Hawkeye, Vol. 1: My Life As A Weapon (2013) - Plot & Excerpts
Continuing my reintroduction to comics, in 2014. I'd heard good things about this, and it lived up to the hype--given the limitations of the TBP format.Back in the day, I remember reading--or hearing about?--a Batman story in which Batman is frustrated because every crime he tries to stop is stopped by normal means: the victim sticking up, the police. It was a day in the life of a superhero world without the need for a superhero. There's some of that feeling here.That is not to say there aren't superheroics. Or at least derring-do. There certainly is!The story, such as it is, tells of Clint Barton, a one-time circus performer who became such an exceptional archer--as well as athlete in general--that he joined the Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes!, and even led them, as well as their West Coast Branch, for a time. His alter-egos have changed over time, as has his relationship with truth and trickery, and for a while the character with which he is most associated, Hawkeye, was taken up by a young woman. Here, he is on break from the Avengers and working with his successor.They rob from robbers robbing robbers. They have adventures. The tone, though, is mostly light--this is a superhero who has seen the dark side of what he is: he has been turned into a weapon. His very body, his very soul, has been sacrificed to that end. He hates that and wants to get away from it--although he cannot. And so, there are jokes, and comedy, to cover this darkness--the darkness that might pervade the quotidian life of a superhero.There's another connection to the Batman, and that is the art, which seems to borrow from Miller's Dark Knight Returns and Batman Year One in its grays and fuzziness and playing with the boundaries of sequential art--although never becoming as surrealistic as the Dark Knight Returns.My only real issue with the TBP is that the various stories never really cohere, and the final chapter, from Young Avengers, would seem to proceed all the earlier material. Best in this case, then, to treat the tales as a series of short stories. This is a funny comic book. I get that. However, like many other comic books that are based around a hero with so much history, I felt like I was missing something when I read it. That in this funny comic book there was a bigger joke that as an uninitiated reader I would never get. It is also not the subtlest of books in character development... how do you know Hawkeye is a standup guy? He saves a dog in the first story!It's still an entertaining read, but I wonder if I "got" it.
What do You think about Hawkeye, Vol. 1: My Life As A Weapon (2013)?
The characters are great, the dialogue is brilliant, and I really like the dog.
—zachmom04
Goddess help me I've gone and fallen in love with Clint Barton.
—mod
This is super interesting, and cute in a strange way.
—Purdy
