Avengers: Solo #1

Ah, this should be interesting... When I was first getting back into Marvel after taking a few years away from comic books I started hunting for cheap back issues. Naturally I went to eBay, and I was able to purchase the entire Solo Avengers run for an insanely low price(I think I paid something like 40 cents an issue). After reading that run I had become a HUGE Hawkeye fan, and began to ravenously buy tons of Avengers comics, both old and new. So when I heard Marvel was doing an Avengers Solo series, AND it was going to star Hawkeye, I was psyched! And now the first issue is finally out. Needless to say, this comic was thisclose to being my Pick of the week, so here's hoping it's good...

Avengers: Solo #1(of 5):

Summary: Just like the old Solo Avengers books, we've got two stories here. A Hawkeye one and an Avengers Academy one, thus proving that Marvel does indeed love me! Obviously I'll start with the first story... While on patrol Hawkeye runs across a guy in armor warning a guy in a suit not to involve himself in something. Hawkeye, being Hawkeye, goes after the guy in the armor(Trace) but ends up losing him in a blinding flash. As for the other guy(Tuli), at first he is reluctant to receive aid from Hawkeye, but ultimately hands Hawkeye a file containing information on the disappearance of his sister(Marcia Guzman), before asking Hawkeye to meet him in a hotel later on where he'd be able to tell him more. Needless to say, Hawkeye arrives at the hotel room and discovers Tuli dead. After meeting with the cops to tell them everything he knew, Hawkeye leaves the building via his sky-cycle and is jumped by Chance, some wacky assassin with a gambling obsession. While Hawkeye is battling Chance, Trace arrives on the scene and goes after Chance for presumably killing the Tuli. Hawkeye goes after Trace, since he wasn't sure what his role in this was, but Trace manages to ditch Hawkeye again. Hawkeye winds up taking Chance down, but can't get any good information out of the assassin. After studying the files given to him by the late Tuli, Hawkeye heads to a modeling agency and winds up learning about some sort of weird experiment that Marcia was involved in. The head of the agency gives Hawkeye a name and location, and he meets a woman who knows Marcia. The woman tells Hawkeye that her and Marcia were hiding from somebody, but that she didn't want to tell him too much more in public. With that, she tells Hawkeye to meet up with her later(again?), after she cleared meeting with him with her friends, including Trace. That night, Hawkeye begins to head to the location he was directed to go and is jumped by the Trapster(!). And now the second story... Having learned of the disappearance of a scientist he used to work with, Pym and two of his Academy students(Striker and Finesse), head to the scientist's last known location. As they closed in, Pym could see 6 armed guards on the premises, as well as the fact that the underground portion of the scientist's lab had been expanded. Pym goes to put the plane in stealth mode, but some kind of interference occurs and the plane crashes, ending this one.

Thoughts: The Hawkeye story was a bit on the confusing side, but it starred Hawkeye and much like those old Avengers Solo comics, had him facing off against uber-lame villains like the Trapster(Pot Paste Pete!!!) and Chance. So while the story wasn't fantastic, the Hawkeye fan in me was pleased. The second story, while shorter, was much better. I love the Avengers Academy characters, and the story here made sense. So for a back-up tale, I couldn't ask for much more. For a score, I'll give the Hawkeye story a 7 1/2, and add an extra 1 for the great Academy story, bringing this issue's final score to a...

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.Hawkeye vs frigging Pot Paste Pete!?! Yes, please!