10 Movie Characters Who Were SHAFTED In 2021
3. Taskmaster - Black Widow
Sticking with comic book characters who experienced wholly disappointing and borderline disrespectful cinematic debuts over the last 12-months, Marvel Studios proved they still have the capacity to deliver a villainous letdown during their highly anticipated Black Widow standalone prequel.
After absolutely nailing the origins and motivations of everyone from Thanos to Mysterio in recent times, the MCU absolutely dropped the ball when unleashing Taskmaster onto its devoted audience. Gone was the fierce mercenary, by the name of Tony Masters, who has proven to be a worthy adversary to the likes of Spider-Man, Captain America, and Ant-Man over the years on the page, in his place was a brainwashed daughter of a massively unconvincing Russian-accent-wielding Ray Winstone big bad by the name of Dreykov.
Antonia Dreykov being revealed as the mimicking marvel after seemingly being a casualty in what is classed as one of Natasha Romanoff's darkest hours took away a lot of the emotional weight of that early reveal too and depressingly wasted the talents of Olga Kurylenko throughout.
Though she could technically pop back up again down the road, it'll likely take some serious redeeming to bury the memories of this once-badass personality being transformed into a lifeless copycat.