Here are 20 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About Hawkeye.
By: Robin Burks from ScreenRant
Here are 20 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About Hawkeye.
20 HE WASN’T ALWAYS A GOOD GUY
Although everyone now knows Hawkeye as one of the Avengers, that wasn’t always the case. In his introduction in Tales of Suspense #57 in 1964, he was actually a villain, albeit a reluctant one. He remained a villain in two more issues of that comic book, although it seemed the writers had much more in store for the character.
He went from being a villain to joining the Avengers in his fourth comic book appearance in 1965 in Avengers #16. That didn’t take long, did it?
Since then, he has become a lasting member of the team, which has raised him to superhero status. He did pretty well for a guy with just a bow and arrows.
19 HE LEARNED ARCHERY IN THE CIRCUS
One might think that Hawkeye has some crazy military history or spent time on an island to have learned his mad archery skills.
The truth is that he didn’t learn them to become a superhero or to help those in need.
Hawkeye actually first learned how to use a bow and arrow as a circus act. He was trained by another circus performer named the Swordsman, who turned Hawkeye into a master archer.
He took those skills and became a star attraction with the circus. It wasn’t until after he saw Iron Man that he thought about using his skills to help others. He also met Black Widow, which put him on the straight and narrow.
18 HE HAD ANOTHER SUPERHERO IDENTITY
Although comic book fans know Clint Barton as Hawkeye, he wasn’t always Hawkeye, at least not in the comic books.
He has been another superhero known as Goliath.
After Clint got involved with Dr. Hank Pym, he learned all about Pym Particles. As most know, Pym Particles can generally make someone shrink or get bigger. Clint used the particles to get bigger and became a superhero known as Goliath, a superhero name formerly belonging to Dr. Pym himself.
He did not become Hawkeye again until after the end of the Kree-Skrull war in Marvel Comics.
17 HE LEFT THE AVENGERS FOR THE DEFENDERS
It was after Hawkeye’s brief stint as Goliath that he switched to a different superhero team. After he got into a fight with Vision over the affections of Scarlet Witch, he jealously quit the Avengers. He then got into a fight with Daredevil over Black Widow.
Hawkeye bounced around all over the place, helping out where he could, but never belonging to any one team. However, he wound up hanging out at Doctor Strange’s house, where he decided to join the Defenders.
He didn’t stay with the Defenders for long, however. After a few issues, he returned to the Avengers, where his real loyalty lies. He’s an Avenger at heart, in spite of his occasional problems with the group.
16 HE WAS ACTUALLY MARRIED TO MOCKINGBIRD
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it seems like Hawkeye and Black Widow could’ve had a thing for each other. In the comics, Clint did fall for Black Widow, but she wasn’t the woman he ultimately ended up with.
After meeting Bobbi Morse, aka Mockingbird, Clint wound up falling in love with her. The two got married and went to Los Angeles to set up a West Coast version of the Avengers.
Of course, this is comic book love, and nothing ever lasts.
The two had their issues, like any couple, but they stayed in love until Mockingbird sacrificed herself to save her husband. After that, Hawkeye separated himself from the world.
15 HE BROKE INTO THE AVENGERS MANSION
Everyone might think that Hawkeye joining the Avengers was on the up and up and that someone came to him and asked him to join. Or maybe they think that he asked nicely to become a part of the team. That’s not quite what happened.
Instead, to clear his name, Hawkeye broke into the Avengers mansion with the help of butler Edwin Jarvis. He confronted the Avengers, including Iron Man.
It was Iron Man who wound up sponsoring Hawkeye, after seeing that the latter really wanted to change and become a hero. He eventually became part of a second Avengers team headed up by Captain America.
14 HE HAS SINGLE-HANDEDLY DEFEATED SEVERAL SUPERVILLAINS
Thanks to his portrayal in the movies, many Marvel fans believe that Hawkeye is probably the most useless superhero on the Avengers team. All he has is a bow and arrow, and he never seems to do much to suggest that he could take on any villains, specifically when he is on his own.
In the comic books, Hawkeye has single-handedly taken down his share of bad guys.
When the other Avengers were down for the count, he took on and beat the Collector by himself.
He took down Egghead on his own. He even became the leader of the Thunderbolts and trained them to fight villains. Hawkeye is so much more capable than most fans realize.
13 BULLSEYE WAS ONCE HAWKEYE
Hawkeye wasn’t always Clint Barton. There have been several other people who held the title and lived under that mask. One of those who donned the Hawkeye moniker was Bullseye.
Bullseye was a psychopathic villain with a vendetta against Daredevil. At one point, though, Norman Osborn praises him for his service after the Skrull invasion. In doing so, Osborn has him join the Dark Avengers and gives him the costume and name of Hawkeye.
He wasn’t a very good Hawkeye, mainly because he was such a psychopath.
His saving people usually resulted in others losing their lives. He even went up against Daredevil and Deadpool at one point.
12 HE JOINED THE JUSTICE LEAGUE
Hawkeye is a Marvel Comics character, which means that it is highly unlikely that he would ever turn up in DC Comics. And yet, he is one of few Marvel characters that crossed over to the world of DC.
For a brief time, he was a member of the Justice League. Yes, Hawkeye actually got to hang out with Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman. As expected, this meant that he had a bit of a rivalry with another archer, Green Arrow.
Sure, his involvement with the Justice League only lasted for a page, but it’s still something that not a lot of fans know about the character. It was all part of a Justice League and Avengers crossover event.
In the MCU, Hawkeye pretty much does what the Avengers and Fury tell him to do. He doesn’t really question anyone when they tell him they need him to handle something.
In the comic books, Hawkeye is more of a rebel.
He isn’t much of a team player, even after spending so much time with the Avengers. He likes to question authority and usually has reservations about orders that his leaders give him. He continually has problems with authority figures. He even rebels against Captain America at one point.
Although he has grown throughout his stories, that history of questioning authority remains as part of who he is.
10 HE DID HAVE SUPERPOWERS
A common misconception about Hawkeye is that he has never had any superpowers. While that makes him even more impressive, considering he fights at the side of other Avengers that do have powers, it wasn’t always the case.
At one point, he was friends with Dr. Hank Pym, the man who created the Pym Particles, and he used them to get superpowers and become the superhero Goliath.
Those superpowers allowed him to grow and shrink in size, much like Ant-Man.
Pym Particles also powered up his arrows and gave him a way to sling a barrage of them in an enemy’s direction.
In the MCU, Hawkeye has never actually met Wasp. She is a relative newcomer to the movies, and the two have never crossed paths. In the comics, not only does Hawkeye know Wasp, but he also had a short romantic relationship with her.
The two did spend some time together as members of the Avengers, too. This is probably something that will never happen in the movies, though, so fans of that particular coupling should probably forget it ever happened.
Clint is married to an original character in the MCU, while Janet is still trapped in the Quantum realm.
8 HE’S ACTUALLY GOT A BAD TEMPER
Another detail about Hawkeye that the MCU fails to show to fans is his temper. In the comic books, Hawkeye is often hot-headed and quick to react in anger.
He has done some pretty despicable things in that anger, too.
In one comic story arc, Scarlet Witch accidentally altered reality. That made Hawkeye so mad that he shot her in the back with an arrow. He didn’t care that she didn’t do it on purpose.
When he learned that Daredevil was in a relationship with Black Widow, he got jealous and picked a fight with Daredevil.
That happens a lot in the comic books: Hawkeye gets angry and lashes out without thinking of the repercussions of his actions.
As previously mentioned, Hawkeye was not always Clint Barton. Not only did Bullseye once take up the title, but another character in Marvel Comics also carried on as Hawkeye for some time: Kate Bishop.
When Clint initially met Kate, she was already adept with a bow. Hawkeye eventually left behind his Hawkeye identity to become Ronin and Kate became Hawkeye.
She and Clint worked side by side for some time, and he became a mentor to her. Kate still uses the Hawkeye name in Marvel Comics, although she and Clint decided that together, they are what makes up Hawkeye. Kate is as skilled, if not more, than Clint with a bow, swords, and other weapons.
Something that many people don’t know about Hawkeye is that he is mostly deaf. When Hawkeye and Mockingbird went up against a villain called Crossfire, Hawkeye used a sonic arrow to stop the villain. That act damaged his eardrums and left him 80 percent deaf.
Hawkeye continued to take down bad guys, regardless of his hearing impairment.
Clint remained hearing impaired for many years in the comic books, although his hearing was restored later by Franklin Richards, who recreated the Avengers in a new universe.
He remembered Clint Barton as someone with full hearing, so that’s how Hawkeye was reborn.
5 HE’S GOT MAD ACROBATIC SKILLS
It’s interesting how the MCU movies really downplay Hawkeye’s skills. Perhaps that’s because he has a limited amount of screen time. Maybe it’s because Marvel and Disney want to focus on his archery prowess.
Regardless of what most people think, Hawkeye is capable of so much more than just launching an arrow at an enemy with a bow. He’s also extremely acrobatic, which is why the comic book art of Hawkeye often features him jumping into the air, doing a somersault, and landing on his feet while firing his bow.
It’s likely that much of his acrobatic ability is innate, but that skill is probably the result of his early days with the circus.
4 HE’S A SKILLED FIGHTER WITHOUT A BOW AND ARROW
When it comes to Hawkeye, most people think of him as just a guy good with a bow. That’s also how he gets depicted in the Marvel movies. But Hawkeye isn’t just good at archery. He’s capable of using a variety of weapons.
Thanks to training from other superheroes, such as Captain America, he also excels at hand-to-hand combat and knows a lot about tactics and martial arts. When Hawkeye took up the title of Ronin, he showed off his skills with a katana, as well as other melee-type weapons.
Hawkeye isn’t just a one-trick pony: he can pretty much fight with whatever he can get his hands on. He can even use things in his environment as weapons, including coins, rocks, and sticks.
3 HE’S STRONGER THAN MOST ARCHERS
Hawkeye might not look it, especially in the movies, but he is much stronger than anyone realizes. In reality, the strongest of men would probably have a bow draw weight of around 70 pounds.
Hawkeye has a bow draw weight of a whopping 250 pounds.
Maybe he looks a little scrawny when compared to Captain America, Thor ,and the Hulk, but he still has a strength that could rival theirs.
In reality, a 250-pound bow weight is highly unrealistic, but Hawkeye is a superhero, and that means that he has special abilities (or dare we even call them superpowers) that average men do not have. It’s also proof that fans should never underestimate Hawkeye.
2 HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH BLACK WIDOW IS DARKER THAN MOST THINK
In the MCU films, Black Widow and Hawkeye have a sweet relationship. While it seemed like they might have romantic feelings at one point, now they are close friends. But that isn’t really the truth behind the couple.
Black Widow, aka Natasha, actually used her beguiling skills to manipulate Hawkeye into doing her bidding, which involved helping the Russians take down Iron Man. Hawkeye loved her, though, and even saved her life after Iron Man nearly eliminated her.
What did she do to thank him? She ran away. That’s not a very healthy relationship, but then again, not many of Hawkeye’s relationships are.
1 IRON MAN WAS ONCE HIS ENEMY
Before Hawkeye became an Avenger, he and Iron Man were enemies. This had a lot to do with Black Widow’s manipulating Hawkeye.
The Russians wanted to take down Iron Man, so Hawkeye spent a lot of time fighting at Black Widow’s side to do just that. Iron Man, though, proved forgiving.
Once Hawkeye approached the Avengers to clear his name, Iron Man became his sponsor on the team. After that, the two were both friends and allies.
