This one has been a long time coming.

A long time ago, in anticipation of the then-upcoming Black Widow movie, I drew Marvel character Taskmaster. That piece was "fueled by an equal mix of passion and spite", stemming from my dissatisfaction with the MCU's redesign of the character. I'd seen Taskmaster in comics, cartoons and video games growing up, and he seemed to reside in the space most of my favorite characters do where he's recognizable, but still relatively unknown. When it was first announced that Taskmaster was to be the antagonist in the Black Widow movie, I got a little excited and hoped that if nothing else, that the character would be given some time to shine.

When the first trailer dropped, I was heartbroken. Taskmaster as a character had been watered down and smoothed over to the point that what we were left with was an antagonist so bland that you could've slotted him into basically any sub-par action movie and not even bat an eye.

Recently, I briefly talked about the upcoming movie adaptation of Carnage potentially being the character in name only, and MCU Taskmaster couldn't even accomplish that. As hyperbolic as it might sound, MCU Taskmaster is just the latest in a long line of characters having their individuality and uniqueness stripped away.

I think the main stumbling point is that when you're adapting a character or work, you need to understand them fully before you can alter them. As an example, let's use 2006's Casino Royale, an adaptation of Ian Felming's first James Bond story, and a reboot to the cinematic James Bond brand. Casino Royale understands how James Bond, the original story and the original film worked, as well as why they worked.

Both the MCU and I were guilty of fundamentally misunderstanding how and why Taskmaster is such a fun, enjoyable character. My original drawing of him was just a slightly modified version of his appearance in the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series, superimposed over a JPG of Chernobyl.

So I went back to those comics, cartoons and video games. I went back to the beginning, to fully understand what makes Taskmaster tick. Who is he? How does he work, and why?

How do I update his appearance without losing it?

It was on this quest that I came to a realization.

Taskmaster has a weird-ass design, and always has.

The original Taskmaster design could definitely be argued as bad. Dark blue, orange, and white is an incredibly strange colorscheme, those colors really don't play well together. Orange is hard enough to work with as is. The cape and hood, combined with the skull face, hint at a Grim Reaper motif. But the rest of the outfit feels like a knockoff Deathstroke crossed with a pirate. I think Taskmaster design is an extremely unique and distinct design, and I love it very much. But I also think it can't work anywhere else but in a comic book.

So how have other, more designs worked out for him?

Not super well, in my opinion.

The other well-known Taskmaster design is the UDON design, which I also really like, but it really only loosely resembles him. That incarnation has a perfect understanding of Taskmaster as a character, but doesn't really resemble him. The Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon initially had him in his classic outfit, but then introduced the original design that I aped. The recent Avengers and Spider-Man games both included Taskmaster, and both designs were remarkably generic and kind of lame. Avengers in particular had a design that a good friend of mine accurately described as "just some fucking guy." If I wanted to make a design for Taskmaster that respected the original while still being fresh and new, I clearly had my work cut out for me.

So here's how I went about redesigning Taskmaster for the Ultraverse.

I tried to keep as much of the original design as possible, while also updating it. I took the aspects that I think worked from all of the aforementioned designs. Not to toot my own horn, but I think I did a pretty alright job.

The first step was giving him his outfit. Color placement was one of the toughest aspects of this design. I tried to use very little orange, but I couldn't have no orange at all. So I took the "T" shapes on his gauntlets and kneepads from the MCU design. The shiny off-white armor, dark blue bodysuit, "T" shape on the chest, and capeless hood are from the Ultimate Spider-Man design. The straps and pouches are based on the UDON design. His outfit is made to be armored, but still breathable and allowing for a full range of motion. I didn't want to include things just because I like them or because they look cool. I want this to be an outfit that makes sense. Giving him two different states, one in which he's carrying only what he absolutely needs, and one where he's carrying all the gear he can, also balances the new and the old.

I changed a lot of things, but I also kept some things the same. One thing in particular, that even now I wonder about, is the mask. I figured it should still be armored, but it needed to look like a skull. In the Ultraverse, Taskmaster is characterized sort of like Michael Meyers. The eyes being pure black adds to the creepiness of him.

You might remember a long time ago, when I drew the Champions, a team of young Marvel Legacy characters. In it, I mentioned that Crossbones was the bad guy pursuing them. I worked with my good friend Gear on writing a story about them. In it, Crossbones is eventually forced to work with Taskmaster, and the two formed a bitter rivalry. But I really liked the idea of Ultraverse Taskmaster becoming the Slade to the Champion's Teen Titans. An underused ability of Taskmaster's is his ability to perfectly imitate voices, which I think he would use to torment his foes. Generally, he's a man of very few words, but in battle he'll imitate the voices of friends and loved ones to psych his opponents out. I like Taskmaster being a manipulative bastard, what can I say.

Well, that was a long one. I'd like to personally give huge thanks to @SourCherryJack for telling me to make my own backgrounds on that original Taskmaster piece, I wouldn't be where I'm at artistically if you hadn't been honest. Your feedback was integral to my development and much appreciated. Gigantic thanks to @Palindronev2 for his help when I was drawing Taskmaster's guns. Enormous thanks to @BullbasaurusRex, @citalopram-overdose, and many other friends of mine for being willing to talk about Taskmaster with me, and having the patience to listen to me rant about him.

The biggest thanks of all goes to you all. Thank you for looking, thank you for leaving feedback, and thank you for listening.

I love you all very much. I hope to hear what you think about this piece, and my opinions on Taskmaster in general! Be sure to leave comments down below!