Get Taskmaster!!

[HulkSmash666]

Marvel's top assassins and mercenaries have been hired to take out Taskmaster.

The rules of the game are one assassin per hour is released in the city to join in the hunt. Taskmaster has no rest periods unless he can eliminate his pursuers quickly enough to rest up before the next assassin is released. If Taskmaster can't eliminate them quickly enough, then potentially he could be hunted by ALL of them at the same time.

Taskmaster knows he's being hunted, but not by whom or how many there are.

He is armed with the following:

Broadsword, shield, bow and arrows (hunting tip, explosive, net, electro-shock, acid, smoke, incendiary), dual pistols, twin sai, billy-club/collapsible bo-staff/nunchukas/grapple line combo-stick, whip, shuriken and grenades. He also has his standard Kevlar body armoured costume.


The Hunters

Bushwacker- standard morphing arms into guns powers

Batroc- standard body armour, twin sub-machine guns, throwing knives

Zaran The Weapons Master- twin sai, shuriken, spear, bow and arrows, blowgun, bolas, katana

Crossbones- M-60 machine gun, twin UZI's, RPG with one rocket, pistol, combat knife, Kevlar body armour

King Cobra- standard powers, weapons and equipment

Hobgoblin (Roderick Kingsley)- glider (with full arsenal), pumpkin bombs, electro-gloves, razor bats, Goblin Formula-enhanced physique

Typhoid Mary- twin katana, shuriken, standard telekinetic/pyrokinetic powers

Sabretooth- standard powers, no adamantium skeleton


How does Taskmaster fare against these odds?

[HulkSmash666]

I'm thinking TM is good enough at mimicking people that he could pretty much avoid capture right up until Sabretooth joins the hunt. The others may be able to make some headway using their own methods of hunting targets in the 8 hours until Sabretooth joins in, but I think TM is skillful enough to stay on the run and even set up an ambush or booby traps until Creed picks up his scent.

That's if he wants to play it that way. If he wanted to he could go on the offensive and hunt down his pursuers. He wouldn't know who is chasing him first, so he'd have to use some bait, mainly being showing himself on CCTV committing a crime, get it on the news or online, then leave a trail of bread crumbs to his ambush. By this time however, it could be past the first hour so TM may have Bushwacker AND Batroc to contend with at once.

And that should be simple enough for him. TM is faster, more skilled, more accurate and has better weapons than both guys. A no-nonsense TM would put an explosive tipped arrow through the eyeball of Bushwacker before Bushwacker gets a shot off, and if he was feeling charitable to Batroc (who loves to fight the best fighters in the world) he would dismantle Batroc in hand to hand combat almost effortlessly.

Then it's poor Zaran's turn. Taskmaster outdoes him in all areas, so he makes quick work of Zaran when he shows his face.

Crossbones gives him a bit of a challenge. Heavy firepower is hard to work with when only armed with two pistols and a few trick arrows, even with the skills of Punisher and Hawkeye, especially when that heavy firepower is wielded by Crossbones. I see a shootout happening, with Crossbones forcing TM on the back foot at first, making him adapt to fighting someone using a friggin RPG and an M-60. He'd force Crossbones to expend all his ammo, probably having to expend most if not all of his OWN ammo in the process to do it, but once he does, he closes the gap and fills Crossbones with shuriken before cutting his head off with a broadsword.

If he has time before King Cobra arrives and tracks him down he can find more ammo. It's a city, so he'd know how to find what he needs. If he runs out of time and Cobra finds him first, it's not that big a deal. TM still has plenty of ways to dismantle Cobra. Sword, shield, sais....take your pick, but Cobra is screwed. And it would be pretty quick, too. Cobra is no pushover, but TM is just too good. This would open up more time to find ammo for his guns, and more hunting tip arrows for his quiver.

Hobgoblin is where it gets tough. Hobgoblin can legitimately go toe to toe with Spider-Man and not die. The guy is a Class 10 Goblin formula-powered beast in close quarters, so going hand to hand with Kingsley is suicide, even for TM. But with weapon? TM can put a hurting on even a Goblin. Goblin's aren't blade proof. Or arrow proof. Might be bullet proof up to hand gun calibre, but his equipment's weak spots aren't. So it's possible TM could shoot Hobgoblin's glider right out from under him if hit in the right spot. If not, then a well placed arrow sniped from a distance as Hobgoblin zooms around looking for TM. An arrow pretty much anywhere into Kingsley is gonna knock him off his glider, and TM can get to him before he recovers from the fall. A wounded Hobgoblin would hurl off a few pumpkin bombs, but TM can probably avoid them without too much trouble given his Daredevil/Spider-Man/Captain America level acrobatics, and his shield. A couple of pistol rounds to the eyes would fu*k Kingsley's day, Goblin formula or not. And if he's not dead and only blinded, a blitz attack with a broadsword would see Kingsley in pieces.

Typhoid Mary gives him about as much trouble as she did last time they fought. She makes a fight of it as she's a friggin beast in combat, and her mutant abilities give her a lot more oomph than just being a crazy chick with swords, but even when she was being hyped as this nigh-unstoppable killing machine (Avengers Academy/Mutant - X days), TM kicked her ass, and only so he could confirm her identity. He wasn't actually trying to take her out, merely provoke her to fight him so he could see her style up close to satisfy his own curiosity. And he straight up took her on and whooped her ass. So if he was actually TRYING and going all out, she would go down a lot quicker.

This leaves TM at this stage with only his shield, sword, sais and his billy club, and probably pretty damn exhausted after 7 hours of combat with these guys, taking on a fresh as a daisy Sabretooth, who DOESN'T get tired, who can track TM ANYWHERE he hides, and is nigh-unkillable with a hundred years of experience in killing people. TM's only real advantage is his superior skills in hand to hand combat and weaponry, and that he's got a sword and shield to give him a reach and defensive advantage. Sabretooth might get the jump on TM given his superior tracking, but TM is fast enough to either block or avoid any serious damage, and a counter attack with a broadsword is gonna be a messy wound for Creed to heal from. But now that TM is aware, and his target is in front of him and not sneak attacking him, he's good enough to parry any attack from Creed and get a "kill" shot on Creed, maybe even take his head off.


At least that's how my rather vivid imagination sees this going. Haha

[The Dork Knight]

Tasky can't take Mary in direct combat . He could get the drop on her sure

[Vanguard]

I take it you like Taskmaster HulkSmash

[HulkSmash666]

I take it you like Taskmaster HulkSmash

Haha I do, and it DOES kinda look like I'm being biased here, but after I made the list of opponents and posted the original thread I went away and thought about it, read some comics featuring most of those guys, and came back to this and thought I'd add my two cents. And the more I thought about it, the more I could see Taskmaster actually pulling off a win against these odds. I also couldn't help but think I'd love to see a story similar to this involving TM and his role in the assassin/mercenary world of the Marvel Universe.