Hawkeye: Marvel Mentors a Possible Future Avenger
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B
At a certain income level in the superhero universes, charity must seem boring and unfulfilling. Otherwise, why would so many comic-book rich people choose to become crime fighters?
Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark, Oliver Queen. To that list, we can add Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), the rich-kid super-hero wannabe who is the co-star and putative sidekick of the title character in Marvel’s Hawkeye, which debuts on Disney+ November 24.
Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) may be the Avenger who gets the least respect. His lack of super-powers has inspired many a hack comedian’s bit. So, it’s kind of nice to see him get his own series, even if he has to share the spotlight.
Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld start a hero-sidekick relationship in Hawkeye
Indeed, with Marvel building new franchises now that the old ones are possibly played out, there almost seems like a Robin-as-heir-apparent-to-Batman vibe to Hawkeye, with Steinfeld being prepped to fire arrows into the air long after Renner retires.
Whether they have the chemistry to make this work is hard to tell at the outset. In the first of two episodes being unveiled on November 24 (there will be six in total), the two protagonists don’t even interact, as their separate stories unfold. It opens with a literal bang, as New York’s devastation in the original Avengers movie takes place literally outside the high-end apartment of a little girl, who sees Hawkeye leaping from a burning building and effectively swinging to safety with the help of a well-placed arrow.
From such an incident is hero-worship born. The dual storyline includes Barton trying to lead a normal life with the family he lost and got back in the Avengers follow-ups, going through the painful experience of sitting through a Broadway production called Rogers: The Musical, being asked for selfies while standing at a urinal, that kind of thing. (“Thanos was right,” is now my favourite washroom graffito).
Meanwhile, back in the penthouse, Kate has grown through teen-hood getting trained as a world-class archer and martial arts fighter, while exhibiting a reckless side, in one instance causing a pretty impressive incident of wanton destruction on her own.
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What brings them together is her entry into vigilantism, partly inspired on Kate’s part by her distrust of her possible future stepdad Jack Duquesne (Tony Dalton), an aggressively courtly European count or conman or something, who is wooing her widowed mother (Vera Farmiga). Jack seems to have unsavoury connections.
Her m.o. leaves her mistaken for Ronin, which we learn was Hawkeye’s previous vigilante incarnation, a persona that earned many criminal enemies who hold a grudge years later.
Of course, Marvel series and mini-series have a bar for imagination and creativity set these days, that being WandaVision. Hawkeye is not that.
For MCU fans, however, it is comfort food, a lighter version of a stand-alone movie with well-executed action and an often wry sense of humour (in one scene, to retrieve a valuable garment, Clint must (easily) fight his way through a collection of LARPers (live action role players) and, as part of a deal, “lose” his ultimate battle so that the nerd in question can have lifetime bragging rights that he defeated an Avenger.
The pieces are all there, with Barton finding new purpose as a mentor for a girl whose hero-worship could get her killed. What will ultimately decide the quality of Hawkeye is the depth of the connection they make while kicking butt and firing arrows. Everything Marvel does has an endgame, as it were. We could be looking at the birth of a breakthrough character, but they’re not showing those cards yet.
Hawkeye. Developed by Jonathan Igla. Starring Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld and Vera Farmiga. First two episodes debut on Disney+ Wednesday, November 24. Subsequent episodes will debut each week on Wednesday.