The mercenaries Deadpool and Taskmaster have maintained an adversarial relationship and have clashed repeatedly over the years. While Taskmaster has proven to be highly formidable, Deadpool remains one his most difficult opponents due to the fact that he cannot predict or counter Wade's unstable mind. While he has a personal vendetta to be the one to finally end Deadpool’s regenerating luck, there have been many occasions where he has helped Wade, to the point where he believes they are close friends.
In Marvel's adult-only series Deadpool MAX, the Taskmaster takes on a new role in Wade Wilson’s upbringing and redefines their relationship. Creators David Lapham and Kyle Baker introduced a female version of Taskmaster who ends up becoming a surrogate mother to Wade. He meets her as a child and credits her for helping him become the man he is today. That is, until she tried to change their dynamic in a creepy, Oedipal way.
Making her first appearance in Deadpool MAX #5, she becomes the latest target for Deadpool and his handler Bob to take down before she can assassinate a senator. It’s the first time Deadpool does not seem to be thrilled with the target, even when Bob explains to him that she worked for Hydra, Deadpool’s most hated enemy. As he nears a complete mental breakdown he explains to Bob that Taskmaster is his mother, or at least the closest thing he ever had to one. He met her while on a trip with his Muskrats, a type of Boy Scouts, after she killed their troop leader and took over the group to train the boys. One by one, they disappear off-panel as she challenges them to earn colorful merit badges for walking through fire or fighting a badger in a pit. The only one who seems game for it all is Wade, who earns the offered badges until she tries to ‘make him a man’ to earn his final badge. Distraught, he ran away and grew up in an orphanage until Blind Al came to recruit him for her Deadpool program.
Deadpool and Bob fail to stop her from assassinating the senator, though Deadpool and Taskmaster go head-on, where she explains he was her greatest student and she couldn’t be more proud. After her escape, she continued to make a few appearances throughout the series, and at one point becomes the leader of the newly established Hydra. After getting her hands on poisonous gas, she heads to Cincinnati to release it with Deadpool and Bob thwarting her attempts. Unfortunately, they all realize they were pawns in Blind Al’s game, with Bob being framed for the terrorist attack as the gas goes off in Cincinnati. While Taskmaster disappears into the shadows the pair go on the run trying to figure out how to clear Bob’s name.
In Deadpool MAX II, she appears again, as the leader of Hydra taking a church hostage and drawing Deadpool and Bob out of hiding. After everything goes sideways, she isn't seen again until the final issue of the series, where Bob, Deadpool, Taskmaster, Cable and Colleen make a plan to take down Blind Al and the Deadpool program. Unfortunately for Deadpool, Bob and Taskmaster, they’re betrayed by Cable and Colleen and are forced to continue working as operatives for The Deadpool program. In the end, Deadpool gets his revenge taking Colleen and Blind Al out using the recently deceased Cable as a bomb.
It was a refreshing take on Deadpool and Taskmaster’s overall dynamic, but it’s unlikely we will ever see this iteration beyond the pages of the MAX series. In the main Marvel Universe the two have been at odds since Deadpool #2 by Joe Kelly and Ed McGuinness. They have continuously gone back and forth between being allies and enemies since, with Wade asking for Taskmaster’s help time and time again.
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