan.
Some of them had more or less accurate theories about how the Taskmaster could have copied Black Panther's moves. "So essentially what I'm getting is he watched the Airport battle in the 'Civil War' to analyze their moves. Because at this point that's the only battle Spider-Man and Black Panther had been in, timeline-wise."
'Black Widow's official synopsis reads: "Following the events of Captain America: Civil War (2016), Natasha Romanoff finds herself alone and forced to confront a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Romanoff must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger."
'Black Widow' releases on May 1, 2020.