‘Black Widow’ Movie Villains Explained

“Black Widow” is the next Marvel Studios movie, and while the comic book studio is keeping most spoilers top secret, they have let a few details slip. Specifically, it’s become clear who Black Widow’s adversaries are in the solo film.

Taskmaster: This Marvel comics villain is known for being able to mimic most physical moves. He watched a pro football game and became a star player. He saw a diver do a complicated move and he was able to mimic it exactly. His “photographic reflexes” make him a tough opponent for anyone fighting him. If he has studied all the Avengers, he knows how to fight like them. He even trains other villains how to fight.

He doesn’t have a significant comic book history with Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), but that could change in the 2020 movie. It was rumored that O-T Fagbenle’s Mason, who is said to be a “fixer” for Nat, might be Taskmaster in the film, but more recent theories have pointed to Rachel Weisz’s Melina, who has been through the Black Widow program five times.

Red Guardian: David Harbour has described this character as Russia’s answer to Captain America, their own super soldier. Alexi Shostakov was a test pilot for the Soviet Union and impressed the KGB enough that they arranged his marriage to Natasha in the comics. They faked his death in order to manipulate Black Widow.

It isn’t clear if the “Black Widow” movie will use the marriage plot. However, Harbour has teased that the characters have a shared past.

Yelena Belova: Florence Pugh’s younger spy is not a clear villain. In fact, the story could go either way, turning her into a hero or supervillain. She was trained in the Red Room and created to be Natasha’s match. She was sent to kill Black Widow, but the comics showed them becoming allies. Yelena even uses the Black Widow name, but her loyalties switch sometimes. She has worked for both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra.

Johansson and Pugh have both referred to Yelena as a “sister figure.” There will be a fight scene when they first meet, which was shown at San Diego Comic-Con, so it seems like it’ll be a complicated relationship.

“Black Widow,” directed by Cate Shortland, hits theaters May 1, 2020.