Hawkeye (Series Retrospect)

It's no secret that the MCU is going bigger than ever before, in no small part due to the multiversal shenanigans of other Disney+ series. In such a cosmic environment, it's easy to forget the little guy and more grounded stories, which is why Hawkeye was such a joy for me to watch. Telling a heartfelt story that reintroduced us to our titular archer, introduced some new ones and brought back some old faces, this series was a pretty fun ride throughout. Without further ado, let's get started. 

SERIES RETROSPECT AND REVIEW (SPOILER ALERT)

Introduction: Hawkeye takes place in the Christmas period of 2024, specifically lasting from 19-25 December 2024. After reuniting with his family post-Avengers: Endgame (henceforth referred to as Endgame), Clint Barton has hung up his bow and wants to make up for lost time. Unfortunately, ghosts from his past haunt him in the form of his Ronin persona, with his darker alter ego continuing to create more problems for him even after he's given it up. Getting tangled up in this chaos is 22-year-old Kate Bishop, a young woman who absolutely idolises Clint and joins him on his superhero adventures. When Kate gets implicated in a murder, she must work together with Clint to not only find out the truth but also clean up the entire mess. Along the way, they'll have to battle foes both old and new, and hopefully complete their mission just in time for Clint to celebrate Christmas with his family. 

Series vs comics: This will be a pretty short segment since many of the characters in Hawkeye either had too small of a role to compare to their comics' iterations or had already been introduced prior. First up is Kate Bishop herself. In the comics, Kate is the youngest daughter of rich Manhattanites Derek and Eleanor Bishop, and constantly sought to gain her emotionally distant father's approval. After witnessing Derek beating someone up in his study, Kate became disillusioned with her father and decided to investigate his activities. Following him to a meetup with the supervillain Matador, Kate would get captured and when her escape attempt was almost foiled by one of Matador's men, she was saved when an arrow flew past and distracted him. The Avengers had arrived on the scene, with Clint Barton aka Hawkeye inadvertently saving Kate. 

With the recent disillusionment from her father, the teenage girl began to idolise the unpowered Clint, who she admired for being able to stand next to superhumans with only his skill. At some point, Kate became a victim of sexual assault, an incident that motivated her to learn several forms of combat and self-defense as well as become proficient in archery, swordplay and martial arts. She would later go on to join the Young Avengers, even becoming their leader, and would eventually work alongside her idol Clint Barton, with the older archer unofficially passing the Hawkeye mantle over to her. Most recently, Kate is the leader of Hawkeye Investigations, a private investigation firm that she started after Clint's trial in the Civil War II storyline, and currently shares the Hawkeye name with Clint. The important thing to note about Kate in the comics, especially from the Matt Fraction/David Aja Hawkeye run (which the series draws heavily from), is that she's a little bit of a Mary Sue and is often portrayed as extremely cocky, even condescending towards Clint, oftentimes considering herself the world's greatest archer.

In the series, Kate is still very much a rich Manhattanite but this time, her idolisation of Clint stems from seeing him fight off the Chitauri during the Battle of New York with nothing but a bow and arrow. After her father's death in the Battle, the young girl decides to take up archery, martial arts and fencing among other things to try and protect her mother. Fast forward to 2024 and Kate is now a fairly proficient archer and martial artist, definitely not up to the standard of Clint Barton himself but not too shabby herself. She ends up working alongside her idol when she winds up in Clint's Ronin-related mess, and by the end of the series, it's heavily implied that the Hawkeye mantle is passed onto her. Personality-wise, while Kate is still somewhat overconfident, she doesn't talk down to Clint and really does idolise him. She treats him like a mentor and learns from him, getting better at archery and improving her accuracy with his guidance. 

The next and final character I'll be talking about is Maya Lopez aka Echo. In the comics, Maya is a Cheyenne girl who was born deaf and though she was initially placed in special ed, her photographic reflexes allowed her to duplicate a song from a recital and pushed her to the gifted section. Her father William was one of Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin's mob enforcers but under his boss' orders, William was killed and when he reached out to Maya, he left a bloody handprint on her face (an image that has become synonymous with the character). Impressed by her gifts, Fisk took Maya in and sent her to expensive schools to nurture her artistic talents. Eventually, Fisk would make use of Maya to take down his archenemy Daredevil by tricking her into believing that he was the one who killed her father. After realising that she had been tricked, Maya would shoot Fisk in the face and temporarily blind him (don't forget this). 

Maya would go on to join the New Avengers under the identity of Ronin and is currently a member of the Daughters of Liberty. As mentioned earlier, Maya is known for her photographic reflexes not unlike Taskmaster, which allows her to perfectly duplicate any physical movement or action after seeing it just once, "echoing" the action (hence her alias). However because of her human limitations, she's unable to duplicate any superhuman feats. Her deafness also presents itself as a huge weakness if Maya were to ever fight in the dark as she solely relies on her eyesight to fight. Of course, these weaknesses are probably inconsequential now as she's the bearer of the Phoenix Force. You heard me right, Maya is now the Phoenix in the comics, granting her all the powers associated, flight, interstellar travel, superhuman physical attributes, immortality, among others.

The series generally keeps Maya's origins the same, with her going through normal education as a child despite her deafness. Just like in the comics, she would use her photographic reflexes to become a master martial artist and make her way through life by "watching" others. The most immediate difference between both iterations of the character is that the series depicts Maya as an amputee. This change was only introduced because Alaqua Cox (the actress) is an amputee in real life so for production reasons, they incorporated that into Maya's character. Much like in the comics, Maya's father William (Zahn McClarnon) works for Wilson Fisk and but in the series, he's the commander of the Tracksuit Mafia, an organisation that Maya joins as an adult. Also like in the comics, Fisk is a doting "uncle" of sorts to Maya, supporting her and nurturing her talents. At some point after the Snap, Clint Barton would receive a tipoff from Fisk himself about the Tracksuits' whereabouts and he would go on a killing spree. Returning to see her father killed by the Ronin, Maya would swear revenge on the vigilante after her father dies in her arms, but not before leaving a bloody handprint on her face (straight from the comics). Eventually, she would go on to become the leader of the Tracksuits, working under Fisk and hunting the Ronin down. By the end of the series, she would find out that Fisk ordered the hit on her father and she would end up presumably shooting him in the face, although the actual shot is never shown (more on this later). 

Pros: The best thing about Hawkeye is undoubtedly the portrayal of Clint and Kate. For the better half of the series, Clint is depicted as the retired superhero who wants to put the business behind him and focus on his family. It's quite clear that he dislikes getting attention for his superhero persona, obviously uncomfortable when a Chinese restaurant provides food on the house for his family and when a man asks him for a selfie. The only reason why he picks up the bow again is because he sees someone running around and getting into trouble in the Ronin suit. Afterwards, all his interactions with Kate are hilarious because all he wants is to go back home and spend Christmas with his family but he keeps getting dragged into a bigger mess alongside Kate. 

Clint sees Kate as just another kid not unlike his own children and wants to keep her safe. While initially apprehensive, he's ok with "entertaining" her for a while but when things get serious [with the reappearance of Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh)], he pushes Kate away to protect her. His desire to protect Kate doesn't only come from her young age but also from his guilt of losing Natasha Romanoff in Endgame. This is a recurring plot point throughout Hawkeye, as we see Clint battle with some amount of PTSD from seeing his best friend die right in front of his eyes, and he couldn't stop it. He has flashbacks when he sees a musical actress portraying Natasha, he sadly reminisces to Kate about how he met Natasha and when he stands in front of an Avengers memorial, he "talks" to Natasha, pouring his soul (no pun intended) out. In fact, the Natasha situation literally comes back to bite him when Yelena shows up to kill him because she believes that Clint killed her adoptive sister.

While Jeremy Renner certainly does an excellent job portraying the tired exasperated hero, he really shines in the less action-packed moments, when his character is vulnerable. Guilt-ridden over not being able to save his friend, saddened because he broke multiple promises to his children, Renner brings this across perfectly and gives so much depth to Clint, depth that we didn't get in previous showings. This is in stark contrast to Kate, who's bubbly, fun and adventurous. She starts out this series treating it like one big adventure, following her idol around and helping him. Kate wants to be useful to him and prove her worth, not wanting to look stupid in front of her hero. As the series progresses, she realises she's in way over her head but continues to stick it out, choosing to stay by Clint's side and help him clean up the whole mess, a mess that's somewhat her fault. 

Hailee Steinfeld is superb in her MCU debut and I think she perfectly encapsulated the youthful energy of Kate Bishop while leaving the dickishness from the comics at the door. Even though she's still a little cocky, it never feels like she considers herself superior to Clint and she still learns from him. I really liked Clint and Kate's chemistry because the pair play off each other so well. Renner and Steinfeld really gel well together, with their interactions feeling natural and heartfelt. 

Another thing I really liked was how tight everything felt. As mentioned earlier, the MCU is going multiversal so it's really nice to get a good grounded series like Hawkeye. Everything felt very self-contained and it was a good character-driven series, not too weighed down by other factors. Although there's definitely some worldbuilding going on, it's not to the extent where it overshadows the rest of the series. This is still very much Clint and Kate's story. 

Cons: Unfortunately, Hawkeye's self-contained nature also creates some problems for the series. The pacing of the series flipflops around and this can cause the series to lose viewers who get bored in the middle. There have been criticisms of the first couple of episodes being extremely slow and only picked up in about episodes 3-5. I understand that for a 6-episode series, it's hard to spread things out evenly but Hawkeye felt like it introduced too many plot points only to either barely touch on them or dropped them completely until the final episodes. For example, there was the whole deal with a watch found in the wreckage of Avengers Compound post-Endgame and Clint was desperately trying to retrieve it for some reason. All we know is that his wife Laura (Linda Cardellini) is somehow implicated in it. That said, this plot point was briefly touched on and then disappeared until the final episode, where we get the payoff (more on this later). The plotline about Armand Duquesne's death was also somewhat swept under the rug in favour of the Tracksuit Mafia debacle and really only reared its head occasionally. 

Then there was the reintroduction of Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio), the Kingpin himself. While I'll elaborate more on this later, I felt like his appearance was just there as a set-up. I mentioned earlier that worldbuilding isn't really an issue that Hawkeye suffers from but this is one of the times it does. Fisk's appearance was almost certainly to either set-up the upcoming Echo Disney+ series or confirm the canonicity of the Netflix series. Either way, I felt they could've done so much more with the character. I really felt like things wrapped up too quickly and it's a shame because I like this series. The last episode just kind of felt rushed as loose ends were tied up. Kate's mother Eleanor (Vera Farmiga) was arrested for dealing with the enemy, Clint returns to his family, Yelena forgives Clint and Fisk gets shot by Maya. Everything ended too quickly and maybe I wouldn't have felt this way if the series was better paced. 

Miscellaneous/little touches: As with other MCU products, Hawkeye is packed with Easter eggs and references. Taking place at the furthest point so far in the Sacred Timeline, this series has a good number of callbacks to past events. Naturally, we get Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame references. We see a "Thanos is right" message written on a toilet urinal and of course, countless references to Natasha's sacrifice on Vormir. The latter is a bit more important because it directly ties into the post-credits scene of Black Widow, where we see Yelena being misled by Valentina Allegra into thinking Clint killed Natasha. This becomes a plot point in Hawkeye as the Black Widow hunts down the man who she thinks is her sister's murderer. Speaking of Yelena, episode 5 gives us an insight into what she was doing post-Black Widow and as it turns out, she's still globetrotting while freeing other Black Widows from their brainwashing. That scene also confirms that Yelena was Snapped away and we get a better look at what it was like for the victims, as the Snap and Blip were almost instantaneous. Even though 5 years had gone by, to Yelena, it felt like 5 seconds. Lastly, Yelena also mentions in conversation with Kate that she wants to see the new Statue of Liberty, which as we saw in Spider-Man: No Way Home has Lady Liberty holding up Captain America's shield. 

Another interesting Easter egg was the true identity of Clint's wife Laura. In previous films, we all assumed that she was just a civilian that Clint fell in love with and to protect her, S.H.I.E.L.D. was able to keep her and their family out of the record books. Throughout this series though, Laura demonstrates expert tracking skills and mastery of other languages, so viewers figured out that there's more to her than meets the eye. Remember that watch I talked about earlier? Turns out it belonged to Laura and we find out that she was actually a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent designated Agent 19. Pretty exciting stuff since Agent 19 is the designation typically associated with Barbara "Bobbi" Morse aka Mockingbird, Clint's ex-wife in the comics. However, we already know that Bobbi exists in the MCU, having appeared in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (henceforth referred to as AoS) as portrayed by Adrianne Palicki. Canon-deniers will use this as evidence that AoS doesn't exist in the MCU but of course, Agent 19 is just a "mantle" that different S.H.I.E.L.D. agents can take up once the previous one retires. Also, Bobbi was never referred to as Agent 19 in AoS so go figure for canon supporters like myself. 

Finally, let's talk about the insane number of trick arrows shown in this series. We've seen trick arrows before, such as the USB arrow in The Avengers or the pulse arrow from Avengers: Age of Ultron but Hawkeye takes it to the next level. We see the putty arrow, freeze arrows, sonic arrows, magnet arrows, a drone arrow and perhaps most awesomely, Pym Particle arrows. In fact, we get 2 of them, one that shrinks things and one that grows things. Awesome and straight out of the comics too. 

The future of the MCU: Although it doesn't set-up much, there are definitely still things to come after Hawkeye, with the most apparent being the upcoming Echo series. The end of episode 6 had Maya shooting Fisk, which will presumably have the same outcome as the comics, where the villain is temporarily blinded. After that, we don't see what happened to Maya so she probably left for parts unknown. As of right now, we know squat about what what her solo series is about, with the only confirmed thing being that Alaqua Cox is reprising her role. I really don't know what to expect from Echo but my guess is we'll see her interact with her old flame from the comics Matt Murdock aka Daredevil. Seeing as how the man without fear resurfaced in Spider-Man: No Way Home, with Charlie Cox reprising his role from the Netflix series, and with rumours that he'll be making even more appearances in future, I firmly believe we'll see him in Echo but only time will tell. And of course, we'll also see the aftermath of that gunshot for Fisk. 

Let's talk about the elephant in the room with the appearance of Wilson Fisk. Canon-deniers will say this is a new version of the Kingpin but to that I say, there's no proof. Until official confirmation from Marvel Studios, the Netflix series (and everything else the MCU has put out unless already otherwise stated) is canon to the films. Anyway, with D'Onofrio reprising his role, we find out that Fisk had been working together with Eleanor Bishop for years following her husband's death. As we know from Daredevil, Fisk was last seen being taken to jail but in the MCU, it's been years since that happened so at some point he clearly got out and started rebuilding his criminal empire. Although not nearly as menacing as he was in the Netflix series, Fisk is no pushover in Hawkeye, demonstrating strength and durability on par with what we see in the comics, tanking being hit full on by a car, a point-blank explosion as well as being able to rip off an open car door like nothing. Marvel is not so dumb that they would bring back such a huge character only to kill him off in the very episode he reappears. Like I mentioned before, he'll probably be blinded by the gunshot (just like in the comics) and we'll see more of him in Echo. 

The series ends with Clint presumably passing the mantle of Hawkeye to Kate. Based off where the MCU is going, I highly suspect that Kate is now the MCU's Hawkeye, with Clint retiring to spend time with his family. We're definitely going to see Kate return and with Steinfeld's wonderful performance, I'm very much looking forward to it. While there hasn't been any confirmation, it looks like the MCU is setting up the Young Avengers, with Wiccan and Speed in WandaVision, Elijah Bradley in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Ms. America in the upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and we can't forget Cassie Lang, who will be returning in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. As the old guard of Avengers start to leave the MCU for both in-universe reasons and because actors' contracts are ending, we're bound to see younger characters resurface. The Young Avengers are inevitable but let's see where we go from here.

Finally, we can't forget about Yelena Belova, who plays a fairly big part in the final 2 episodes. I'm a little disappointed that she just forgave Clint so easily after being so hellbent on killing him but it is what it is. Anyway, she probably realises now that Valentina has tricked her into killing Clint and will likely confront her about it. There's no news on whether Yelena will be making a return anytime soon but we'll probably see her doing freelance work outside of Valentina's influence. Previously, viewers theorised that Valentina would be forming the MCU's Thunderbolts with characters like Yelena, U.S. Agent and possibly Abomination but after the events of Hawkeye, I really don't think Yelena's going to be on board with Valentina. Again, we shall see.

Final thoughts: So far, Phase 4 has been one of the more controversial periods of the MCU's life, with mixed reactions to most of what came out this year. Even reception to Hawkeye has been lukewarm, with ratings on Disney+ being very low. Personally, I thought this series is the best Disney+ outing for the MCU thus far, giving us a good character-driven story that also does a great job at bringing in new characters as well as reintroducing some old ones. Though the worldbuilding in this isn't as extensive, there'll definitely still be some ripples going forward into the MCU and I'm super excited for what's to come. God emperor Feige and Marvel Studios have done a pretty good job with Hawkeye so definitely looking forward to the future of the MCU. Thanks for reading.