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Real Name: Unrevealed Class: Normal human Occupation: Criminal leader / trainer  Affiliations: Associate of numerous criminal organizations/masterminds Scale of Operations: Nationwide Powers: Taskmaster possesses no true superhuman powers but instead has a rare ability of "photographic reflexes." As such, he has honed his strength, speed, endurance, and reflexes to the peak human ability. Also, after studying an opponent, he can guess his opponent's impending actions as if Taskmaster had a type of combat-sense. Taskmaster's array of weaponry mimics popular heroes such as Daredevil, Black Knight, and Captain America, and he can perform similar moves due to his photographic reflexes. History: The man who would become the Taskmaster first demonstrated unusual abilities during childhood. After watching a cowboy show on television, he found himself able to duplicate the sophisticated rope tricks he had watched the cowboy perform. Psychiatrists, called in by his mother, termed the boy's rare ability "photographic reflexes." He employed his talent several times during his youth for personal gain, most notably when he became a star quarterback of his high school football game. Upon graduation, he briefly considered a career as a crimefighter, but opted for becoming a criminal, which he perceived to be more lucrative.

Taskmaster then began a program of observing the fighting techniques of a large number of superhumanly powered adventurers through archival television news broadcasts. He initially used his fighting skills to execute several successful grand larcenies, but he had not properly anticipated the dangers involved. He decided to use his stolen capital to establish a center for training aspiring criminals to become polished professionals. His goal was to become a major supplier for criminal organizations around the world. Designing a costume, he took the name Taskmaster and began to train a large number of thugs at his criminal academy located near the town of Southampton on Long Island.

The crime college was forced to cease operations when its front organization, the Solomon Institute for the Criminally Insane, was exposed by the hero team Avengers. Taskmaster's chief business administrator Dr. Pernell Solomon, afflicted with a serious heart condition, had forced the academy's scientific staff to generate a clone of himself, with the purpose of using its heart for a compatible transplant. The clone, artificially aged to adulthood, escaped and alerted the Avengers to the existence of the criminal institute. Although the Avengers apprehended most of the Solomon Institute's personnel, Taskmaster escaped.
 

Taskmaster established a new academy in a warehouse on Manhattan's lower west side, but the crime-fighters Spider-Man and Ant-Man, following separate leads, discovered the place and thwarted Taskmaster's plan to rob nuclear material from a scientific supply house. Taskmaster was again forced to flee. Claiming to have established technical institutes for criminals across the country, Taskmaster was next observed at the Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders, a small company that

happened to have given Hawkeye his first job as an archer when he was a youth. Taskmaster was using the carnival as a traveling front for his operations until Hawkeye and Ant-Man compromised it. Again, Taskmaster managed to escape custody.
 

Deciding to further explore the use of a circus as a front for his academy, Taskmaster took over yet another small show and used it for many months to great success. However, while the show was playing a small town in Ohio, the Thing assisted a government agent in foiling Taskmaster's activities. The agent took Taskmaster into custody, but it was later revealed to be one of the Taskmaster's men wearing his costume. The Taskmaster continued to run his criminal-institutes, and rarely became directly involved in the activities of other super-powered individuals. In a recent exception, the Taskmaster was asked by the religious movement called the Triune Understanding to impersonate Captain America as part of an elaborate public relations stunt. As Captain America, Taskmaster led a group of Avengers' associates in breaking into a Triune-affiliated office whereupon the Taskmaster revealed himself and confronted the heroes with his own version of the Split-Second Squad. The

heroes were defeated and earned a media backlash for their perceived crime. About the same time, Taskmaster was hired by an unknown party to assassinate the villain Titania by giving her a fake mercenary assignment. (In reality, Titania at this time was being impersonated by the shape-changing Copicat.) "Titania's" roommate at the time, Deadpool, took Titania's place, although he was able to escape assassination.

Later, the Taskmaster's ring of criminals were infiltrated by the Avengers Triathlon and Wonder Man working undercover, which allowed the Avengers to dismantle his operations, although the villain escaped as usual.