Hawkeye, #1 - #6 (Matt Fraction and David Aja)

[bethbethbeth]

I'll admit it: before this recent crop of Marvel superhero movies started to get released into the world, I had no idea who Hawkeye was.

Or the Black Widow.

Or even Captain America (although with him, I'd at least heard the name)

In fact, before this year, apart from two fairly recent encounters with modern-ish titles (Sandman and Fables), my only knowledge of comics ended decades ago with a few Archie comics bought with my hard-earned allowance and a stack of DC discards, given to me by an older cousin (Krypto the Super Dog was my favorite!)

But when The Avengers came out, I fell hard for Hawkeye. This was tangentially related to my fannish feelings for Jeremy Renner, but it definitely developed independently and intensified as I started to work my way through as many old Marvel titles featuring Hawkeye as I could find.

And then came Matt Fraction's Hawkeye.

Even before the first issue was published, some panels were released into the world and David Aja's art looked different enough from comics-as-I-believed-them-to-be that I knew I'd want to give this title a try. Once I did, I couldn't have been more excited by what I'd found.

As the first issue tells us, this is about what Clint Barton does when he's not being an Avenger - and believe me, that's enough to maintain the reader's interest. Clint is...a regular guy. He has an improbable backstory (as we see with most superheroes) and an amazing talent for marksmanship, particularly with a bow and arrow, but he's still just a guy. He can't fly, he can't turn invisible, he has no magic powers.

He's human.

Sometimes insecure and defensive, sometimes self-assured and arrogant - and [almost] always, a really decent person and a loyal friend.

Now, the fact that Fraction positions Clint firmly in his off-hours life (living in a slightly ratty apartment building in Brooklyn, wearing purple Chucks, taking in a dog - Lucky! - who rivals Clint himself when it comes to getting beat up and surviving), that doesn't mean there's no action. I'd say the breakdown in the comic is...40% domesticity (for certain values of domesticity) and 60% action.

And he's not alone, most of the time - despite the comic not focusing on his time as an Avenger. He spends a lot of time with the other Hawkeye, i.e, rich girl Kate Bishop, who'd assumed the Hawkeye mantel when Clint was...well, that's another series (i.e., Young Avengers Presents) and somebody else will have to explain why Clint wasn't around to object to some strange teenager taking his name. *g* Clint's interactions with Kate are great, as are his [briefer] encounters with Tony Stark and Wolverine and Spiderman and the other Marvel characters who've made cameo appearances so far in the first six issues.

The art (David Aja and Javier Pulido trading off story arcs) is fantastic in a wonderfully minimalist way, and Matt Fraction's storylines are...okay, I'm getting a little sick of my own over-use of superlatives, but yeah, they're great, even when nothing in particular is happening. The comic's funny and clever and touching and all that good stuff - and all I hope is that it has a long, long run.

In conclusion:

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If you haven't read this title yet and want to give it a try, March will see the first of the trade paperbacks: Hawkeye, vol 1: My Life As A Weapon, which collects Hawkeye 1-5, and Young Avengers Presents 6 (the issue which shows the first interactions between Kate Bishop and Clint).

Or you can start with issue 7, since the whole issue is going to focus on the devastation created by Hurricane Sandy (Matt Fraction's donating all his royalties to relief efforts for those affected by the hurricane)

ETA Mind the comments for possible non-Hawkeye spoilers.

Comments

[bethbethbeth]

The Fraction thing is so funny to me. I got into comics, heard nothing but people bad-mouthing Fraction (I knew nothing about him), started reading Hawkeye and now his runs of Fantastic Four and Ff - and I love him (I just bought Immortal Iron Fist...).

I have no idea what he did that everybody apparently hated, and I'm amused by being totally in the dark about it. :)

[salinea]

Fraction is mostly dissed for Fear, Itself (the 2011 summer event, involving large hammers, forgotten Norse gods and Nazis), The Mighty Thor. Then there are his run on Iron Man and on X-Men which tend to be disliked by the fans of those franchise but liked by people who didn't know either before it (I think that's especially true of Iron Man - I'm not really sure how the X-Men thing really falls on)

[bethbethbeth]

Do you know what he did with Iron Man that upset so many people? Was it plot or was it characterization (or...both?)

[salinea]

Well, i'm neither a fan of the Iron Man nor a reader of Fraction's Iron Man... I've just noticed that when people talk about it it tends to be in very extreme 'best series ever!' or 'worst series ever!' terms; and I think people to some extent think that Tony was OOC as written by Fraction. You'll have to ask them why. I've noticed also some criticism of his writing of female characters, especially Pepper as Rescue as a character who was strong on her own without needing to be a superhero, and by having her be handed the armor by Tony being somewhat not good from an agency pov? Also I think people disliked the way her relationship with another of the main female secondary cast worked (Bethany?) though other people seemed to like it too (from the way they talked about it, it did sound like the sort of thing I'd love to femslash).

Yeah anyway, this is all hearsay, you'd be much better served asking someone who knows first hand. I could tell you why I think his Thor was crap though!! Or Fear, Itself. Which should have been called Boring, Itself. *ahem* I don't even think that badly of his UXM - at least of the little I've read - except for that hilariously bad scene when Magneto first came to Utopia (oh, and poor Xavier).

[lilacsigil]

My first Marvel exposure to Fraction was actually really positive - I loved his Iron Fist title. Then he started getting involved in the big crossovers and unfortunately he cannot handle big crossovers. His plotting doesn't hold up, characters suddenly go hugely OOC to make up for it, and as soon as a female character is romantically involved with anyone she gets a personality transplant. His run on Iron Man also had these problems with the additional tendency to have rather...esoteric interpretations of previous canon material meaning that sometimes canon would be super important and sometimes he'd completely ignore huge parts of it and it was very inconsistent. His parts in the Everything Burns crossover were noticeably not up to the quality or coherency of Kieron Gillen's parts. This is why I think smaller titles suit him very well.

[bethbethbeth]

Okay, that makes sense.

Meanwhile, his wife is doing a big ensemble story (Avengers Assemble) and I love what she's doing with it...especially since she seems to have discovered the Science!Bros tumblr tag. :)

[salinea]

I have yet to read anything substandard by Kelly Sue DeConnick, yeah.