Taskmaster (Earth-616)

From Marvel Database

History

Taskmaster possesses an innate ability known as "photographic reflexes", which enable him to watch another person's physical movements and duplicate them without practice, no matter how complex. This ability is only limited by the fact that he does not have superhuman strength or other superhuman attributes. He is a naturally gifted athlete who has trained himself to superb physical condition. He has committed the following fighting styles to memory (in addition to many others): Captain America, Black Panther, Daredevil, Elektra, Hawkeye, Punisher, Tigra, USAgent, Spider-Man and Wolverine.

Contents 1 History 2 Powers and Abilities 2.1 Powers 2.2 Abilities 2.3 Strength level 2.4 Weaknesses 3 Paraphernalia 4 Notes 5 Trivia 6 See Also 7 Discover and Discuss 8 Links and References

He has trained his body to be in all around peak physical condition and engages in intensive regular exercise. His strength, endurance, stamina, reflexes, and agility or on the level of an Olympic athlete. He is nearly the physical equal of Captain America. In addition to his ability to copy the fighting techniques of others he has mastered hundreds of forms of unarmed combat and has created some of his own original techniques as well. The Taskmaster is skilled in the use of all conventional weaponry. He is an unerring marksman as a result of the skills of various characters he has committed to memory. These skills include all present day and many historical martial arts, boxing, wrestling, swordsmanship, archery, marksmanship, gymnastics, aerial acrobatics and sleight of hand.

The Taskmaster had his scientists duplicate versions of a variety of weapons used by Marvel characters which he can use with nearly as great facility as their respective owners. He has a copy of Daredevil's multipurpose billy club, Hawkeye's trick arrows and bow, the Black Knight's sword, and a shield designed like Captain America's (but it is not indestructible; it's only an osmium alloy). He also sometimes carries a .45 caliber Colt automatic, which he can use in the style of the Punisher.

The Taskmaster's character was considerably revised in a 2002 UDON-created miniseries. Most visibly, he now wears a costume apparently modeled after tactical body armor, replacing his pirate-themed garb. The Taskmaster also ceased carrying an arsenal of duplicate weapons. Instead, his armament consists primarily of a pair of semi-automatic handguns and a katana (which he wields using the fighting style of the Silver Samurai). The Taskmaster also carries a prototype wrist-mounted device, stolen from S.H.I.E.L.D., which can spontaneously create simple shapes out of solid energy, saving him the trouble of weighing himself down with many weapons. Thus far, he has used the device to create duplicates of Captain America's shield and Spider-Man's webbing.

In addition, the Taskmaster has revealed new abilities. First, given observation and practice (with the aid of a voice-match recognizing device) he can duplicate the voices of others. He was also given photographic memory during the revision. More importantly, after watching video footage of fights filmed in double-time, he learned how to perform actions in double-time, as well. Since the Taskmaster does not have a superhuman physique, he can only use this ability to provide short bursts of superhuman speed lasting a few seconds, or he risks seriously injuring himself.

Taskmaster has come to blows with Deadpool a number of times, but the two became friends when Taskmaster started dating Sandi Brandenburg, who had been Deadpool's Personal Assistant when he ran DP Inc. Both were employed by Agency X at the same time.

Taskmaster was recently hired by the Committee to take out Marc Spector, the Moon Knight. He raided Spector's apartment, but was unable to kill him. Spector piloted his Moon-chopper to the Committee's Manhattan headquarters and flew it directly into their office. Miraculously, all of the Committee members survived the attack. ^[1]

He has also been seen as part of the Thunderbolts detainees. He was later released and assigned to Camp Hammond to serve as a trainer for the Initiative recruits while their former drill instructor, Gauntlet, recuperated from injuries sustained from one of his trainees. During this time, a formerly deceased Initiative member, Michael Van Patrick acquired a weapon called the Tactigon and began assaulting everyone at the camp. The Taskmaster had little interest in participating in the fight, preferring instead to sit by the sidelines with one of his charges, Ant-Man. ^[2]

Powers and Abilities

Powers

The Taskmaster's only superhuman abilities are his photographic reflexes. He can duplicate almost any physical act he sees after seeing it done by someone else only once. The Taskmaster can do many things due to his photographic reflexes which border on being a superpower. For instance Taskmaster has discovered that after watching martial arts movies on fast-forward he is able to briefly duplicate the moves at a greatly increased velocity, effectively giving him a limited form of superspeed. However, as he does not have any sort of enhanced endurance, this puts a great strain on his body and he is only able to fight in this manner for short periods of time. He can also copy the subtle muscle movements of others so precisely that he can at times do things such as copying another persons voice so precisely as to fool voice recognition software. He can also do things such as figuring out the sleight of hand techniques of a master poker cheater simply by watching them. He can even duplicate the nearly superhuman abilities with thrown projectiles which Bullseye exhibits, or approximate the agility of someone like Spiderman, at least up to a point that doesn't require superhuman effort. The first thing he learned was how to twirl a lasso after seeing it on television. He is also capable of using this ability to master complex gymnastics routines, play difficult pieces of music. However, he typically prefers to use this ability to copy the combat skills, both armed and unarmed, of costumed crimefighters and expert martial artists from around the world, typically seen through watching videos of them in combat situations. He has often shown the ability to actually predict an opponents next move before they make it if he has studied their fighting style enough. Opponents who are skilled at improvisational fighting styles, or who have a more random unpredictable style are less likely to have their moves predicted by Taskmaster.

Abilities

The Taskmaster is an Olympic level athlete and is among the most formidable armed or unarmed combatants in the Marvel Universe. Besides his photographic reflexes it has been revealed that he also posses a photographic memory. While not having any superhuman physical, mental, or energy manipulative abilities, the Taskmaster is able to routinely battle superhumanly powered foes with an impressive degree of success.

Fighting Styles Studied Characters: Taskmaster learned personal styles of these individuals from watching videos or from combat: Ant Man, Batroc, Black Widow, Boomerang, Bushwacker, Blacklash, Black Knight , Black Panther, Captain America, Genis-Vell, Conquest, Daredevil, Deadpool, Elektra, Falcon, Fatale, Firestar, Hawkeye, Huntress , Iron Fist, Justice, Libra, Machete, Oddball, Puma, Punisher, Razorfist, Shockwave, Silverclaw, Silver Samurai, Spider-Man, Shatterhead, Swordsman, Tigra, Tumbler, US Agent, Warbird, Wolverine and Zaran.

Strength level

The Taskmaster possesses the normal human strength of a man of his age, height, and build that engages in intensive regular exercise. The Taskmaster is strong enough to lift approximately 375 lbs.

Weaknesses

• The Taskmaster is not capable of duplicate a physical feat if the effort to do so requires superhuman effort. For instance, while he can view an opponent lifting a car, he can't because his body can't duplicate the superhuman strength required to do so.
• He also can't duplicate any energy manipulating or projecting capabilities for the same reasons.
• His abilities are also limited in that they do not grant him an innate understanding of underlying disciplines. For example, as a child, he nearly drowned after imitating a dive because while he was able to mimic the dive, he did not know how to swim.
• Taskmaster is unable to copy the moves of Alex Hayden for unknown reasons.
  

Paraphernalia

Equipment: Taskmaster often keeps DVDs and tapes of individuals he wishes to mimic. He has at times been shown using a wrist device stolen from SHEILD which creates weapons out of pure energy which apparently have substance even after he lets go of them, at least for a short time.
Transportation: Customized Quinjet, van.
Weapons: Taskmaster uses a number of weapons, often determined by whose abilities he is using. - Known weapons include: Energy Shield, Energy Claws(like Wolverine), Energy Webbing(like Spiderman), Katana, Bow & Arrows(sometimes using "trick" arrows like Hawkeye), Sword, Broadsword, Pair of .45s, Rope, steel round shield(used in the manner of Captain America), Moon Shaped Shurukin(Like Moon Knight) and a Convertable Billy Club(in the same sense of Daredevils) He has also been shown sticking to walls suggesting that he has special gloves and perhaps boots which can approximate Spiderman's wall crawling ability.

Notes

• No special notes.
  

Trivia

• No trivia.

See Also

• Appearances of Taskmaster (Earth-616) (Chronological)
• Appearances of Taskmaster (Earth-616) (Unordered)
• Character Gallery: Taskmaster (Earth-616)
• Fan-Art Gallery: Taskmaster (Earth-616)
• Quotations by Taskmaster (Earth-616)
• Images that include Taskmaster (Earth-616)

Discover and Discuss

• Search News for: Taskmaster · Taskmaster (Earth-616)
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Links and References

• TaskmasterSite.Com
  

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