Hawkeye Vol 1: My Life as a Weapon

Hawkeye Vol 1: My Life as a Weapon
Matt Fraction, David Aja, Javier Pulido, et. al., 2013

Premise: Collects Hawkeye #1-5 and Young Avengers Presents #6. I’m just going to quote from the beginning of the first issue. “Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, became the greatest sharpshooter known to man. He then joined the Avengers. This is what he does when he’s not being an Avenger. That’s all you need to know.”

What a fun series. Apparently when Clint isn’t busy with the Avengers he’s mixing it up with low-level gangsters, getting involved in the lives of his neighbors, and running the odd secret mission for SHIELD. Also training/hanging around with/getting trash-talked by Kate Bishop, also known as Hawkeye. (That’s sort of explained in the Young Avengers Issue in the back. They have the same code-name, just roll with it.)

The dialogue is snappy and clever, the action exciting and tense. The art perfectly enhances the tone of the book; it’s stylized and gritty on one level, but also full of humorous touches and clever layouts. Plus you have to love a book in which 4 of the 5 first issues start with the line: “Okay...This looks bad.”

There’s one twist which annoyed me because a very similar thing happened in Fraction’s Iron Man run, and it probably wouldn’t have bothered me if I had read them 3 years apart (as they were published) instead of 4 months.

The Young Avengers issue is pretty cute, and gives some nice backstory on Kate and Clint’s friendship, although it predates the Hawkeye run by four years, so both characters did some changing in the meantime.

Clint’s maybe slightly more hapless and less badass sometimes here than he should be, but I think it works. I had heard nothing but good things about this title, and I have to agree that it’s pretty fantastic.

4 Stars - A Very Good Book

Here's a little sample of Issue #1! http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=13108