Warning: contains spoilers to Taskmaster #4!
Near the end of his mission to reveal Spider-Man, and specifically their relationship to women. ing something the infamous assassin Bullseye said about killing a hero's significant others and family , Taskmaster reveals that he has policies put in place to prevent the special kind of revenge that comes after crossing that line, theorizing that heroes like Daredevil and Spider-Man subconsciously crave the excuse to cut loose.
This observation addresses criticisms that the comic book industry has dealt with for years; the idea that female characters have frequently been written only as an extension of a male character's journey, often being injured or killed for cheap melodrama. This concept is often described as "Women in Refrigerators" after the incident where Green Lantern Kyle Rayner found his girlfriend Alex DeWitt dead, dismembered and stuffed in a refrigerator by supervillain Major Force in Green Lantern #54 (1994). Although female superheroes and the characterization of women in general has come a long way since the Golden Age of comics, Taskmaster's comment suggests that these issues haven't gone unnoticed by the characters inside the stories themselves.
In the Taskmaster series, Tony Masters has been framed for Maria Hill's murder. Nick Fury Jr. agrees to help him clear his name, but informs him that he'll need to observe the kinesic signatures of three individuals so he can mimic them exactly and unlock an old H.A.M.M.E.R. artifact. In Taskmaster #4 by Jed MacKay and Alessandro Vitti, the villain for hire parachutes into Wakanda to confront Wakandan warrior General Okoye, and his internal monologue reveals he's adopted a "No wives, no girlfriends, no mothers" policy. He explains, "Not just because it's gross, though it is. No, it's because these heroes, these guys... it always seems that all they're waiting for is one dead woman to motivate them."
Taskmaster's opinion is critical of a particularly noteworthy form of lazy storytelling, but it's hard to argue Marvel Heroes haven't justified his cynicism. In Wolverine vol. 2 #10, Logan walked into his home one night to find his love Kayla Silverfox apparently murdered by Sabretooth. In Amazing Spider-Man #539-543, the Kingpin's failed assassination of Aunt May saw the angry Peter Parker return to his black costume, committing a series of felonies, violence, and even threatening to kill a humiliated Wilson Fisk. Bullseye himself would torture and threaten Daredevil's loved ones, killing Elektra Nachios and Karen Page but not Milla Donovan, who was instead driven insane by Mr. Fear. These deaths, some of fan-favorite characters, would serve as haunting memories within each superhero's career, but generally with a legacy focused on intensifying the feud between hero and villain.
Taskmaster #4 chooses a fascinating way to look at the trend of Women in Refrigerators, with a detached, inveterate villain for hire like Taskmaster noticing something's amiss when the death of a loved one seems to spur supposed heroes like Daredevil or Spider-Man into a period of excessive brooding and violence that, in a sick kind of way, they seem to revel in. It's a creative way of signposting, and even discouraging, this trend, as well as making Taskmaster more relatable than other, more vicious villains. Where other series like M.O.D.O.K: Head Games have chosen more bombastic ways to endear their villainous protagonists to readers, Taskmaster offers something a little smarter, and perhaps also something that helps hold other comics on the stands to a higher standard.
