For the pedants in the ranks, this review covers the Marvel NOW! run, All-New Hawkeye, Hawkeye: Kate Bishop and even Hawkeye Vs Deadpool, because I wanted to avoid having to write four of these when they all enjoy a similar tone and follow basically the same story. Clint Barton has always been a popular Avenger, but has never really gotten his own series off the ground successfully, probably because he's not all that deep, or at least hasn't been. Hawkeye is a great supporting character, providing levity and balance against more taciturn heroes like Cap and Thor. But can the token normal guy who shoots pointy sticks at people really carry his own series? What if I told you not only was the Hawkeye series decent, but is probably one of the best Marvel comics series in recent history? Building on the bones of Hawkeye as a character, Hawkeye is clever, beautifully drawn, irreverent, quotable, mimetic and funny as hell. An entire issue has no words and is given over to a dog looking for food and somehow it's masterful and one of the best issues in the series.
In fact, some of the best work in Hawkeye is the most experimental, with a recap issue given over to a dream Clint has whilst passed out on Xmas eve, the main antagonists being Madam Masque and Russian gangsters who say "Bro" way too often, or Kate's obsession with mini-doughnuts. Whilst really damn funny, the Hawkeye series is also deep when it wants to be, compassionately portraying Clint's deafness and how it was caused by abuse, even going so far to include sign language and marry the problems in Clint's origins and where they contradict. As for Kate Bishop, yes, she's more stable, but only because she's less obviously damaged than Clint, and the series reveals that she chose to emulate Hawkeye for more than just reasons of admiring the human who could keep up with the gods and super-soldiers around him. I have never been, and am still not, a fan of The Young Avengers, but I am totally in love with Kate Bishop and this series has a lot to do with that. As I write, it's October 2021, so we're still waiting on the Disney+ Hawkeye, but I am so hyped to see Kate in live action.
You know how good this series is? Not even the inevitable Deadpool crossover can suck the joy out of it for me. Yeah, Deadpool isn't as bad these days as he was when I was getting back into comics, but his presence on the cover is probably always going to cause me to hesitate to pick an issue up. I really feel that I should probably be talking more about the Kate Bishop issues, but the fact that the Deadpool crossover manages to maintain the tone of the series whilst still poking fun at them and just loving the shit out of them. And that's the point here, people love Hawkeye like few have ever loved Clint or Kate before. Even a decade after the first issues were published, Hawkeye is one of the most loved and lauded Marvel series, and it's easy to see why. Though it passes through the hands of several writers and artists, the tone is consistent, it flows like one story and it avoids too much reference to the major crossover events. It's just a fucking good read. So skip over your Batman variants for a month and fill your shelf with the trades of this series. It's genuinely great, bro.
No comments:
Post a Comment