Following the release of Captain America: Brave New World on Friday, Thunderbolts* is next on the upcoming Marvel movies slate, arriving in early May. The first trailer was released in September, and this past weekend, MCU fans were treated to the Thunderbolts* Super Bowl trailer. While arguably the biggest draw for this preview was the strong hints towards Sentry being the main villain, having viewed both trailers several times now, I’m pretty confident I know which member from the title team is going to be killed off and roughly when this will happen.
The Thunderbolts lineup in the 36th of the Marvel movies in order consists of Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes, Wyatt Russell’s John Walker/U.S. Agent, David Harbour’s Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian, Hannah Jonh-Kamen’s Ava Starr/Ghost and Olga Kurylenko’s Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster, with Julia Louis Dreyfus’ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine and Lewis Pullman’s Bob also playing important roles in the movie. I’m here to talk about Taskmaster, who’s returning following her debut appearance in 2021's Black Widow (which can be watched with a Disney+ subscription if you need a refresher on the character’s backstory). Sadly, I’m thinking she’s shuffling off this mortal coil in Thunderbolts*.
Why I Think Taskmaster Will Die In Thunderbolts*
Taskmaster is the Thunderbolts* protagonist who’s gotten the least amount of attention in this early marketing, and I’m almost 100% positive it’s because we won’t be seeing her for that long. Here’s my reasoning: we know that after some of these characters' paths cross in a pretty chaotic way complete with bullets, alarms and punches being thrown, the entire group will head over what had once been Avengers Tower, but now belongs to Valentina (presumably she purchased Tony Stark's former headquarters for Earth's Mightiest Heroes sometime after the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever):
However, this is one of the few shots where Taskmaster is seen among her other teammates, with most of the other team footage in these previews involving the other five characters. This is reminding me of how Adam Beach’s Slipknot was barely shown in previews for the 2016 DCEU movie Suicide Squad. Because, as it turned out, the character was killed at the beginning of the mission when he tried to make a run for it and Rick Flag Jr. detonated the nanite bomb in his head to prove to the other Task Force X recruits that getting out of line comes with lethal consequences. Granted, I think Taskmaster will have more to do in Thunderbolts* than Slipknot did in Suicide Squad, but my point still stands.
I’m by no means the first to think that Taskmaster will bite the dust in Thunderbolts*. This has been speculated among fans for months, although my colleague Sean O’Connell made his case last November for why he thinks this is a misdirect. However, following that Super Bowl trailer, I think the writing is definitely more clearly on the wall that she’s going to die.
How I Think Taskmaster Will Die In Thunderbolts*
As I mentioned earlier, while Marvel Studios hasn’t outright confirmed this, it’s looking pretty obvious Sentry will be Thunderbolts*’ main antagonist. Like in the comics, it appears that Lewis Pullman’s version of Bob has a darker half called The Void, and it’s this antagonist who appears to be responsible for the attack on Not-Avengers Tower that we see in the Super Bowl trailer. I’ll remind you all reading, Taskmaster shows up with the other team members to meet with Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (whom will learn a lot more about), but while Yelena, Bucky, John, Alexei and Ava walk out of this assault intact, albeit worse for wear, Antonia is nowhere to be seen, as the below image shows:
I can’t say I know exactly how she’ll be killed in Thunderbolts*, but it’s easy to infer that Taskmaster will perish when The Void is wreaking havoc on that building. However, since she basically functioned as more of a living weapon in Black Widow than an actual character, and presumably her limited screen time in this movie won’t allow her to be effectively fleshed out into someone compelling and three-dimensional, I don’t think I’ll feel any great sense of loss when she’s killed off… sorry, if she’s killed off.
Maybe if she’d appeared in more movies or one of the MCU’s TV shows, I’d feel differently. Unfortunately, that emotional connection just isn't there, even taking into account Antonia's tragic backstory. As it stands, it looks as though her death would be/will be the catalyst that gets the surviving protagonists to finally start working together as a team, just like what happened with Phil Coulson in The Avengers.
Frankly, I wish this wasn’t the case. While I was initially dissatisfied after seeing Black Widow that Taskmaster had been so heavily altered from the character in the comics, I was nonetheless curious to see how Antonia Dreykov would stand out from the Tony Masters version, as the only real similarities between the two are their muscle memory ability and skull-looking masks. Alas, it doesn’t look like that’ll be the case, though I’d like to be proven wrong. Maybe Sean is right and Antonia will just refuse whatever deal Valentina offers and leave before Bob/Sentry/The Void shows up, but I’m extremely skeptical about that.
We’ll find out if my theory is correct when Thunderbolts* is released on May 2. Other notable cast members in the movie include Laurence Fishburne’s Bill Foster, Rachel Weisz’s Melina Vostokoff and Geraldine Viswanathan’s Mel, as well as Wendell Pierce and Chris Bauer in undisclosed roles. Jake Schreier directed the picture, and Eric Pearson, Lee Sung Jin and Joanna Calo all worked on the script. Meanwhile, read CinemaBlend’s Captain America: Brave New World review and find out what other critics are saying about this weekend’s Marvel release.
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