Marvel’s Thunderbolts Bringing Back The Franchise’s Best Villain?
Could Marvel's Thunderbolts be bringing back one of the coolest MCU villains? This character definitely deserves more screentime
With so many Marvel projects in the works, both planned and rumored, it can be tough keeping track of everything that’s coming down the pike for this studio. And the franchise as a whole has done such a good job of establishing characters, both heroes and villains, along the way that when we hear about a team-up happening it’s even more exciting. That looks like it is going to be the case with Marvel’s Thunderbolts which could unite some of the villains in this universe into one group. And according to recent rumors, there’s a chance the movie ends up bringing back one of the best villains we’ve seen yet, someone who definitely deserves more screen time in the MCU.
According to insider Daniel RPK (via CBR), there’s a chance we get a return of Taskmaster in Marvel’s Thunderbolts. While this is far from confirmed (much like everything else with this movie), getting Taskmaster back into the mix for the potential group of villains would be a welcome return for a character whose powers were among the most formidable we’ve seen among this class of character. Taskmaster was first introduced on the big screen in 2021s Black Widow, the movie that went back in time a bit for Marvel in order to give Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff the proper “send-off” in the MCU. Taskmaster is the alter-ego of Antonia Dreykov, the daughter of Ray Winstone’s Dreykov who can mimic the fighting styles of nearly every she encounters. Getting her into Thunderbolts would make a ton of sense.
It remains to be seen if this is going to be the case with Marvel’s Thunderbolts and there is still much to find out about how they will take this particular group of characters. Established as a group of villains who take on hero monikers, the Thunderbolts have had a number of different iterations throughout their run in the comic books. So there are quite a number of directions this movie could go. It’s been assumed, because of how the group originally started, that we will see Daniel Bruhl’s Baron Zemo seeing as how he was the original founder of the group in the comics. In that original story, Zemo rebrands as Citizen V as he leads of team of supervillains who are now essentially posing as heroes.
And there are other rumors that established Marvel Cinematic Universe characters could be in the mix as well for Thunderbolts. Wyatt Russell’s US Agent has been part of this group in the past, and we know that his story could be expanded after the events of The Falcon and the Winter Solider. Plus we could see more of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (V) who was in both Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Black Widow.
Jake Schreier is on board to direct Marvel’s Thunderbolts but beyond that, we are still waiting to hear more details about how this movie will actually take shape. Again, there are a number of different directions it could go. But bringing back Taskmaster would be a cool first step, especially considering the kind of damage the character could do if really unleashed.
