Hawkeye

Hawkeye, American comic book superhero created for Marvel Comics by writer Stan Lee and artist Don Heck. The costumed archer first appeared in Tales of Suspense no. 57 (September 1964).

The man who would become known as Hawkeye was born Clint Barton. Orphaned at an early age, he joined the circus and apprenticed himself to the Swordsman, a performer who specialized in tricks with blades. After he discovered the Swordsman stealing from the circus, the two fought, and Barton was left for dead. Barton recovered, and he continued his martial training with the circus’s resident archer, Trickshot. Barton excelled with the bow, and he decided to use his skills to embark on a career as a costumed crime fighter named Hawkeye. After some initial misadventures, Hawkeye proved his worth to the Avengers, and he was a regular member of that group’s rotating cast throughout the 1960s. At the end of that decade, he used a growth serum developed by fellow Avenger Hank Pym and became the giant-sized Goliath, a role he kept for the next several years.

When Barton resumed his Hawkeye persona in the early 1970s, he found that his old skills as an archer had not deserted him. The ensuing decade was a restless one, however. It was characterized by numerous stints with the Avengers and other teams, and by the early 1980s, Hawkeye was a solo crime fighter. During this time, Barton fell in love with and married Barbara (“Bobbi”) Morse, who was otherwise known as the costumed adventurer Mockingbird. Together, the pair recruited their own team, the West Coast Avengers (featuring Iron Man, Tigra, and Wonder Man). After several years, the West Coast Avengers began to fall apart, and Mockingbird was apparently killed by the evil demon Mephisto. The rest of the group split off to form Force Works, while Hawkeye, alone once more, retreated to the wilderness.

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Feeling the need for human company, he drifted back to the Avengers before assuming leadership of the Thunderbolts, a team that proved to be one of Marvel’s most enduring creations of the 1990s. Although the premise of villains acting on the side of the law was not wholly original—John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad covered that ground a decade earlier—the monthly Thunderbolts comic focused on themes of redemption that were largely absent from Ostrander’s work. After a dramatic lineup change in the Thunderbolts in 2003, Hawkeye returned to the Avengers, and he was seemingly killed while fighting the alien Kree the following year. In typical comic fashion, Barton was eventually resurrected, and he joined the New Avengers as the costumed martial artist Ronin. Believing Barton to be dead, Kate Bishop, a bow-wielding member of the Young Avengers, adopted the name Hawkeye, retaining it even after Barton resumed his Hawkeye identity as a member of Captain America’s Secret Avengers. Both Hawkeyes were featured in writer Matt Fraction and artist Daniel Aja’s Hawkeye, which debuted in August 2012. The critically acclaimed book was a gritty street level tale about crime in the city, but it was infused with humour and character-driven stories that made it a novelty among monthly superhero titles.

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On-screen Jeremy Renner portrayed Hawkeye in a cameo appearance in Thor (2011). Renner returned in the role in The Avengers (2012), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), and Avengers: Endgame (2019).