BIOGRAPHY - Page 8
When Deadpool got married, Taskmaster wouldn’t let Wade’s many super-hero friends keep him from attending the bachelor party. After partying in disguise and the festivities ended, Taskmaster had a somber warning for Deadpool about marriage. Whatever he may have remembered about his past at the moment, Tony cautioned Wade that he was making himself vulnerable by having loved ones so open and exposed to his many enemies. Taskmaster’s advice was to not go through with the wedding but, as he put it, it was Wade’s funeral. [Deadpool (4th series) #27]
When Baron Helmut Zemo took the reins of Hydra, he organized a ruling High Sect of super-villains and terrorists to oversee the organization. Some were there for ideology, like Viper or Sin, while others were certainly there to get paid, like Taskmaster, Batroc, King Cobra and Armadillo. Zemo’s plan was to unleash a sterilizing toxin around the globe to which only Hydra was immunized, ensuring the future of the human race belonged to them. In his new role as Captain 
America, Sam Wilson responded to an informant’s warning to stop them. He and his allies Nomad and Misty Knight worked to stop the various rockets around the world intent on spreading the toxin. A mercenary to his core, Taskmaster was merely paid off by Misty, who found his price to turn on Zemo and stop the rocket launch without a fight. [All-New Captain America #1-5]
Down in Miami, Taskmaster was hired through the new Hench app to occupy Ant-Man. It was just business, but Scott Lang irritated him when he claimed Taskmaster was his “arch-enemy.” Sure, Lang was… present… at several of his earliest encounters with super-heroes, but Taskmaster was always more focused on Spider-Man, Hawkeye or the Avengers than on the bug-sized guy who was also yelling at him. After knocking Ant-Man around a warehouse for a little while, though, the job was completed and Taskmaster had no real hard feelings. He even apologized for the reason Lang needed to be delayed… the kidnapping of his daughter, Cassie. [Ant-Man (1st series) #2-3]
Taskmaster kept accepting work as a mercenary. Alchemax Genetics hired him to recover their clones of X-23, but the original Laura Kinney stood in his way. He anticipated her moves but not her retractable foot claw, and Zelda of the sisters shot out his kneecaps so he couldn’t follow them. [All-New Wolverine #2-3] Taskmaster staged an attack on New York that was opposed by Squirrel Girl and her various friends, but he kept anticipating and countering their moves, staying 
one step ahead of his foes. Mew, the cat belonging to Squirrel Girl’s roommate, inspired her to use tail attacks on Taskmaster, the one appendage that he could not duplicate. [Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (2nd series) #15] Finally, Taskmaster was one of many mercenaries hired to steal a robot prophet from Deadpool and his new team of mercs, but they were unsuccessful. [Deadpool & the Mercs for Money (1st series) #2-4]
Taskmaster had a second odd encounter with the Merc for Money named Slapstick. Tony found a woman named June with a special power that edited her from people’s memories after they stopped looking at her, leaving her unable to make lasting attachments. Taskmaster’s photographic reflexes circumvented her power by letting him remember her through muscle memory. Despite him being the only person on whom she could make an impression, June found Tony was an inadequate boyfriend and ended things. When Taskmaster tried forcing them to stay together, she hired Slapstick to chase him off. Taskmaster was obviously more skilled a fighter than the living cartoon character, but he couldn’t help but analyze Slapstick’s moves while they fought. Taskmaster nearly severed his own spine instinctively trying to move the way Slapstick did and gave up on June. [Deadpool (5th series) #7]
Simon “The Bank” Banks was the largest criminal financier and money launderer in the underworld, handling the accounts for everyone from Taskmaster to Kingpin to terrorist organizations. When the Punisher found his operation, Banks lost the account backup, and his wife and son were apparently killed in a boat explosion. He hired Taskmaster to recover the backup, believed to be in Punisher’s possession. Taskmaster learned Punisher and his erstwhile ally Deadpool were tracing the still-alive wife and son, and Banks immediately told him to switch gears and recover Hudson at any cost. Taskmaster realized the scam, for Hudson Banks had an eidetic memory of all his father’s account numbers and passwords. Taskmaster killed the boy’s mother in order to get his hands on every private account in the underworld. Punisher and Deadpool managed to overpower Taskmaster on the way to Banks’ Offshore storage platform, and Hudson Banks personally cut Taskmaster’s lifeline, dropping him into the ocean. [Deadpool vs. Punisher #2-4]
Surprisingly, Taskmaster found himself back in the lawless nation of Bagalia where he claimed the role of local “sheriff.” Even the chaotic anarchy of a gambling town full of super-villains needed someone to mediate and lay down “the law” occasionally, and Taskmaster was oddly suited for the role. Somehow, he held on to T.E.S.S.-One from A.I.M. Island as his enforcer, too. Captain America and some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents chased Baron Zemo through Bagalia and supposedly left 
him for dead in an exploding airship. Taskmaster found something suspicious about the affair and he scrounged the wreckage of the airship. The Bagalian vessel’s black box had already been removed by someone, but they didn’t know about the redundant second black box found in those models. Taskmaster got his hands on a recording from the airship’s bridge cameras, showing Steve Rogers shout “Hail Hydra!” and he immediately starting thinking of ways to get rich off this recording. [Captain America: Steve Rogers #3-4]
Taskmaster found a new partner in Black Ant, a self-serving Life Model Decoy of his old Ant-Man buddy, Eric O’Grady. Maria Hill had recently been ousted from her position as S.H.I.E.L.D. director by the security council, and Steve Rogers named in her place. Taskmaster and Black Ant wanted to sell the recording to her as blackmail material to get her old job back, but they missed the 
meeting thanks to the new Madame Hydra. Elisa Sinclair was amused by the luck and audacity of these two thugs and hired them as her personal bodyguards instead of killing them. Taskmaster witnessed the assembly of a new High Council of Hydra and began working directly under the Hydra loyalist version of Captain America as Rogers prepared to use S.H.I.E.L.D. to take control of the country. [Captain America: Steve Rogers #11-16]
Rogers was successful, orchestrating a series of threats that pressed the President into invoking the S.H.I.E.L.D. Emergency Powers Act, giving the supposedly noble Director Rogers legal authority over the nation until he chose to return it. These emergencies trapped many of Earth’s 
Mightiest Heroes in Manhattan beneath a Darkforce dome or out in space beyond a planetary defense shield. With the supreme commander of Hydra now the legal authority in America as well, Rogers asserted his powers and assembled his own Avengers to publicly serve his administration. It was an odd crew as Taskmaster and Black Ant joined a mind-controlled Vision and Scarlet Witch, the self-serving Superior Octopus, and morally struggling Deadpool and Odinson to fill out the roster.
Taskmaster was no loyalist and it was the threat of death and a regular paycheck which kept him on the Avengers. He fought kaiju or alien invasions and attacked Atlantis on command, but would stop fighting just as readily if the odds turned against him. He sparred with Mockingbird again and learned some new tricks after sparring with the renegade Inhuman called Karnak the Shatterer, but mostly kept his head down. As the real Avengers escaped their various prisons and 
assembled against Hydra, Taskmaster’s finely-honed sense of self-preservation told him they were about to lose. He told Black Ant to gear up and they released the Avengers’ protégés the Champions from Hydra custody, hoping to net themselves some good will in the aftermath. Sure enough, Rogers’ America fell in a matter of hours and Taskmaster’s time as an Avenger came to an end. [Secret Empire crossover]
Baron Zemo showed signs of trying to keep the flame of Hydra alive, and Taskmaster was still willing to take their money, at least. Rogers had convinced Frank Castle that Hydra offered America the kind of order he had always sought, but now the Punisher was pissed and out to eliminate Zemo and the Hydra loyalists who duped him. Taskmaster and several Hydra mercenaries first fought Frank when he used a commandeered War Machine armor against them. [Punisher (2nd series) #226] Later, Punisher was caught and imprisoned in Bagalia under Zemo’s oversight. Taskmaster was responsible for keeping Frank in prison, but even days of torture and surrounding him with walls of criminals and terrorists couldn’t keep the Punisher at bay. [Punisher (12th series) #7-9]