Taskmaster Gets Up Close In the Black Widow Final Trailer

The Black Widow final trailer is thrilling for two reasons: It tells us more about Taskmaster, one of Marvel’s most intriguing villains, and it reassures us that Black Widow will actually come out on schedule.

Every film’s nemesis this season is coronavirus, aka Covid-19, which spooked Die Another Day into delayings its premiere date until November. Disney has insisted Black Widow wouldn’t budge, and proved it with a new trailer that explains a bit about the origin and motives of Taskmaster, a decades-old villain with a shiny skull mask and the ability to duplicate anyone’s fighting style.

The trailer finds Florence Pugh doing a lot of helpful exposition. As Yelena, sister of Natasha/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), she explains the cover story she’s come up with to explain what her sister does in America. Later, she explains Taskmaster, and what he does:

“He controls the Red Room. They’re manipulated. Fully conscious but no choices.”

“They” are assassins, and the “Red Room” is where Natasha got her training as a Russian assassin.

“How many others are there?” Natasha asks.

“Enough,” sats Yelena.

And soon we get what seems to be the plot: Natasha re-teams with her sister and the rest of her family to stop the evil program, led by Taskmaster, that made her the stone-cold killer she became. In the process, one hopes, she finds redemption and a lot of things make cool metallic clinking sounds and shields bounce around with delightful improbability and many things explode. We can’t wait until May 1.

Black Widow, the 24th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is a prequel that takes place before the events of Avengers: Endgame.

Directed by Cate Shortland, it stars Johansson, Pugh, David Harbour,  O-T Fagbenle, William Hurt, Ray Winstone and Rachel Weisz. It arrives in theaters — we really believe this date will hold — on May 1.

You can watch the Black Widow final trailer above.