But she is STILL steering him. She's unsupervised by any authority and most of the things Taskmaster did, is pretty much on her. The last page of the Mini even shows you why she still does it, because Taskmaster can't function without her. If he always forgets who he is, he would just be stumbling around in the world.
Right, but she's a safety net. After she "updates" him enough he is probably good to go for a while.
But what happens when he finally gets his conditioned cured? Will he start being a good guy, trying to make amends for all the bad things he did in the past? Will he refuse to take the cure, forget about it in a week or month and then be confronted with the choice again? With his brain condition, we'd be going in circles.
Or why is it that his wife keeps him as a bad guy? Why not actually feed him with information that makes him think he's one of the good guys? Or at least someone like Punisher who offs the criminal element.
See, the new mini opens the door to all those options, so you have a choice for a Taskmaster story besides a caper script if you so desire one. Not that capers can't be fun, of course.
Mercedes explained that Taskmaster will always be steered towards villainy because no matter what she tells him, that "guilt" that he did something wrong is always there, and it always makes him assume he is a bad guy or should be. "Illusion of truth" and all that. In reality the guilt is from taking the serum, wanting to cash in and then leaving his wife. In the mini she tried to steer him down the better path, but it didn't last once he assimilated too much data. Which apparently is always inevitable. It isn't like Red Shirt was the last guy who put a bounty on Taskmaster in recent times. There was a lower bounty placed on Taskmaster's head after he first started working with the Initiative, and Mauler, Firebrand, Mr. Hyde, and I think King Cobra tried to collect on it. He fought them off with aid from War Machine and other Initiative cadets. That was from A:TI #13, circa 2008.
Basically, Taskmaster can't really reform for long unless he deals with that guilt, but he can't because he always forgets the specifics. Mercedes chooses to remain in that role because if "the Org" wasn't pulling his strings, someone else probably would, who might steer him towards worse stuff than bounties and mercenary work. After all, Taskmaster has worked for no end of lunatics who wouldn't mind exploiting him. Norman Osborn sure did. The Red Skull hired him at times, too.
There's Sandi from his first Mini and Agent X run. Last I saw them together, they ended up a couple. Now she must wonder why he disappeared and never calls again.
As well as quite a few women, one would imagine. Taskmaster was a pimp in some of those A:TI flashback panels. I think he was watching one of the B.A.D. girls, either Asp or Black Mamba, on a stripper pole in one of those A:TI issues. Tony Master is a Party Master.
I chalk that up to having no real ambition. He has this amazing talent and could be one of the real big villains, but it's all just too bothersome and requires too much work. He doesn't want to rule a country, swim in a tub of money or whatever. How did that one comic say, he just wants to be able to buy a new car every year and eat steak whenever he wants.
That was also the issue, or close to it, where Taskmaster decided to take the opportunity Osborn offered to move up to the big leagues.
There also was one time when Taskmaster was hooked up to some machine that would expand his power to be able to copy superhuman powers as well, but it didn't last.
I don't think the Van Lente mini eliminates that. I think it adds more options for different types of stories with him besides capers.
What does MCP stand for again? Looks like I'm having some sort of memory condition right now as well.
Marvel Comics Presents.
Yeah, it would be cool.
There's already been a supervillain Ocean's 11. It was called MODOK's 11 and it was awesome. Coincidentally, it was also written by Fred Van Lente.
I read MODOK'S 11, but that was really for one job, and it was a set up from the start. I meant like a more consistent roster of professional style villains. The type who are really after the cash and avoiding jail and not on conquest or revenge fetishes. Taskmaster, Constrictor, Shocker, types like that. In real life, it is those sort of criminals who get away cleanly the longest; your psychotic spree killers usually end themselves. Of course the risk is one of them betraying the rest, which is often how those sort of cabals go down, but if some of them know each other, like Taskmaster and Constrictor, that lessons some of that risk. I just think it would offer more options for stories than having heroes fight the same flock of HYDRA or the Wrecking Crew.
