Modern Reviews: Hawkeye #1

Well, I have been treated to something spectacular this weekend. I found this comic. Hawkeye has had many series in the past, most were limited, or team books. We shall see if you last longer. But let's dive into Hawkeye #1.

Never have I felt purple looked more manly.

Confession time. I have never read a book with Hawkeye in it. I've heard about him, I know he's Marvel's Green Arrow, ability wise. So I can not speak to how well this book deals with canon, how it adheres to his overall character, or anything along that line. So the question is, what right do I have to review this?

Well, because this is the book that Marvel is launching in the wake of the Avengers. Hawkeye was a surprising success out of this film, despite how little he appeared. So no surprise that Hawkeye got his own book. 

So let's look at this book, I'm going to keep this as spoiler free as possible. So let's look at the art. Why that first, because I'm not an art guy, so I that should always be taken with a grain of salt from me, I'm perfectly happy as long as it isn't Liebfeld-esque. So round about way, I like the art, it's nice and simple with the right kind of detail.

Other things about the art: Hawkeye doesn't look like this!

You want to look at the primary reason I never cared for Hawkeye, it's that costume. It's stupid. It's been stupid for fifty years. He wore this as a villain, and never changed apparently. Can I say it's stupid one more time? I'm sure people like his costume, and I don't really understand why, but I hate the bloody thing, and so glad it's gone. We get a new one that is hero-y without looking like...that. Also, to no one's surprise, Hawkeye looks a lot like Jeremy Renner now.

Moving On. The story. We get the opening blurb, solicit of this book:

clint barton, a.k.a. hawkeye, became the greatest sharp-shooter known to man.

he joined the avengers.

this is what he does when he's not an avenger.

that's all you need to know. 

That's a pretty good sum up of the book, and yes, there are no capitals, it was written that way, don't ask me why, I felt it better to just copy it the way it was in the book.

It's a pretty straight forward story of Clint living in an apartment in New York, which is owned by a Russian thug. It moves between flash back and flash forward, and you aren't really quite sure what is going on when, especially later in the book when the color scheme moves from blue to blue, instead of the blue and gold early on.

It's a pretty good one shot that might have implications later. I love that Clint is sarcastic, even in his thought boxes. When someone is speaking another language, it receives a (Some Spanish sounding stuff!) instead of a translation, or even a random jumble of Spanish.

We get to see Barton has a bit of a heart, and I hope that we get a good side cast of characters out of these apartment dwellers. We only get a page of a line of dialogue from each as they do a roof top barbecue, and you do get a feeling of community, but the events of the story are hanging over these people.

Hawkeye #1 gets a solid 4 from me. It's fun, I like this character, even if he may not be consistent with previous forms of him, I don't know. Art is good enough for me. The only down side is the jumping back and forth in time, which can get confusing. But if one can survive Baccano, one can survive this.

P.S. Apparently I have read Hawkeye somewhere else. He appears in the Avengers Vs. X-Men mess in places, I don't really count that, since there isn't much of a character besides a costume.