Warning: contains spoilers for Taskmaster #2!
Marvel Comics has been busy of late rebranding some of its villains and giving them their own series. The new Juggernaut series is off to a great start, and making a strong case for Cain Marko’s superheroic turn. Now, Taskmaster is the latest to get a relaunch, though more in an anti-hero vein than Juggernaut, leaving him plenty of leeway to take digs at real Marvel heroes like Alpha Flight while he works.
Created in 1979 by John Byrne, Alpha Flight are a Canadian superteam tasked with the protection of the Great White North. Constant allies of Wolverine and Marvel's recent answer to interplanetary security, the team has a huge roster including Guardian, Sasquatch, Puck, Snowbird, Shaman, and others. Despite being major heroes who have saved the world countless times, Alpha Flight's relatively limited scope often sees them pushed to the side or overlooked in the Marvel Universe at large, and Taskmaster #2 isn't helping by aiming a few barbs at the fan-favorite team.
In this month’s Taskmaster #2, Taskmaster has to get close to Agent Phil Coulson, who he knows will be at his favorite comic book shop to pick up the new releases. A disguised Taskmaster infiltrates the store, studying Coulson so he can replicate his kinesic signature in his next mission. As Director of the Squadron Supreme of America Project, Coulson is deeply entrenched in the success of the Squadron’s comic book. According to Coulson, ever since the Avengers sold themselves out to Wakanda, the Squadron Supreme of America is at the top of everyone’s pull list. To prove his point to the comic shop clerk, Coulson turns to the disguised Taskmaster and asks him what his favorite superhero team is. Put on the spot and panicking, Taskmaster replies: Alpha Flight. When Coulson questions the choice in disbelief, Taskmaster doubles down, "I like the bigfoot guy?" indicating Sasquatch, the team's hairy Hulk character.
Immediately, this tips Coulson off that there’s something foul afoot, because no real fan could ever actually like Alpha Flight. His response is equally categorical: he radios into the Squadron’s dispatch to call in the big gun: Hyperion, who proceeds to batter Taskmaster before the assassin scores a last-second win with Hawkeye's lamest trick. While it's clear that the issue - from writer Jed MacKay and artist Alessandro Vitti - considers Coulson the villain, his immediate suspicion that no American fan could love Alpha Flight is a hilarious dig at a team who don't get anything like the credit they deserve.
It's a fair criticism, as Marvel have struggled with what to do with the team in recent years, killing them off in New Avengers #16, then making them Captain Marvel's space support team, then grabbing a few members for Gamma Flight, an anti-Hulk taskforce. Hopefully, Taskmaster #2's mocking of the team is a sign that Marvel are aware the Canadian Avengers deserve a little more stability and some adventures of their own, or perhaps it's even foreshadowing. Taskmaster's mission is about to take him all over the world to obtain the kinesic sigantures of some of the most dangerous spies on Earth; it's just about possible Taskmaster could find himself standing in front of Alpha Flight in a future issue, at which point relating his run-in with Coulson might just stop him taking a big, shaggy fist to the face.