Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld, left) and Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) are both called Hawkeye on the Disney+ TV show of the same name. (Courtesy Marvel.com)
By Andrew A. Smith
Tribune Content Agency
Dec. 16, 2021 — Hawkeye may have the title Most Boring Avenger in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Hawkeye the TV show is quite entertaining. Especially for comics fans, who know the following (and now you will, too):
THE TWO HAWKEYES ARE REVERSED
Hawkeye is largely based on a 22-issue, 2012-15 run of comics by writer Matt Fraction and artist David Aja, which imagined Clint Barton as a sort of frat-boy superhero, living a slovenly life on the couch in a Bed-Stuy apartment, drinking coffee and eating pizza when he isn’t Avenging.
This is not out of character for the comics version of Hawkeye, who started out as a supervillain because he was seduced by the Black Widow, but even when he became an Avenger was still a snarky, immature character. He grew up a bit in later years, but Fraction reversed that for a more entertaining comic book. (Because, as we know from the movies, a mature Hawkeye is a boring Hawkeye.)
So other Hawkeye, teenager Kate Bishop, is the mature one in the comics. This, too, is very entertaining, as it reverses the normal power dynamic of superhero and sidekick.
So you’ll find a lot of TV Hawkeye in the Fraction/Aja “Hawkeye,” only reversed. Was there a car chase with the Tracksuit Mafia in pursuit? Yes, there was — only Kate was driving, and Clint was shooting the arrows. Was there a debate about the utility of a boomerang arrow? Yes, there was — only it was Clint who found it useful, and Kate who rolled her eyes. Did Hawkeye save Lucky the Pizza Dog from the Tracksuit Mafia? Yes, one did — but it was Clint, not Kate.
You get the idea.
On TV, it was Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) who rescued Lucky the Pizza Dog from the Tracksuit Mafia, disguised as Ronin. In the comics, it was Clint Barton, who wasn’t disguised at all. (Courtesy Marvel.com)
ECHO IS KINGPIN'S ADOPTED DAUGHTER
Maya Lopez was introduced in Daredevil comics, created by David Mack and Joe Quesada. She is deaf, but has the ability to mimic anybody’s movements on sight (hence the name “Echo”). Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk killed her father (which she didn’t know) and granted Willie “Crazy Horse” Lincoln his dying wish that Kingpin raise Lincoln’s daughter.
Fisk agreed, adopting Maya and seeing that she got a terrific education — academically, and as a hand-to-hand fighter. He then sent her out to kill Daredevil, on the pretext that DD had killed her father. The truth, as it usually does, came out — and Maya switched sides.
On the show, Echo (Alaqua Cox) refers to a mysterious “uncle” who raised her after her father was killed, which echoes her comics origin.
ECHO WAS THE FIRST RONIN
On TV, the first Ronin was Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), who went on a spree murdering bad guys when his family was snapped away by Thanos. (“Everybody handles grief in their own way,” he explained to other Hawkeye.) But in the comics, the persona was created by Echo.
This was so she could join the Avengers, on Daredevil’s recommendation. She couldn’t join initially as Echo, because her time spent working for Kingpin was known. Her true identity eventually came out, and she abandoned the role. It was then that Clint Barton put on the suit, as he had been dead for a while (an occupational hazard in comics) and when he came back, Kate Bishop was calling herself Hawkeye and doing well. He became Ronin so as not to crowd her game.
Eventually Echo returned to being Echo, Hawkeye returned to being Hawkeye, and other Hawkeye remained Hawkeye. Currently nobody is Ronin.
Echo (Alaqua Cox, left) is already slated for a spinoff show on Disney+. She leads the Tracksuit Mafia (two of which appear at right), which are called the Tracksuit Draculas in the comics, thanks to their heavy Slavic accents. (Courtesy Marvel.com)
JACK DUQUESNE IS BASED ON A SUPERVILLAIN
In the comics, Jacques Duquesne was a circus performer named The Swordsman who was a sort of a father figure to young Clint Barton, who was also a circus performer (and a runaway). Clint learned that Duquesne was a crook and left the circus, eventually becoming (as we know) the Avenger known as Hawkeye. Swordsman went on to become a supervillain, and fought the Avengers. Drama ensued.
Interestingly, Swordsman later reformed, and was an Avenger briefly before being killed. Unlike most comics characters, he remains dead. For now.
TV’s “Jack” Duquesne (Tony Dalton) is, of course, awfully handy with a sword.
KATE'S MOTHER WAS A CROOK
In the comics, Kate’s mother Eleanor was believed dead and she was raised by her father Derek. On TV, it is Kate’s dad (Brian d’Arcy James) who is believed dead, and it is Eleanor (Vera Farmiga) who raises Kate.
Eleanor eventually turned out to be not so dead, and was working for Madame Masque, a high-ranking member of Marvel’s version of the Mafia, the Maggia. Derek, meanwhile, was not a very good father. But he wasn’t dirty, either.
5) KATE'S AUNT PROVIDED THE HQ FOR AVENGERS WEST COAST
The Los Angeles branch of the Avengers was run by Hawkeye during his “mature” phase. A flashback in Avengers West Coast #100 revealed that the team’s headquarters was the estate of silent movie star Moira Brandon, which she bequeathed to the Avengers (she didn’t survive her initial appearance).
Moira Brandon on the TV show is Kate’s absent aunt, whose apartment the two Hawkeyes are squatting in. It is festooned with movie posters attesting to Moira’s film career.
CLINT WAS ONCE MARRIED TO A SPY
Hawkeye married Bobbi Morse, an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who had become the superhero Mockingbird, and both ran the Avengers West Coast together. (You may remember a version of Morse on the S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show, played by Adrianne Palicki.) They have since divorced.
Fans were thrilled to see Clint’s wife Laura Barton (Linda Cardellini) display some espionage skills.
Clint’s wife Laura Barton (Linda Cardellini) was able to access classified information and unexpectedly speak German in Hawkeye episode four. Now fans are feverishly speculating that she is really Bobbi Morse, who was married to Hawkeye in the comics for a while, and was both a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and a superhero. (Courtesy Marvel.com)
And there’s more! Just about anybody on the show who gets a name has a comics counterpart (although some of them are wildly different). For example, in the comics:
- LARPer Grills is Clint’s neighbor, who is killed by the Tracksuit Mafia;
- LARPer Wendy “Bombshell” Thomas is supervillain Bombshell, a member of the Death Throws (a bunch of supervillains who throw deadly things);
- Maya’s second-in-command Kazi Kazimierczak is a psychotic mafia assassin named The Clown, who wears mime makeup and is responsible for Clint’s loss of hearing;
- Armand Duquesne is an official in the fictional Asian nation Sin-Cong, and Jacques’ father; and
- Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) is a Black Widow and Red Room graduate in the comics too, but isn’t Natalia Romanova’s sister. She is a rival, who nevertheless occasionally acts as an ally when it suits her interests.
The final episode of Hawkeye streams Dec. 22, but the story can be expected to continue in an already-announced spin-off show starring Echo. And I wouldn’t mind a second season of Hawkeye, either — there are a lot of Avenging Archer stories yet to be told.
For both Hawkeyes.
Find Captain Comics by email (capncomics@aol.com), on his website (captaincomics.ning.com), on Facebook (Andrew Alan Smith) or on Twitter (@CaptainComics).
Replies
I really enjoyed this one-- we're only getting to the Disney+ Marvel shows now, and we decided to start with the "Christmas one." The acting and production were solid and the story kept moving. It also features a great sense of the MCU and a killer soundtrack.
My beefs were with the Obligatory Epic Final BattleTM.
SPOILERS
I will accept a certain amount of comic-book physics (though they really lean into them in the last episode) and the fact that Hawkeye could get the LARPers into an elite event. Even in a superhero series, however, it seems off that an army of thugs could show up at a very well-known, central location that already has an active shooter, where a crowd of the general public, multiple tourists, and a gathering of rich people are all endangered, that the event would be capped off by the appearance of a known if currently "off the hook" criminal who prefers to not put himself in danger of exposure, and after a half hour of this, one cop (whom someone has called) shows up to make one arrest.
Fight ends.
Then we see the throngs of emergency responders cleaning up the mess.
As for that particular criminal, great to see him. We recognized his offscreen voice immediately. The actor says he's the same character he played in the Netflix series, though he's clearly been powered up to comic-book levels.
Why, he's now powerful enough that he could fight Spider-man.
The LARPers were brought in posing as waiters. I remember countless comics (paper, animated, etc) in which heroes and/or villains were brought in that way. It seems to be a standard comics convention.
I almost didn't realize it, but I used to be much more skeptical of comic book conventions on a screen than I was on a page. Now I find that as more and more comics are adapted to TV and movies, that I have begun stretching my suspension of disbelief for the former to the latter.
I still don't want patently unbelievable stuff on the screen, because I'm not the only one watching, and we don't want to lose the vast unwashed. (Whose attention and money are why we have nice things like Hawkeye.) Sure, I'll accept that LARPers can be sneaked in as waiters, as happens so often in the comics. But I don't want them to suddenly have Avenger-level hand-to-hand fighting skills, or super-powers, if that makes sense.
It's a fine line, and probably different for everyone.
And I'm with you, J.D., on the Obligatory Epic Final BattleTM. It was, for example, the one part of WandaVision I found boring. Enough! You've got a lot of properties in the hopper, Marvel, end some of them differently!
I encourage people who have enjoyed Hailee Steinfeld's performance as Kate Bishop to see her Oscar-nominated performance in the 2010 remake of True Grit, which I think is better than the John Wayne version. (I'm glad her arm grew back.) It's available for streaming on Netflix this month.