The opening splash page, with Hawkeye plummeting to the ground from a building, bow and arrow at the ready, is a promise of energetic storytelling to come and this graphic novel lives up to that promise. The stories are presented in episodic fashion, with the totality even greater than the sum of its impressive parts. The often comical relationship between the pair rings true in the note perfect banter, but it also has a surprising depth and complexity often missing in comics, which can err too much towards soap opera values when managing relationships. That she is often more mature and assured than her older mentor supplies an endearing character touch. We get two Hawkeyes for the price of one as Barton’s relationship with his successor, Kate Bishop, brings real heart to the story.
We witness the street level life of Barton and are touched by his everyday and everyman joie de vivre, along with his trials and tribulations. Fraction writes a believable character who, for all his grace with a bow and arrow, is clumsy and human, but driven by an intrinsic nobility and decency. He is an ordinary guy with a great talent, flesh and blood who can bleed, and does, frequently.
In this first volume we are introduced to the hero and the flaws that make him truly human, a loveable loser.
He takes a second string Avenger, Clint Barton, and journeys with him, not on a series of universe saving jaunts, but on the grace notes, the moments in between when he is just being a man. In a Marvel universe increasingly populated by gods and supermen, beings of near infinite power and exotic talents, able to heal from any wound or setback, what is it like to be a mere human? This is a premise explored by Matt Fraction in this first collection of Hawkeye’s adventures.
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