Fans of the MCU recently received the exciting confirmation that they would be getting at least one more live-action Disney+ show before the end of the year. Hawkeye is set to hit the streaming platform in November, continuing the trend of bringing characters from the MCU movies to the small screen. This time around, Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) will be the focus of the show as the titular archer her. However, he is not alone as he will be joined by fan-favorite comic book character Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld).
Many have predicted this show will be a passing of the torch as Renner and Barton leave the MCU for Steinfeld and Bishop to take up the mantel of Hawkeye. While many will be sad to see another of the original Avengers leave, the arrival of Kate Bishop also affords the opportunity for the MCU to try again with Hawkeye and get the hero right this time around.
With the recent release of Black Widow, Clint Barton is now the last of the original six Avengers heroes to get a solo project. That is not at all surprising as he is also the only member of that team of six that Marvel clearly didn't know how to use properly. Barton was introduced in Thor in a brief cameo to set him up as a character in The Avengers. Infamously, he was brainwashed early in that movie, serving as a lackey for Loki. This immediately put Barton at a disadvantage as the other heroes were forming their relationships and becoming a team while he was a mindless soldier fighting them. Then there were his abilities as a superhero. While his bow and arrow skills are impressive, when he is shown alongside super-soldiers, gamma monsters, and literal gods, people start to wonder what Hawkeye is even doing on this team.
Thanks to his lackluster storyline in The Avengers and his unimpressive abilities, Hawkeye was quickly becoming a bit of a punchline. But it was the way the movies tried to course-correct with the character that really sunk him and a lot of the fault lies with Joss Whedon. While the other heroes had already established themselves in the MCU, Hawkeye was the hero that Whedon was pretty much introducing himself. He seemed to realize he had an uphill battle with the character in getting fans to be interested in him.
This resulted in him overcompensating by trying to write Barton as the coolest guy in the world. He is presented as a cocky badass who isn't afraid to buck against authority and always has a tough guy line to deliver. He acted like he was the guy who was going to take down Loki single-handedly. It was the kind of cliché character that audiences have seen in countless other action movies and introduced nothing new or exciting to the dynamic of the Avengers. And once again, the fact that he was just a guy with a bow and arrow made his confidence seem very unearned.
While Whedon may have established this uninteresting take on Hawkeye, the other MCU movies did little to change this approach. They continued trying to convince fans that Hawkeye was indeed the most badass of the Marvel heroes and it was never very convincing. On top of that, they continued to throw new elements into his character in an attempt to make him stand out more.= Some of these new developments were more interesting to fans, but they didn't really help to improve Hawkeye as a character. The problem was that they couldn't seem to focus on one direction for the character and the result was a mess of various elements that never felt cohesive. Was he a self-assured and rebellious soldier, or was he a down-to-earth family man, or was he a bloodthirsty vigilante? The unfortunate thing is that the answer to how Hawkeye should be handled came just a few years too late.
In 2015, Matt Fraction and David Aja Omnibus decided to take on Hawkeye in their critically acclaimed comic series. The comic managed to do what the MCU had been trying to do with Hawkeye – make him interesting. Ironically, they did it by taking the exact opposite approach. Their take on Hawkeye was not that he is some badass hero who walks around like the toughest hero in the world, but instead, he is a guy who has no business being an Avenger. He joins the super team on their missions but is often seriously injured or immediately knocked out. It is only when he starts trying to deal with more lowkey heroics that he feels like he has a purpose. Had the MCU taken this approach, Hawkeye could have been a stand-out character. He has a hero's heart but he's no superhero.
The MCU missed this opportunity with Clint Barton, but it is the perfect way to make Kate Bishop into a great Hawkeye. Reportedly, the character in the Disney+ series is a huge Hawkeye fan and wants to be like him. However, it would be interesting to see her romanticized notions of crime-fighting gradually diminished as she realizes a bow and arrow are not enough to save the world. It could also be a good opportunity to recontextualize Barton's time as an Avenger and perhaps make him realize that he was in over his head and maybe not as important to the team as he liked to think.
Steinfeld also feels like the perfect actor to take Kate Bishop in this direction. She really excels at playing vulnerable characters who are in over their head. Her breakout role in True Grit had her playing a young girl who had all the confidence in the world but found that the vengeful path she put herself on was not as heroic as she imagined. Other roles like in Bumblebee and The Edge of Seventeen show how effectively Steinfeld can playing a hero who is sometimes unsure, afraid, and out of their element. It seems clear that she has a long and bright future in the MCU ahead of her as Hawkeye. And while the hero may be a punchline to some, that doesn't mean it can't be memorable. It is time to embrace who Hawkeye is and more importantly, who he is not.
Hawkeye is set to be released on Disney+ on November 24, 2021.