Why Black Widow Should Fear Taskmaster
The villain might be more of a challenge than we first thought...
Due to its location on the Marvel Cinematic Universe's timeline, many have argued that Black Widow's fight against the elusive assassin Taskmaster is more or less already decided as an easy win. After all, she's alive in films that occur later in the timeline, so it's not like she could die in this particular fight.
But imagining it to be a pre-decided cakewalk is, in the words of the MCU's Nick Fury, "a stupid decision, so I've elected to ignore it". Or, at least, to discuss the reasons that this underestimated villain may be one of the biggest threats to Black Widow outside of Thanos.
Firstly, it's worth talking about the character of Taskmaster. While we don't know who this version of Taskmaster actually is yet, we know their powers: an ability to perfectly recall and replicate any seen fighting moves. A perfect and anonymous fighter, the MCU Taskmaster is basically what Natasha could have been had she never thrown off the shackles of her villainous past - leaving her at a total disadvantage against her new, hyper-capable enemy.
One extra advantage the MCU's Taskmaster has is their control over the Red Room - an assassin training facility where Natasha was raised and taught to kill. This means that not only does the villain know Black Widow's fighting moves, they also know all of her old trainers move sets, so she's unlikely to be able to pull anything out of the bag to surprise them.
On a similar note, this adds an advantage in the sense that Black Widow can't help but be emotionally involved in affairs involving the Red Room. The Web of The Black Widow - a comic series that follows Nat as she attempts to track and take down the Room - shows the not only did she worry about her teammates, but also her students when she became old enough to teach. Combine this with the fact that Age of Ultron showed us that her biggest fear is still the Red Room, and you realise this might be a bigger deal than it initially appeared.
It may also be worth briefly mentioning that this same comic reveals that Natasha has been cloned by the Red Room, which does raise some awful, awful potential to be repeated on the big screen. Now that time travel and alternate realities exist in this world, maybe it's not too crazy to have some red-headed assassin clones?
Though this is unlikely - because the MCU has succeeded in no small part by having character deaths be permanent and matter - it's worth thinking about for more than one reason. If this version of the Red Room has similar levels of advanced technology, who knows what else Nat could face.
Taskmaster's biggest disadvantage might also benefit them in a fight against our hero. In the comics, Tony Masters' amazing ability to learn fighting styles immediately after seeing them come at a price: his memory. The knowledge of these sweet skills displaces other information in his brain, meaning he can forget small things like conversations and places, but has also resulted in his often forgetting his loved ones, as the memories of them simply disappear.
If Taskmaster ends up being a loved one of Natasha's - and, let's face it, it's looking incredibly likely - there's a very good chance that their ability to remember Nat has entirely vanished. Which is the one thing that could genuinely destroy the resolve of the Avenger's best assassin, and make her behave irrationally.
If there's one thing that Endgame proved, it's that Ms. Romanoff cares about those close to her more than herself, and thus this legitimately has potential to break her.
Really, it seems that the motley team of ex-Red Room assassins that we see Black Widow team up with are her only chance to defeat the memory-powered madman.
Which would be fine, if it weren't for the fact that most people think Taskmaster will turn out to be one of them - with most bets being on Rachel Weiss' character Melina Vostokoff, also known by her badass supervillain name of the Iron Maiden. If that is to happen, there's only one thing that can be said for sure - Black Widow is definitely in for a bad time.