Popverse's top stories of the day

• DC's Absolute Batman to get even bigger as some surprise "fan-favorite characters" will debut soon that will "feature hugely" in series, according to Scott Snyder
• MEMBERS ONLY: Popverse Jump: Ignore the marketing, Lazarus is not Cowboy Bebop 2.0 - and I'm thankful for that
• WATCH NOW: Watch as Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 stars Roger Clark (Arthur Morgan) & Rob Weithoff (John Marston) saddle up one more time for a reunion from Chicago's C2E2 2025

---

Spoilers for Thunderbolts* follow.

For the relatively short time that the character of Taskmaster has appeared onscreen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there were a few fascinating stories from the character's offscreen development. You'll recall reading that Thunderbolts* screenwriter Eric Pearson didn't know Taskmaster was set to die early in the film until he watched a rough cut (spoilers), and now, we've recently learned that the character was a lot closer in one key way to Marvel's comic book inspiration.

Specifically, Taskmaster was originally going to be a man.

The story comes out of an interview with O-T Fagbenle, who you'll remember from Black Widow as smuggler and Natasha Romanoff ally Rick Mason (the character also appeared in Disney+'s Secret Invasion). Speaking to The Direct, Fagnenle revealed that when he first tried out for the MCU, he was vying for the role of Taskmaster, who in that period's iteration of the script, was male.

"I first auditioned for Taskmaster," reports Fagbenle, "It was a really incredible speech, actually. It was an audition I was very proud of. I've still got it in the back someplace. And, he was this — I made him with an African accent, and he was this kind of maniacal-like character."

However, during the "the journey of writing and things above my pay grade" in Fagbenle's words, that plan changed.

"In the various iterations of the movie," Fagbenle continues, "that version of Taskmaster went away, [...] the Taskmaster that I was going to be didn't exist in that iteration of Black Widow."

this kind of studio choice would be even more above our paygrade as it was Fagbenle's, but as we said earlier, we might actually be able to identify why the change was made before the actor's casting of Rick Mason.

In 2021, DiscussingFilm published an interview with Black Widow's script writer, Erik Pearson (hey waitasec, that's the Thunderbolts* writer too!). In that discussion, Person reveals the reason the film decided to change Taskmaster's character came down to the central mystery of the Scarlett Johansson-starring film - and also, the plans for Taskmaster from a script written by the movies' previous writers before he joined.

"We were dealing with the time period between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War," Pearson tells DiscussingFilm, "We needed a threat from the villains that could potentially succeed, but in success would go unnoticed. So that worked for Natasha’s spy-thriller genre character, and with the idea of the Red Room and the Widows under their control, we began toying around with the notion of deconstructing the human brain. We knew we had Taskmaster [...] I just started seeing the pieces of the puzzle I had."

Another huge piece of that puzzle, says Pearson, was the film's antagonist, General Dreykov. Dreykov, in case you forgot, was both a military scientist with the power to manipulate the human mind and a man with a missing daughter.

"We’ve got a dark secret from Natasha’s past," Pearson continues, "something that she’s ashamed of, something that she must confront. What if that backstory came together in a way where the comic-book science seemed to work that if Natasha’s dark secret was that she intentionally harmed a young girl as a means to an end [...] the comic-book science is this guy [Dreykov] who has the ability to rebuild the brain and what if he tries to save his daughter and discovers the photographic reflexes in rebuilding the mind, and turns Antonia into this Terminator-like Taskmaster villain?"

Thus was the Antonia Dreykov version of Taskmaster (played by Olga Kurylenko) born. 

It's an interesting window into the writers' room of your favorite Marvel projects, and it's a story that begs another question for fans of the character who may feel she was underused in the final product. That is, with the Taskmaster title currently without an owner in the MCU, will later mysteries necessitate the introduction of another character bearing the name?

We'd ask Eric Pearson, but as recent history proved, even he doesn't have all the answers.

Thunderbolts* is in theaters now. 

---

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters