their help to destroy a Triune building containing a mind-control machine. Although they saw through his deception and subsequently defeated him — thanks to Captain Marvel transforming into Rick Jones mere milliseconds away from Taskmaster, thus causing a complete change of attack before Taskmaster could react — the building was destroyed in the ensuing battle and Taskmaster escaped, leaving the heroes lacking any evidence of their story. Taskmaster continued to train numerous villains and thugs until the Avengers began to search out and shut down some of his academies across the United States. Taskmaster began to spend more time working as a mercenary to make up for the loss of profit. This led him to join Agency X at the behest of his love interest Sandi Brandenberg, in missions from time to time, while continuing to teach at his academies around the world. More recently, Taskmaster is once again seen as a hired mercenary, contracted by the Committee to kill Moon Knight (Marc Spector). Taskmaster was misled with information that Moon Knight was broken, friendless and desiring death. During the conflict these factors all proved to be false as Marc's ex-girlfriend and butler came to Spector's defense and found the will to fight back. Despite his superior fighting abilities, Taskmaster was defeated. Moon Knight then carved off part of Taskmaster's facemask, though left him alive. Taskmaster also worked at training henchmen to copy fighting styles of specific heroes. Taskmaster unleashed Deathshield (trained to fight like Captain America), Jagged Bow (trained to fight like Hawkeye), and Blood Spider (trained to fight like Spider-Man) to face off against Spider-Man and Solo. The three were defeated, while Taskmaster escaped yet again. When the "Civil War" broke out, Taskmaster was hired by the government and enrolled into a team of Thunderbolts and given temporary amnesty to take down the Secret Avengers. He later battles the Secret Avengers in New York. He attempts to kill Susan "Sue" Storm, only for Reed Richards to take the bullet. Enraged, Sue crushes him with an invisible telekinetic field, rendering him unconscious. He was sent to the Negative Zone Prison with the other "Major-League" members of the Thunderbolts army such as Lady Deathstrike, but was apparently freed by Deadpool. To regain his own reputation as a mercenary, Deadpool frees Taskmaster from his imprisonment to have a showdown with him while potential merc contractors watched from their captive position in