BIOGRAPHY - Page 10
While teaching a Maggia don how to golf and beat his buddy being coached by Bullseye (not all jobs are glamorous, okay…?), Taskmaster came under sniper fire. He got help from a surprising 
source when Nick Fury, Jr. intervened on his behalf. Fury explained that Maria Hill was dead and Taskmaster was set up to take the fall for her murder. Now Natasha Romanoff was hunting Taskmaster to take revenge for Hill. Tony did NOT want the Black Widow as an enemy and was willing to work with Fury to clear his name. Nick explained that Maria’s last case involved studying some doomsday weapon from the H.A.M.M.E.R. days called the Rubicon Trigger. The weapon’s files and controls were biometrically locked using the kinesic signature of three people, which was why Fury stuck his neck out for Taskmaster. Only Tony could mimic the body language of three high-profile spies well enough to fool the computer system and gain access to Rubicon. Not seeing any better options, Taskmaster agreed to help Fury investigate Rubicon.
The three kinesic signatures came from Phil Coulson, director of the Squadron Supreme of America, General Okoye of the Agents of Wakanda, and Ami Han, from South Korea’s Tiger Division. Taskmaster would have to lay eyes on these three unreachable figures long enough to copy their body language for the Rubicon. This took Taskmaster around the world facing the 
spymaster’s enforcers like Hyperion, the Wakandan Hatut Zeraze, and Korea’s White Fox. Using deception, foresight and tactical displays of cowardice, Taskmaster completed his three missions while staying ahead of the Black Widow. However, he was also clever enough to recognize that he and Fury were being led around like patsies during all this and chafed at the idea of being used by some unseen figure.
Taskmaster didn’t have the chops to convince Fury of his theory, but it didn’t matter. When the Black Widow finally tracked them down and was on the verge of killing Tony, he realized the truth just before Maria Hill herself stepped out of the shadows and stopped Natasha. Hill had faked her own death and framed Taskmaster in order to compel him into assembling the kinesic signatures for Rubicon. She knew Taskmaster’s well-honed sense of self-preservation would stop him from accepting a job to track the three spymasters but putting his life in danger if he didn’t do it would 
work. She explained that Rubicon was a network of death spore satellites Osborn put in orbit around Earth. She now had the kill codes to disable the satellites, but still needed Taskmaster to access the interface. A grumbling Taskmaster unlocked the Rubicon interface… and ordered the satellites to launch. As Hill, Fury and the Widow scrambled over themselves to shut down Rubicon before the 60 second timer elapsed, Taskmaster slipped away into the night, confident they would remember not to treat him like a patsy in the future. [Taskmaster (3rd series) #1-5]
When Spider-Man brought down Chance and the Foreigner’s flying casino, they swore revenge against him. Foreigner built his own Wild Pack with Taskmaster, Black Ant, Slyde and Jack O’Lantern as hired mercenaries to help him get what he was owed. [Giant-Size Amazing Spider-Man: The Chameleon Conspiracy #1] However, this proved to be part of the larger plan of an 
entity known as Kindred, who arranged for six “Sinister Sixes” to all attack the wall-crawler at once. The Wild Pack soon stumbled into conflict with the classic Sinister Six, the Savage Six, the Syndicate, the Superior Foes and the Sinful Six. Kindred implanted supernatural centipedes in their brains, allowing him to torture Taskmaster and the others into fighting to be the one who finally kills Spider-Man. Doctor Octopus found a way to eliminate the fiendish bugs, letting Taskmaster slink off to find easier and more fulfilling work. [Sinister War #1-4]
A brief collaboration with Baron Zemo left Mayor Wilson Fisk with legal right to the Thunderbolts brand. He saw fit to assemble his own team of Thunderbolts as enforcers for his administration in the city of New York. Fisk had passed a local ordinance making masked vigilantes illegal, but bare-faced and powered individuals could still serve his needs. When the God of Symbiotes known as Knull blocked out the sun and lay siege to Earth, Fisk needed to take action (at least for 
the news cycles). He therefore hired Taskmaster to oversee a group of super-criminals caught operating in Kingpin’s city without his leave to repay their debt. Their squad was always on a suicide mission, and Taskmaster was warned in advance to dump the cannon fodder once they made a good show of it. Tony bonded with his teammates during the ordeal, though, and kept them alive despite Fisk reporting of their “heroic deaths.” [King in Black: Thunderbolts #1-3]
In the weeks that followed, Mayor Fisk expanded the Thunderbolts operation and made aggressive maneuvers against any super-heroes or vigilantes who refused to pledge loyalty to him. Taskmaster continued working with a Thunderbolts squad, thanks to Fisk’s paycheck and the mind control he commanded through the Purple Man. Fisk was eventually brought down for corruption and dethroned in the election favoring the new Mayor Luke Cage. [Devil’s Reign crossover] Cage couldn’t immediately reverse Fisk’s anti-vigilante policy, but he could ensure the Thunderbolts were only staffed by people he genuinely trusted to keep the peace. Taskmaster and his Thunderbolts took hostages, before being brought in by Hawkeye and Cage’s new officially-sponsored Thunderbolts team. [Thunderbolts (4th series) #1]
While Mayor Cage opposed the Powers Act and sought to have the ordinance revoked in the courts, Special Agent Julia Gao was emboldened by the Act and assembled an anti-vigilante task force known as the Cape Killers. She arranged for convicted criminals like Taskmaster and Scorpion to work off their debt to society hunting other vigilantes or super-criminals active in Manhattan as officially deputized enforcers. She brought out the Cape Killers to arrest Carnage during a spree killing and protect the streets during a super-crime gang war, but Gao had a particular vendetta against Miles Morales’ Spider-Man, who managed to skirt the law thanks to his official sponsor, Misty Knight. [Carnage Reigns, Gang War crossovers]
After the Gang War proved the need for super-heroes to fight super-crime, Mayor Cage got the votes he needed to revoke the Powers Act. Taskmaster and the Cape Killers recognized that Gao was about to lose her mandate, and their deals might not be honored anymore. With the Powers Act being rescinded in 48 hours, Agent Gao talked the Killers into one last mission against Spider-Man, and she would forgive their sentences entirely while she still had the authority. Gao and the 
Cape Killers teamed up with another Morales foe, Rabble, whose technopathic abilities created suits that boosted their powers for one last battle. However, Rabble also stole motor control away from the Cape Killers once they were in action, forcing them to act as her puppets. Taskmaster and the others were brought down by Spider-Man and his team of allies, sending them back into custody. [Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2nd series) #18-19]
Out free, Taskmaster received a consulting fee from a man named Tutor, who set up a “pyramid scheme” of vampires in New York called the Structure. His territory caught the attention of Moon Knight and his Midnight Mission, so Tutor sought Taskmaster’s professional opinion on how to beat Moon Knight. Taskmaster gave Tutor his money’s worth, a full run down of Marc Spector’s history, experience and influences, but his advice was just one word… Don’t. Moon Knight was a 
madman, a religious zealot who ignored pain, and who crashed a helicopter into a building once just to make a statement to Taskmaster. When Tutor tried to hire Taskmaster to kill Moon Knight for him, Tony not only laughed in his face… he sought out Moon Knight and made sure Spector knew that, whatever Tutor did next, Taskmaster had nothing to do with it. At all. [Moon Knight (9th series) #13]
Taskmaster’s mercenary work continued to bring him into conflict with the Avengers. When Count Nefaria got a hold of Nick Fury’s “Black Ledger” of strategies to take down the Avengers, he hired Taskmaster and Ghost to go after Captain America and Iron Man. [Avengers Unlimited Infinity Comic #1] Taskmaster fought Cap again when Killionaire sent him to capture the Super-Adaptoid. They hoped to turn the android into an armor that augmented Taskmaster’s photographic reflexes with the powers of his foes as well. Captain America was aided by Spider-Man’s new sidekick Spider-Boy in defending the Adaptoid. Taskmaster was unfamiliar with Spider-Boy’s fighting style, so Bailey Briggs was able to psyche him out by pantomiming as if he had web-shooters. Taskmaster dodged the non-existent webbing right into Captain America’s waiting attack. [Spider-Boy #2-3]
Taskmaster was still willing to work for anyone if the price was right, such as when Doctor Strange recruited him for the Secret Defenders using leprechaun gold. A role-playing game called Cobolorum was actually a sentient entity that devoured its players, and Strange needed to assemble an adventuring party to rescue them. Taskmaster served the role of meat-shield, um… “fighter,” along with Strange’s wizard, Black Cat’s thief and the priest Hunter’s Moon. Taskmaster did nothing to hide his relief when he heard from Hunter’s Moon that his brother Moon Knight was dead. The Secret Defenders fought Baron Mordo for possession of Cobolorum, and Taskmaster completed his contract. [Doctor Strange (7th series) #13-14]
While laying low after the Cape-Killers dissolved, Taskmaster took a relatively low-risk consulting gig for Deadpool's new mercenary gig. The Deadpool & Daughters, LLC featured Wade's pre-teen daughter, Ellie Camacho, and her newly developed mutant powers. Tony got a kick out of training a little Deadpool whose healing factor also came with an accelerated cognitive feature, making her a real "visual learner" like him. Taskmaster mostly provides tactical support, name recognition, and a little bit of home base sparring for the Deadpools, collecting a check while staying out of harm's way. [Deadpool (9th series) #2-6]
Always remember: "When you need a bastard, call Taskmaster!"