Hawkeye, Volume 1: My Life as a Weapon by Matt Fraction
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Clint Barton is the originator of the “Hawkeye” brand. “My Life as a Weapon” picks up after he comes back from his stint as Ronin, a ninja assassin. Kate Bishop, the next one in line to pick up the Hawkeye mantle, is already established in this label after picking it up in his Ronin absence. Most of what happens here is Clint readjusting to sharing the Hawkeye identity with Kate, his complicated feelings for her, and transitioning out of being in the Avengers. Well, at least it appears he’s not an active member. This was published in 2013-2014 and there are references to the Avengers and what happened in the first film, but I’m not sure if this volume is “aware” of what happens in the film. This is what is frustrating about reading comic book graphic novels.
The universe is so huge that it’s hard to know where to start and when you do you realize that characters get rebooted all. the. time. So it can feel scatterbrained at times. I did enjoy jumping into the Hawkeye story at this juncture, however, because I only knew of him from the Avengers movies. Part of what attracted me to Hawkeye is the fact that he was, to me, one of the lesser known characters and the fact that he’s connected to Black Widow (my favorite Avenger) made him even cooler. I tend to root for the underdog so the fact that I didn’t know much about him and because he doesn’t get his own movie (yet) made me want to check it out.
After reading this volume, I’m reminded why I like, and dislike, superhero graphic novels. It’s frustrating to not get a lot of depth into a character because the volumes are split up into different editions and sometimes even writers. What I do like is that each writer and illustrator brings out a different trait of the character. I’m interested to see where this series goes with these writers because it looks like they wrote this and the subsequent volumes during the Avenger movies up until Infinity War. I’m hoping it will fill in some of the Hawkeye story we don’t get in the movies.
