|
Tony Masters was born a
prodigious savant of mnemonic talents. He discovered his unusual abilities in
childhood when, after watching a cowboy television program, he found he could
duplicate the rope tricks he had seen the actors perform. Growing to understand
his ability, he saw a man perform a difficult backwards leap from a diving
board; he duplicated the dive, but nearly drowned because he didn't know how
to swim. Afterwards, his mother called in psychiatrists who studied his ability,
terming it "photographic reflexes." He employed his talent several
times during his youth for professional gain, most notably when he became a star
quarterback of his high school football team after watching one pro football
game. After graduating high school he contemplated becoming a crime fighter, but
decided crime would be more lucrative.
He then began a program of observing the fighting techniques of various super
heroes and their techniques through archival television news broadcasts to
expand his combat repertoire. Initially committing several grand larcenies, he
decided it was smarter to avoid risking direct confrontation with law enforcers,
and used his stolen capital to establish himself as a combat trainer for
aspiring professional criminals, specializing in producing henchmen for super
villains and criminal organizations around the world. Designing a costume, he
took the moniker "Taskmaster"; one unidentified early graduate of his
criminal academy would become espionage legend Spymaster. Taskmaster set up the
Solomon Institute for the Criminally Insane as a front for one of his training
academies, but its administrator Dr. Pernell Solomon developed heart problems
and had Taskmaster's science staff grow him a clone, Selbe, to harvest for a
replacement organ; Selbe escaped and ran to the Avengers, who exposed the
operation with the aid of their ally Ant-Man (Scott Lang). Taskmaster
single-handedly held his own against both Captain
America and Iron
Man in combat; while tempted to test himself against all the Avengers, he
realized that he would not be able to run his business from jail and fled after
the unfamiliar abilities of obscure robotic Avengers associate Jocasta threw him
off balance.
Along with skull-crushing Canadian mercenary Tyrell Farsa and telepathic
mind-altering assassin Black Swan, Taskmaster was hired to kill a militant group
by an unrevealed country trying to maintain control of an airstrip. Upon
completion of the mission, Farsa disrespected the cultured Black Swan by using
his silk handkerchief, and Taskmaster assisted Farsa when the Black Swan
attacked, but Black Swan defeated them both. Taskmaster briefly joined the
criminal Frightful Four with Wizard, Deadpool, and
Constrictor to battle the Fantastic Four, but when Deadpool went after Franklin
Richards, Franklin proved to be more trouble than planned. When the Fantastic
Four soon arrived home and Taskmaster, Wizard, and Constrictor left Deadpool to
face the Fantastic Four alone, and this Frightful Four grouping disbanded soon
after.
Afterwards, Taskmaster
went into hiding and continued to training others, including Brock Rumlow,
Blanche Sitznski, Rachel Leighton and Sheoke Sanada. Spider-Man
and Ant-Man soon discovered another of Taskmaster's schools and battled
Taskmaster, preventing his theft of nuclear material. Hawkeye and Ant-Man later
exposed and halted Taskmaster's use of the Carson Carnival of Traveling
Wonders as a mobile recruiting center, and Spider-Man and Nomad disrupted his
recruiting street gangs for Black Abbott. After battling the Thing and Vance
Astrovik in Ohio, Taskmaster was captured by FBI agents and taken into custody.
 
|
