New Black Widow Trailer Debunks Popular Taskmaster Theory

Marvel dropped a brand new trailer for Black Widow this morning and I think we can all agree that it offers the most exciting look at ScarJo’s upcoming solo MCU venture we’ve had so far. The preview focused on building up the connection between Natasha Romanoff and her Russian family, and it doing so it looks to have categorically proven one of them innocent of being the film’s big bad.

Based on the mysterious depiction of Taskmaster in previous trailers, a popular fan theory had developed which pointed to Rachel Weisz’s Melina secretly being the one underneath the skull-like metal mask. However, there’s one clip you might’ve missed in this new promo that disapproves this theory once and for all.

The footage offers a further glimpse at what will likely be a thrilling action sequence which involves Nat, her allies and her enemies skydiving along with a bunch of falling debris. As pointed out by MCU Cosmic’s Jeremy Conrad, one clip shows Melina piloting a helicopter during this sequence. As other footage makes clear, Taskmaster is battling Nat through the air at this stage, so it’s clear that Melina is not Taskmaster, after all.

This isn’t all that surprising, either, seeing as rumors that pre-date the Melina theory no doubt indicate the actual secret identity of the villain, who this trailer reveals is in charge of the Red Room and the Black Widow program. It’s thought that O-T Fagbenle’s Mason is the real culprit, which fits with how he’s been kept out of the marketing so far. Except for the new poster that debuted with the latest trailer today.

Not that this lets Melina off the hook completely, however. The specially created emojis for the movie have revealed that her surname is Vostokoff. This tells us that the character’s an adaptation of the supervillain of the same name, alias Iron Maiden, from the comics. So, it looks like there’ll still be some kind of betrayal on the cards in Black Widow. It just isn’t Melina under Taskmaster’s helmet.