Where Each Taskmaster Ability Comes From (Including Swordfighting & Driving)

Warning: This post contains Black Widow spoilers.

Black Widow faces a new challenge when she's pitted against Taskmaster, but where exactly does the masked villain get her powers? In the comics, Taskmaster is deadly because of his ability to mimic almost any fighting style. After watching a fight just once, Taskmaster can copy moves to perfection. It's hard to survive, not to mention win, a fight with someone who already knows everything you're going to do.

Taskmaster's true identity is revealed in a major twist at the end of Black Widow. In a departure from comic book canon, the formidable fighter is revealed to Antonia Dreykov, the daughter of the Red Room's overseer. Antonia was modified with a computer chip after her near-death in an explosion decades earlier when she was a young girl, Dreykov explains. Rather than acting of her own free will, Antonia is Dreykov's ultimate puppet.

It's unclear whether Antonia's ability to mimic comes from cyber modification, brainwashing, or a mix of the two. It's likely she also underwent extensive training in the Red Room, like Natasha and Yelena. One thing's for sure — her photographic reflexes allow her to cherry-pick the best bits of everyone's fighting style to crush her opponent. All of Taskmaster's skills in Black Widow come from someone else in the MCU. In addition to copying several iconic moves from the Avengers, Taskmaster is also shown to be skilled in less flashy areas like sword-fighting and tactical driving. Here's where she gets all her skills.

Captain America

Taskmaster borrows most heavily from Captain America, wielding a Red Room shield for the first half of Black Widow. It's unlikely the shield is made out of vibranium, although it's still strong. While Antonia may not be able to block a strike from Thor's hammer, she can use the shield to block small arms fire and other assaults. The position Antonia takes when using the shield as a defensive weapon is identical to Steve's. Like him, she stays on the move. Antonia also mimics Steve's signature shield retrieval technique several times throughout the movie, stomping on the shield's edge to flip it into her hands.

Antonia borrows many of Captain America's best moves when using the shield as an offensive weapon. In her first fight with Natasha, she throws the shield exactly as Steve does, wedging it diagonally in a car window. Later, in her fight with Red Guardian, she lands the same throw to send Alexei flying. Antonia also uses the blunt edge of the shield to land precise hits on Alexei's body, similar to the way Steve used it in his Captain America: Civil War fight with Tony Stark. It's likely many of Antonia's hand-to-hand combat skills also come from Steve, who is an expert boxer and often uses wrestling moves in his fights.

Black Panther

During Taskmaster's fight with Alexei, she also briefly mimics Black Panther, extending razor-sharp claws and taking a swipe at his torso. Antonio doesn't seem to call upon Black Panther's fighting style often, which could be a critical mistake. While Natasha is extremely familiar with the way her fellow Avengers fight, she has less experience fighting King T'Challa. Using Black Panther's combat style could have been a good way to catch her off guard. That said, since the Wakandans have been only until recently secluded from the world, she may not have much footage of Black Panther to study.

Hawkeye

Hawkeye is also a rarely used inspiration for Taskmaster, with her relying on archery skills only once in Black Widow. As Antonia chases down Natasha and Yelena, she uses a combination of Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier's tactics to stop their SUV. From atop a moving car, Taskmaster shoots a single arrow toward the undercarriage of their vehicle. The arrow latches on to the car from below and explodes, flipping it in the same way the Winter Soldier attacked Nick Fury in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Black Widow

Black Widow is another big influence on Taskmaster's overall fighting style. Antonia frequently uses Natasha's flexible, lightning-fast technique to bring down enemies. Her mimic is most effective as she goes after other Red Room trainees. As Yelena says, "It's like fighting a mirror." In Taskmaster's first fight with Natasha, she uses the Avenger's signature leg throw, using twisting momentum to bring Natasha to the ground. She is also able to successfully defend against this move when Natasha tries it on her. Another significant moment comes when Antonia mimics Natasha's back flip, using her legs to spring off the ground and return to the fight.

The Winter Soldier

Several iconic moments from Captain America: The Winter Soldier are revived in Black Widow. As the Taskmaster mimics Bucky, she copies moves from his first big fight with Steve, a suspenseful and expertly choreographed fight scene. A close-up shot of Antonia flipping a small blade around in her hand is almost identical to one from the Captain America sequel. Antonia continues that attack sequence as she punches and slashes at the Red Guardian, at one point dropping her knife to her other hand in a surprise attack. A similar musical theme even plays at one point. Antonia also mimics some of the Winter Soldier's moves with the shield, using it to block gunfire as she flips off a car in her fight with Black Widow.

Taskmaster's hand-to-hand combat skills also undoubtedly get a boost from the Winter Soldier. Her mimic of Bucky, however, also reveals a key weakness. After Antonia is trapped in a cell by Melina, she copies Bucky's brute force technique in an effort to escape, punching the reinforced glass repeatedly. Without Bucky's vibranium arm, though, she stands no chance at successfully replicating his getaway. Although Antonia can mimic anyone, she doesn't have the same unique superpowers. So some of the moves that might work for the Avengers don't land as hard or as effectively when executed by the Taskmaster.

Spider-Man

The Taskmaster doesn't often use moves from Spider-Man's MCU repertoire, despite the fact that footage of him is regularly available on YouTube. Perhaps it's because Peter Parker's fighting style isn't as mature or simply that his physics-defying superpowers can't be easily replicated by Antonia's suit. One move Antonia does take from Peter Parker is his two-footed front kick. At the start of her fight with Red Guardian, Taskmaster jumps in the air, kicks him in the chest with both feet and then does a backflip to land in a classic Spider-Man pose.

Iron Man And Others

Without a full Iron Man suit, opportunities for Antonia to mimic Tony Stark are rare. When Taskmaster does find herself in an aerial fight, however, Tony's skills prove useful. As Antonia and Natasha plunge off an exploding Red Room, Antonia adopts Tony's classic Iron Man flight position with her hands by her sides. Earlier in the movie, Taskmaster also uses an Iron Man weapon, extending a spike from her forearm to try and stab Red Guardian.

One major mystery in Black Widow is where Taskmaster's sword-fighting skills come from. Antonia uses a sword several times throughout the movie, often drawing it in times of crisis. Though no one in the MCU that Antonia might have seen footage of really uses a sword, Taskmaster does have a sword in the comics and it's patterned on the Ebony Blade. So her skills with a sword could come from Black Knight, a Marvel comic book character set to appear in Eternals. Black Knight, a.k.a. Dane Whitman, was once a member of the Avengers and primarily wields the Ebony Blade. Additionally, Antonia could also be drawing on the skills of Asgardians like Thor, Hela, and especially Loki, who is an expert with a blade. Antonia's other skills, like tactical driving, marksmanship, firearms, explosives and tracking could come from any number of places, including the Red Room. Other possibilities are that Antonia picked up some of the Winter Soldier's non-combat skills or studied Nick Fury.

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