Black Widow Sets Up Taskmaster As Winter Soldier’s Phase 4 Replacement

Warning: This post contains Black Widow spoilers.

Black Widow sets up Taskmaster as the MCU’s replacement for the Winter Soldier. The story of Bucky Barnes is one of the most compelling in the MCU, with Captain America’s sidekick capturing during World War II and transformed into the Winter Soldier, Hydra’s best assassin. He was kept in cryogenic suspension for decades, only brought out of the ice when they had a mission for him to carry out.

At its heart, Bucky’s story is about agency. Hydra robbed him of his freedom to choose, using advanced brainwashing to suppress his memories and enforce his loyalty. Most telling of all, they implanted trigger words in the Winter Soldier’s mind that could render him almost mindless, a killing machine who had no choice but to follow orders. It took all Wakanda’s advanced science to figure out how to deprogram him, and Bucky spent The Falcon & the Winter Soldier seeking redemption for the atrocities he’d had no choice but to commit over the decades.

Related: Black Widow: All Easter Eggs, MCU Connections & Hidden Details

Black Widow set up Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster as the next Winter Soldier figure. Like Bucky, she is essentially a victim of evil men, someone who was denied agency and was transformed into a weapon against her wishes. Her story is even worse, though, because she was critically wounded when she was just a child, and it was her own father Dreykov who turned her into a weapon in a horrific act of abuse. Where Bucky was controlled with psychological conditioning, Dreykov used chemicals and sophisticated technology to control his daughter.

Black Widow is generally seen as the launch of Yelena Belova’s MCU story, but it does the same for Taskmaster as well. It sets Taskmaster up for the same kind of redemptive arc as the Winter Soldier in Phase 4 as beyond, as the character struggles to navigate a world she’s never really had any contact with before. Unlike Bucky, though, Taskmaster is not alone; she is one of the numerous victims of Dreykov, including an entire squad of Black Widows. It’s important to note she’s also not the only villain Marvel Studios has worked to redeem after a fashion of late, suggesting they’re planning a Thunderbolts project in Phase 4 that could feature characters like Baron Zemo, Ghost, and Taskmaster.

The thematic similarities don’t mean the stories of Winter Soldier and Taskmaster will be the same, then, simply because the context is so very different. But it’s certainly interesting to see Marvel repeat the trope with one of the primary characters in Black Widow – especially when the Winter Soldier’s story was so popular and well-received. The timing is also curious, because Bucky’s Winter Soldier arc is coming to an end, and now his potential substitute’s is beginning.

More: All 13 Marvel TV Shows Releasing After Black Widow

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