Monday, December 10, 2012

Hawkeye #5

And the last X review of the week should be a great one, especially if this issue is anything like the one that preceded it.  Bottom line, Hawkeye is a fantastic comic that everybody should read.  That about sums things up.

Hawkeye #5:

Summary: To escape the ninjas that had attacked him last issue, Hawkeye hops out the window of his hotel. And we're not talking about the first floor window or anything, we're talking many, many stories up!  As he's falling, Clint realizes that this probably wasn't the best of ideas...  Meanwhile, Kate Bishop(the other Hawkeye), watches the tape of Hawkeye assassinating the terrorist, at which time some goons knock on her door.  She quickly shuts the tape and dons her Madame Masque... um, mask, but the goons are wise to her act when they find the real Madame Masque tied up and none too happy in Kate's bathroom.  Back with Hawkeye, Maria Hill(of SHIELD) flies to Hawkeye's rescue and catches the falling archer.  Unfortunately, the crazy ninjas fall onto the skysled as well, leading to a battle between Hawkeye and the ninjas.  It's a battle Hawkeye wins.  Back with Kate, she is brought back to the room of villains, who all inquire about the health of Madame Masque.  However, Hawkeye aims a sonic arrow at the windows holding the villains and Kate and lets it fly, bringing the villains to their knees.  Hawkeye jumps in to help Kate(forgetting he lost a shoe, leading to walking through the glass he broke), and the two escape the room.  Hawkeye asks Kate where the tape was, and the two dash back to Madame Masque's room to retrieve it.  With the tape safely in Clint's hands, the two make a break for the elevator, but are hounded by an enraged Madame Masque.  As the two Hawkeye's reach the elevator, Masque manages to fire off a single round, which shatters the tape and hits Hawkeye right in the chest!  Fortunately for the world's greatest marksman, he was wearing a bulletproof vest and survives the shot, but not before passing out.  Later, Clint wakes up with Kate, Hill and Nick Fury Jr at his bedside on the SHIELD hellicarrier.  Fury thanks Clint for making the tape, and we find out that SHIELD suispected they had a leak, and as such made three tapes of the terrorist dying, one with Captain America, one with Wolverine and one with Hawkeye.  When the Hawkeye one was taken, SHIELD was able to eliminate their mole.  Kate is kind of angry that this whole adventure was over a fake tape, but Clint explains that he wanted to provide the mole with something bigger than the names of the Navy Seals who really killed the terrorist, his own name.  And with that, Kate realizes something I've always known, Hawkeye is a great guy.

Thoughts:  Yep, I loved this issue.  Hell, I loved this entire storyline!  Add the fact that Hawkeye DIDN'T actually kill the terrorist(which would have gone counter to his character), but dangled himself out there as bait to protect the identities of the Navy Seals who did, and you have the recipe for a wonderful comic.  I'm not sure what else to say...  I have nothing bad to say about this comic...  Only good...  Um, buy and read Hawkeye!  There, that should do it for this post!

Score:  10 out of 10.
hawkeye #5
Hawkeye is The Man.

7 comments:

  1. BIG NEWS - the next arc of Uncanny Avengers is up for big things. firstly the arc is titled Ragnarok which is of course the asgardian end of times, which of course gives the impression that this will be a very thor centric story, the first issue of said arc will be Entirely a flashback, with a young thor in the viking age battling Freaking Apocalypse. the arc will then move to the presnt with more apocalypse, more red skull, and Kang the Conquerer OMG.
    all the details here - http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=42601

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    1. Okay, everything about that? From the Skull, to Apocalypse to the severely underutilized Kang? Awesomeness squared. With this being a combination of the X-Men and Avengers, I'm REALLY happy to see that Rick Remender is trying to add villains from both teams to the series. Things are looking good for what I'm gonna guess is now Marvel's flagship title.

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  2. I loved this issue...but hell I love this series so it's so surprise. The stuff with Kate thinking maybe she didn't know Clint as well as she though prior to the big reveal was great, and the comedy is always well done in this comic, like Clint rethinking his decision to jump out of the window, or his bad ass Sonic Arrow shot only to jump onto glass with an exposed foot... and the next issue has Spidey! Just when it can't get any more awesome, it does.

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    1. This issue was basically everything I've always loved about Clint Barton, wrapped up in a single comic book. The Avengers, the West Coast Avengers, Solo Avengers, THIS comic reminded me so much of all of those books! It's like Matt Fraction was born to write Hawkeye or something... Yeah, this series? Amazing.

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  3. OK, I enjoyed this issue, but I'm either missing something or annoyed by something. So, in issue #4, Clint is all sorts of pissed at Maria Hill and S.H.I.E.L.D. for the tape getting leaked. But, in this issue, it seems like the whole point was for the tape to be leaked. The only thing I can figure is that S.H.I.E.L.D. had intended to stop the mole before s/he leaked the tape. It's the only answer I could figure, but I found myself annoyed that Fraction didn't make it clearer. It somewhat clouded the issue for me, so I'm just going to go wait for issue #6 excitedly.

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    1. From what I remember(and it's been a month and a few hundred comics since I've read this one), SHIELD put out three or four different versions of the tape and were waiting to see which one got leaked, that way they'd know which agent was the guilty party. I think SHIELD HAD to let the tape get sold by the rogue SHIELD agent in order to prove that s/he was indeed guilty. If not, there may not have been a strong enough case against the aforementioned agent. As for Hawkeye, I think he was simply acting in issue #4(so as to not raise any suspicions that the tape was a fraud to any other SHIELD agents hanging around), and felt responsible for getting the tape back since it was his face on it. At least that's how I remember it, but like I said, it's not exactly fresh in my mind, JW!

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  4. HA HA HA. It's totally the problem reading issues two months' late. Everyone's like, "Dude, um, a lot has happened since then. Don't worry about it."

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