Delay after delaykept it out of our hands for months , but withlast week ’s releaseof Hawkeye # 22 , Matt Fraction and David Aja ’s spectacular serial publication has come to a close . While it ’s nice to finally read the end , it ’s with a pang of gloominess : we ’ll drop this Hawkeye an awful lot . Here ’s just six reasons why .
While Fraction might presently be ride the senior high school of his excellent series Sex Criminals at the moment , his clock time as a writer for Marvel Comics features some of the company ’s most impressive recent cartoon strip — perhaps most notable Immortal Iron Fist , but also Fantastic Four and a run on Uncanny X - gentleman . But Hawkeye will always stand out at some of the snappiest , smartest writing he ’s ever done for Marvel .
Fraction ’s work throughout the series define Hawkeye ’s relative breeziness , a menstruum that goes through everything from Clint ’s internal thoughts to Kate and Clint ’s snappy , snarky tête - à - têtes . It ’s a comic that is at times quite sparse with its dialogue , sacrifice it a punchiness , a variety of immediacy that leap of the page — and it ’s duologue that ’s not just a pleasure to read but quite often an absolute darn . Hawkeye is often a peculiar character , but Fraction nails it to give us one of the quippiest takes on the Avenging Archer there ’s ever been , but anneal it with some specially touching and troubling moments ( the other two - part story “ The tapeline ” , in which SHIELD tasks Hawkeye with secure leaked TV grounds of a sealed hero sandwich assassinating a terrorist ) that rounds out the character reference to make him less of a gag simple machine and more of an factual , relatable homo . Fraction is just as well-to-do writing zinger as he is exploring what makes Clint Barton tick in a fashion very few writers have successfully managed to do with the type in a while ( gratefully , Jeff Lemire has at least keep some of that tone in Hawkeye ’s watch over up serial , All - New Hawkeye , which commence earlier this class ) .
Not many writers could make a gang of Russian mobsters who stress their spoken language with “ Bro ” every few quarrel be both legitimately menacing and frequently screaming . But Matt Fraction does , and it ’s pretty much symbolical of the activity - comedy tone this run of Hawkeye all nails .
Part of the cause Marvel start a new Hawkeye solo series in 2012 was to capitalize on the character ’s appearance in The Avengers that year , a movie all about highfaluting scale and superheroic feats . But Hawkeye was pretty much the exact contrary , which made it incredibly refreshing and fascinating to interpret . Hawkeye was pickle - pack with action , but it was almost entirely with mobster and henchmen , never supervillains . The primary knife thrust of the overarching plot line was n’t the end of the earthly concern or a gigantic malign plot — it was Clint Barton protect the resident of his apartment stoppage from the Russian Mafia . Heck , even right down to Hawkeye ’s strip down redesign , one of the first lasting major costume change for the character in his entire history , Hawkeye grounded itself in a sense of normalcy , tucked out from the world of Avengers and superpowers .
I ’ve argued beforethat character with that human normality are indispensable to superhero team — but Hawkeye leaven that they ’re just as compelling to take when they ’re the master focus . Hawkeye is just as much about Clint Barton ’s place in a earth where he stand alongside Captain America or Thor on an adequate pegging , and how that can affect on someone who does n’t have any powers as it is about being your typical comic Quran floor of good versus evil and right versus incorrect . It ’s just as easy with small - scale leaf intimacy as it is with globetrotting adventures , and if anything , it ’s more conversant there .
It even apply to the brief appearances of other risible book superheroes in the comics — Spider - Man , Wolverine , Spider - Woman , Mockingbird and many more all make appearance but only a handful are there for super - powered backup : they ’re there as their alter - egotism , as normal mass rather than heroes . Hell , look at that control board up there — the focus is n’t on Hawkeye , Spidey and Wolverine teaming up to fight AIM soldiers , in fact much of that battle happens off - jury : the focal point is on three friends hanging out and talk over the time of year finale of Dog Cops . If anything , that normality , that human side of the superhuman , is what sits at the heart of Hawkeye and make up it so particular .
It should be telling how much I love the art of Hawkeye that I expend an exorbitant amount of time trying to obtain a individual sequence of panel that communicated exactly why I like it — not because that there were n’t many , but because it was candidly unimaginable to find a individual one .
David Aja — with help from a variety show of artists including the likes of Javier Pulido , Annie Wu , Francesco Francavilla , and more over the course of the 22 issue run — defined a oftentimes breathless artistic production style for Hawkeye that made it just as pleasurable to look at as it was to read ( few comics are just as intriguing to get textless previews of than Hawkeye ever was ) . Aja ’s bluff , deep detail lines contrasted with his minimalist detailing — a refreshful esthetic in an age where mainstream comics from Marvel and DC focusing on increase realism and hyper - detail — to make a gorgeous look , and that minimalism unite with Aja ’s masterful optic storytelling that was just as brisk at convey action as it was at dialogue . Hawkeye lept off the page and oozed with stylus in every issue .
It ’s also rarified that colorist get a nod when talk over funnies , but to discourse Hawkeye and not Matt Hollingsworth would be a grave error indeed . Aja ’s job body of work is beautifully companion by a muted , slightly washed out color palette that heavily leans on unlike shades of purpleness — naturally , being the color of choice for Hawkeye — interlard with bright , bright tones . It ’s a marvellous combination of subtlety and funny book raciness that work perfectly with the art to create a truly brilliant looking comedian .
And what does that brilliant , minimalist art style culminate in ? Perhaps one of the estimable standalone comics Marvel have put out in late memory , focalise on Hawkeye ’s substantial whiz : Pizza Dog , a.k.a . Lucky .
Early on in Hawkeye ’s first issue Clint deliver Lucky , a partially blind detent have by the Russian mobster accosting Clint ’s fellow tenant , but Lucky comes to the stem at the series ’ halfway point in Hawkeye # 11 : An issue told entirely from the dog ’s perspective . “ Pizza Dog In : Pizza Is My Business ” really highlights Aja ’s minimalist ocular storytelling — there are a fistful of actual words of dialogue in the intact publication , catches of time and words Lucky sympathize when he hears masses talk around him , but most of the storytelling make out from the artwork itself , abide by Lucky as he , without ether Hawkeye , expose a numb body on the rooftop of the flat block .
diddle with art and coloration to comprise the linear perspective of a colorblind animal while telling a gripping mystery story tale , Hawkeye # 11 persist as one of the most unequalled comics Marvel has ever eject . Hawkeye was already a unique enough series at the prison term , without dedicating an issue to an avant - garde story told all from the view of a dog with a penchant for pizza pie . What other series can do that ?
Hawkeye as a claim was a bit of a misnomer if you solely thought it represent Clint Barton : Kate Bishop dish as a fantastic hydrofoil to the slightly silly Clint .
For all his quippy charm , Kate served as the slenderly more serious character who oft cut through Clint ’s bullshit ( ordinarily to help him , but just as often to snark at him ) , and even at meter provide some metatextual commentary to the oftentimes ludicrous events she and Clint found themselves in . And if Clint Barton was meant to act a human hero who worried about his fallibility and his frequent ability to turn simple site into ridiculously dangerous pratfalls , Kate was the opposite : She was the Hawkeye full of authority , the Hero of Alexandria that engender stuff done when it needed to . It even played out like that visually — Kate ’s natural action sequence were typically clean , exact , simple , while Clint often found himself flailing around up closely and in the mess . Both in full term of action and type , they were fundamentally two one-half of one Hawkeye .
Although her appearing in Young Avengers are essential Kate Bishop reading , Hawkeye was as much about Kate as it was Clint , one of comic ’s best duos — a kinship that flitted between wise man and mentée , salutary friends and frequently weirdly romantic ( despite the fact both harmonise that there was never even a remote probability of that ever hap ) and rest thoroughly compelling to find throughout the serial publication .
I ’ve already mentioned what an fantabulous task Hawkeye did with flesh out Clint Barton as the badass normal of the Marvel existence , but it really is what made Hawkeye such a brainy read , what made it stand out as a mirthful series . Marvel loves itself an everyman Italian sandwich — just look at the persist success of Spider - Man to see reader diminish in love with relatable , ordinary hoi polloi . Fraction and Aja channelled that everyman image into Clint Barton for Hawkeye , and it highlighted what made the fiber so important at a metre when , thanks to The Avengers film , many were just mocking him for being “ the guy with the bow . ” Hawkeye expose the man behind the bow , and showed us how interesting he could be .
But for all its vehemence on Hawkeye ’s human beings , Hawkeye also frequently championed Clint Barton ’s right to a situation alongside the superheroes of the Avengers , and how their influence had shaped him into a better person — as he says himself in the panel above , you ca n’t help but be a proficient person when you ’re next to Captain America all daylight . Clint may not have superpowers , but he has the conviction , the sense of judge and correct and wrong , that makes him worth of being an Avenger . If anything , the frequent reminder of his fragility facilitate emphasis what a hero he was .
Fraction , Aja and company give way us a Clint Barton that was the mavin for once , rather than the support — and yet even as the bomber , Hawkeye was deeply , resoundingly ordinary : he was human , and in a world of supersoldiers , mutants and God , that was fascinating to experience .
ComicsMarvelMatt Fraction
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