{"id":14284,"date":"2015-11-24T08:00:08","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T08:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=14284"},"modified":"2015-11-23T16:37:53","modified_gmt":"2015-11-23T16:37:53","slug":"avengers-hawkeye-earths-mightiest-marksman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2015\/11\/24\/avengers-hawkeye-earths-mightiest-marksman\/","title":{"rendered":"Avengers: Hawkeye – Earth’s Mightiest Marksman"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Chuck Dixon<\/strong>, Nelson Yomtov<\/strong>, Tom DeFalco<\/strong>, Scott Kolins<\/strong>, Jerry DeCaire<\/strong>, Jeff Johnson<\/strong>, Dave<\/strong> Ross<\/strong>, Mark Bagley<\/strong> & various (Marvel)
\nISBN: 978-0-7851-5939-1<\/p>\n

Clint Barton is probably the world’s greatest archer: swift, unerringly accurate and augmented by a fantastic selection of multi-purpose high-tech arrows. Following an early brush with the law and as a reluctant Iron Man villain, he reformed to join the Mighty Avengers<\/strong> where he served with honour, yet always felt overshadowed by his more glamorous, super-powered comrades.<\/p>\n

Long a mainstay of Marvel continuity and probably the company’s most popular B-list hero, the Battling Bowman has risen to greater prominence in recent years, boosted no doubt by his filmic incarnation in the Thor<\/strong> and Avengers<\/strong> movies.<\/p>\n

This brash and bombastic hardcover collection assembles some of his lesser known solo appearances: the second Hawkeye Limited Series<\/strong> (January-April 1994), a brief serial vignette from anthological Marvel Comics Presents <\/strong>#159 -161 (July-August 1994) and one-shot Hawkeye – Earth’s Mightiest Marksman<\/strong> (from October 1998).<\/p>\n

The wild happenings begin with a miniseries released after the cancellation of Avengers: West Coast<\/strong> – an offshoot team the Abrasive Archer led until his wife Mockingbird<\/em> was killed. In his absence, the squad was forcibly disbanded by the East Coast parent division\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Crafted by Chuck Dixon, Scott Kolins & Tim Dzon, ‘Shafted’<\/em> opens in the freezing Canadian Rockies where the justifiably disgruntled and grieving bowman has retreated to lick his emotional wounds. Reducing his life to a primal daily battle against hunger and the elements, Hawkeye is dragged out of his depressive funk when he stumbles across a hidden scientific complex run by the malevolent Secret Empire<\/em> and rescues a strangely vulpine yet intelligent victim from their ghastly bio-labs\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Guarding the facility are old enemies\/merciless mercenaries Trick Shot<\/em> and Javelynn<\/em>, but they aren’t enough to stop Clint wrecking the base and fleeing with the severely wounded little werewolf. Sadly, his heroic incursion didn’t take out the base commander: one of the most ruthless and wicked terrorists on Earth\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Dubbing his dying companion Rover<\/em>, Hawkeye carries his new hirsute pal to snowbound hamlet Dunroman<\/em> and convinces harassed Doctor Avery<\/em> to operate. The beast has amazing recuperative powers and a day later the frantic mute creature has convinced the archer to invade the fortress a second time.<\/p>\n

They are too late: the ‘Masters of the Game’<\/em> have shut down their genetic experiments and cleaned up by exterminating the cages full of similar creatures which must have been Rover’s family\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

As the horrified hero and the heartbroken man-beast rip their way out of the charnel factory, Hawkeye sees smoke on the horizon and realises the Secret Empire’s drive for secrecy has led to the eradication of Dunroman\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Vowing unholy vengeance, the archer then contacts old comrade War Machine<\/em> from the defunct West Coast squad. The former military specialist offers the services of his personal armourer to upgrade Hawkeye’s bag of tricks and, once renegade engineer Mack Mendelson<\/em> outfits the outraged archer with a new costume, transport and heavier arrowhead-ordnance, both bowman and human tanks clear a path into the heart of the Empire’s island HQ in ‘Run of the Arrow’<\/em>.<\/p>\n

However, despite wiping out the fortress, Hawkeye’s ultimate targets elude him and, following a Colin MacNeil pin-up, the savage saga concludes in ‘Rage’<\/em> as the archer and Rover track down the monstrous mastermind in time to stop her unleashing a brutal pack of the wolf-beasts’ totally weaponised descendents onto the mercenary market as unstoppable \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Biological Combat Units\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

There is one last blockbusting battle before the bloody dust settles which turns on a knife edge and an unexpected betrayal\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

A sort-of sequel to the miniseries appeared in the middle of 1994 as Hawkeye starred in a three chapter epilogue by Nelson Yomtov & Jerry DeCaire originally seen in Marvel Comics Presents<\/strong> #159 though 161. It begins with the insubordinate U.S.Agent<\/em> trying tough love and a ‘Rocky Reunion’<\/em> to drag the morose marksman back to civilisation and into the ranks of newly constituted Crisis Management team Force Works<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now haunting the backwoods of Tennessee, the archer is ferociously resistant to the notion and, with both masked mavericks displaying lethal levels of testosterone and ‘Bellies Full of Fire’<\/em>, the argument quickly descends into all-out war which encompasses even more savage beasts before the stupid spat inconclusively concludes in ‘The Hungry Wolf’<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

By the time Hawkeye – Earth’s Mightiest Marksman<\/strong> was released in 1998 the Avengers – Hawkeye included – had all been apparently obliterated by mutant menace Onslaught<\/em>, spent a year outsourced to Image Comics as part of the Heroes Reb<\/strong>orn sub-universe and then been dramatically reintroduced to mainstream Marvel in Heroes Reborn: The Return<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The impetus of the reunification and the sheer quality of the restarted titles (The Avengers<\/strong>, Iron Man<\/strong>, Captain America<\/strong> and Thor<\/strong>) ignited a mini-renaissance in quality – especially in the monumentally hero-heavy Avengers<\/strong> volume 3 – and as Hawkeye battled again beside his former comrades Clint Barton assumed a mentor’s position; giving the newest costumed neophytes admitted to the prestigious team the benefit of his vast experience…<\/p>\n

It was in this role, teaching ex New Warriors<\/strong> Firestar<\/em> and Justice<\/em>, that scripter Tom DeFalco devised a triptych of interconnected tales to test Hawkeye that began – after a handy prose-and-picture recap feature – when the Astounding Archer agreed to help computer programmer Augusta Seer<\/em> retrieve a stolen virus of catastrophic potential.<\/p>\n

Sadly the mission was a set-up and led into a trap where Hawkeye was ‘Battered by Batroc!’ <\/em>(art by Jeff Johnson & Kolins) and his henchmen Zaran<\/em> and Machete<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Having trashed the terrible trio and set out after the fictive Dr. Seer, the bowman is then ‘Assaulted by Oddball!’<\/em> (Dave Ross & Tom Wegrzyn) – despite the best efforts of Justice and Firestar, in attendance for the educational experience – before the true villain is exposed and ultimately overcome in ‘Trounced by Taskmaster!’<\/em> (by Mark Bagley & Al Milgrom), with a final-act appearance by stalwarts of both the Avengers and New Warriors to cap and contribute to the furious all-out action.<\/p>\n

This is a compendium of short, sharp, uncomplicated action thrillers that will test no one’s deductive abilities but will certainly set pulses racing: a straightforward big bag of Fights ‘n’ Tights romps to delight the hearts of ten-year-olds of all ages.
\n\u00c2\u00a9 1994, 1998, 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chuck Dixon, Nelson Yomtov, Tom DeFalco, Scott Kolins, Jerry DeCaire, Jeff Johnson, Dave Ross, Mark Bagley & various (Marvel) ISBN: 978-0-7851-5939-1 Clint Barton is probably the world’s greatest archer: swift, unerringly accurate and augmented by a fantastic selection of multi-purpose high-tech arrows. Following an early brush with the law and as a reluctant Iron … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Avengers: Hawkeye – Earth’s Mightiest Marksman”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[94,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avengers","category-marvel-superheroes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-3Io","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}