Tag: MCU

With the finale in the rearview mirror, Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye series has come to a close. Each week we have looked at ways in which the live-action series has adapted parts of the Matt Fraction and David Aja Hawkeye comic book run. Between the origins of Lucky the Pizza Dog, Clint’s capture by the Tracksuit Mafia, Episode 3’s car chase and trick arrows, the connection between the live-action LARPERs and the comics’ neighbors, and Kingpin’s role, the series has covered a lot of ground. Looking at the finale episode of Hawkeye, a few things stand out as having strong ties to the source material: (1) the importance of Kate taking on the “Hawkeye” mantle; (2) the six-day Christmas-themed adventure; and (3) Kate’s parents’ role in the organized crime that the Hawkeyes go up against.

Hawkeye and Hawkeye

A clear goal of the live-action Hawkeye series was to introduce and establish Kate Bishop as the next “Hawkeye.” While the show follows Kate from her pre-superhero days through her first adventure with Clint, in the Hawkeye comic she is already established as Hawkeye alongside Clint’s own Hawkeye persona. While the series finale ended just shy of officially referring to Kate as Hawkeye, it’s almost certain that the next time we see Hailee Steinfeld’s character there won’t be any question about her superhero identity.

The live-action and comic Hawkeye stories also both seem to have built a greater appreciation for Kate’s character over time. While both the series and comic are premised on Clint Barton’s story, Kate is a major character throughout his story. The Hawkeye series of course ends in a way that reflects Kate’s new role in Clint’s life and as a hero. The Hawkeye comic ends with a similar acknowledgment of the significance of the relationship between the two. On its final page, it also calls the Hawkeye comic run a “Clint Barton/Kate Bishop Comic Book,” giving further credit to Kate being deserving of the Hawkeye mantle on the same level as Clint.

Six Days of Christmas

Hawkeye made itself a Christmas show, and it made sure you knew how Christmas-y it was as often as it could. The series was clever to use its six episodes to cover the six days leading up to Christmas, which served as a countdown for Clint to get home to his family for the holiday. Not only did the second issue of Hawkeye explore a heavy Christmas theme, it also specifically looked at the six days of Clint’s life during that time. The comic version of the six days of Christmas had cameos from Tony Stark, Wolverine, and Spider-Man, which obviously the series did not. But it did heavily feature Kate, as well as the Tracksuit Mafia like the live-action series, did. In Hawkeye, the six days were presented out of order, and that added to the intrigue of the narrative––it’s interesting to think about how the Hawkeye series would have played out if its reveals and investigative themes were similarly distorted in order.

Both six-day stretches end with Clint having company for Christmas. In the Hawkeye series, Clint makes it home to Missouri with Kate to spend Christmas with his wife and kids. Comic Clint has a much different family life than MCU Clint, though. He is divorced with no children and is living alone. At the end of his six days, a family that lives in his apartment building comes to keep him company in a warming moment for the self-deprecating and down-on-his-luck archer.

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Bishop Family Values

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One of the major reveals of the Hawkeye series was that Kate’s mother Eleanor Bishop was working for Wilson Fisk, also known as Kingpin, and her ties to New York City’s criminal underground was essentially the catalyst for the entire series. In the comics, Kate Bishop’s mother is the one who is presumed dead, and her father Derek Bishop raised her. In the live-action series, of course, the parents’ statuses are reversed, but in both iterations, they made deals with Kingpin among other criminal figures and organizations that ultimately impacted Kate and her safety.

In any event, the Bishops were a wealthy family which gave Kate the status as a socialite on top of being a superhero. As a result, we get to see Kate bring Clint to a fancy event in a skyscraper in order to investigate some criminal activity in both the comic and the series.

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The Hawkeye series finally introduced none other than Kingpin at the very end of its penultimate episode, after quite some time teasing the villain’s introduction. While Kingpin did not play a particularly central role in the Matt Fraction and David Aja My Life as a Weapon comic, it’s clear that his role in both the comics and show has some major overlaps worth exploring. Is the Kingpin, better known as Wilson Fisk, just the man behind the curtain, or is he more involved than it seems?

In the comic he is heavily involved in three major areas of interest: (1) he’s at the top of the Tracksuit Mafia food chain; (2) he was at a black-market auction to buy incriminating evidence on Clint Barton; and (3) he was involved in hiring an assassin to kill Clint Barton. This article will explore each of these elements in turn and how they relate to the Hawkeye series.

The Guy Clint’s Been Worried About

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One thing we know about Kingpin in every adaptation is that he is at the top of the New York City criminal organization pyramid. We know little so far from the Hawkeye series, but in the comics, Kingpin is a general presence that overshadows much of the crime syndicates below him. In both the series and the comic, Clint is hesitant to work with Kate or go about his general business, not because of the Tracksuit Mafia, but because of who they work for. In the series, Clint tells Kate that they do not want to get too involved, because they could run into the “Big Guy”. In the comics, Kingpin delivers a speech to a cohort of villains that “Clint Barton must die,” for interfering with their plans. The Tracksuit Mafia makes it pretty clear the Clint that they work for someone much more powerful. Later on, it’s obvious that Fisk is at least one of who they are referring to. As seen below, the comics make it much more explicit than the Disney+ series does.

The Auction

Curiously, both the comics and the series feature a black market auction for Barton and Avengers-related items. In the series, of course, we see people bid on the Ronin sword, but the Tracksuit Mafia break into the event to grab the still-mysterious Avengers-related watch before it goes up for sale. While Clint tells Kate that the watch could blow the cover of his friend, in the comics a tape of Clint assassinating targets on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. goes up for auction. Kate manages to buy the tape – in disguise as Madame Masque – and, you can guess, Kingpin is not too happy.

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In the series, the first episode shows Jack and Armand Duquesne at the said auction that featured several items found from the destroyed Avengers compounds, including Ronin’s sword, suit, and the mysterious watch. While we did not see Kingpin physically at the auction, we know the Tracksuit Mafia—that he controls—broke in to steal the watch. As little as we know about the watch, it’s clear it might have the same effect on the owner and Clint’s tape in the comics did on him.

The Assassin

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In the comics, Kingpin is one member of a group, including the Tracksuit Mafia, that decides to hire an assassin to kill Clint Barton. He hires Kazimierz Kazimierczak in the comics, who is otherwise known as the Clown. The Kazi in the series definitely strays from the Kazimierz in the comics, so we have not seen any elements of the “Clown” at this point. But in the series, Episode 5 tells us that Kate’s mother Eleanor hired Yelena Belova to kill Clint. Shortly after, we find out that Eleanor appears to be working with Kingpin, begging the question as to whether he was involved in the live-action scheme to take down Clint Barton.

While Kingpin’s introduction was fairly small in Hawkeye Episode 5, it’s worth noting the connections he has to the Fraction-Aja comics. We’ll find out more about Kingpin’s involvement in the Hawkeye finale on Wednesday, December 22, 2021, when it airs on Disney+.

With Episode 4 ‘Partners, Am I Right?’ Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye is now moving into its third act. Unlike previous episodes where we could find entire sequences taken straight out of the Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye comic run (introducing Lucky in episode 1, Clint and the Tracksuit Mafia in episode 2, the car chase and trick arrows in episode 3), these references were now a bit more subdued.

Flipping the script
Going back to the trick arrows theme that we focused on last week, we got a reference showing us how, at times, the series has managed to flip the script on the comic run. There’s a small gag in issue #3 that starts off with Clint praising the qualities of his Boomerang Arrows. Kate, on the other hand, doesn’t really see the point or how they could ever come in handy on the field. Later on while facing the Tracksuit Mafia, who have a machine gun to Clint’s head, Kate is asked not to engage and to ditch the arrow she has pointed at the Bro who has Clint. She complies, shooting it way above the Mafia Bro’s head, only for the arrow to come back and hit him in the back of the head, thus saving Clint. ‘Boomerang Arrow. It comes back to you in the end.”

In the show that initial discussion goes the other way around. Boomerang Arrows aren’t a real thing but Kate kinda wishes they were. Clint, as Kate did in the comic run, doesn’t really see the appeal of having an arrow you shot coming back to bite you in the ass. Kate then mentions there might have a little bit of dodging involved. This might still be setting up a payoff down the line when a Boomerang Arrow is actually used in action but, for now, it serves as an example of how the series is approaching the Clint / Kate dynamic differently than the comic run. In the books, Kate was always the more level-headed of the two. Clint, a single guy living alone in NYC struggled to get his shit together and was often given crap about not doing the right thing. As we’ve been watching in the tv show, things are very differently portrayed.

This might be due to a number of factors with one being that, with the show being used to introduce Kate Bishop to the world, you still need to allow the character to have enough room to grow in upcoming projects. There would be no point in presenting Kate in the place you want her to be in five years from now. Just think of the amount of development you’d have to skip over. At the same time, the series, unlike the comic run, had to deal with preestablished Clint Barton’s background, both in terms of his family life and his past avenging. Even if the comic approach of making the young protégé being the sane one was a welcomed one, both the past and future of the MCU strongly benefit from approaching the Barton / Bishop relationship the way the show does.

LARPers helping out
In a pretty good self-aware and self-deprecating bit of storytelling, we got introduced to the LARPers in episode 2, ‘Hide and Seek’. Episode four brought them back in a more active role, making them a part of Clint and Kate’s.. guild? If there’s one thing that the Tracksuit Mafia has over our heroes is strength in numbers and the LARPers could just be the missing pieces in order to level the playing field in the upcoming episodes.

The comic run didn’t feature these characters but still managed to deliver Clint and Kate the help they needed by having Barton’s neighbors step up and help out. Throughout the series, we get to see Clint, hesitantly at first, connect with his neighbors to the point where their well-being becomes as important to him as his own. He helps one of them (Grills, sound familiar?) reconnect with his dad and even babysits Simone’s kids. At the end of the series, as the Tracksuits prepare one final attack on their building, everybody plays a part in defeating them, some with more success than others.

In a show that has been so much about family, be it through Clint’s point of view (where you value what you have) or through Kate’s (where she learns that there’s family to be found outside the typical idyllic entity) the development of a family-type unit with the help of LARPers found along the way seems like a welcomed prospect for both characters.

Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye is starting to hit its stride as it delivered its best episode yet in “Echoes” where, as in previous episodes, we again find several references to the Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye comic run. After focusing on how Episode 1 incorporated the introduction of Lucky the Pizza Dog, and Episode 2 featured Clint’s capture by the Tracksuit Mafia we have now also looked at how Episode 3 adapted the stand-out car chase sequence. Considering that this episode justified more than one article it is now time to focus on some interesting elements scattered throughout say sequence: the trick arrows.

Clint already has a history of using several types of arrows in the MCU, suited for each occasion, but Episode 3 takes them to a new level. As with the car chase, these came straight from the pages of Hawkeye #3, one of the most kinetic issues of the entire run. But according to artist and comic series co-creator David Aja, we have Ellio R. Brown to thank as it was his work in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #5 published in 1986 that inspired both Fraction and Aja to create the pages that were to become Hawkeye #3.

From the 14 arrow-types Brown designed in the 80s, Fraction and Aja managed to use 12 of them in Hawkeye #3. A few were simply referenced, but most were actually put up to good use against the Tracksuit Mafia. Fast-forward a few years and, out of those 12, Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye re-used 7 of them in Episode 3, most with slight changes to them.

Putty Arrow

The first arrow that Kate Bishop manages to fire at the pursuing Bros. It initially looks an awful lot like Ego, The Living Planet’s expanding seedlings we saw in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, before turning into a soft and malleable paste that blocks the Tracksuits’ windshield almost entirely. Kate ends up not using it as Clint intended, on the truck’s tires, as it would quickly harden thus definitively disabling the vehicle. The show also goes for a Hawkeye Purple whereas the comics, that have Clint holding the bow, go with a simple black-looking ooze that sort of glues one Bro to the asphalt.

Explosive Tip Arrow

The most obvious and probably one of the handiest arrows in Clint’s arsenal. Not suitable for close-quarter combat but good for basically everything else. Kate still manages to get surprised by the explosion as if she hadn’t witnessed even bigger ones a decade earlier – We all saw the flashbacks, Kate! -. It did the trick though as that Trust a Bro moving van’s DVD player stealing days are as dead as DVD players themselves. In the comics, Clint and Kate were being pursued by Mini Coopers so anything that arrow did to a van, it probably did twice as much with twice the ease to those smallish compact city cars.

Suction Tip Arrow

Initially treated as a gag it ended up as probably the most important (and peaceful) of arrows as it was used not to take lives, but to save them. Just like in the comics Clint uses it so as not to fall from a moving vehicle, saving Kate from having a shorter MCU career than Quicksilver. That would have been a major Bohn.. bummer. The suction-tip arrow proves to be the real MVP.

Bola Arrow

Ok so, I’m not totally sure on this one but a couple more people agreed that this might be it so here it goes. Kate used a Bola Arrow to get all those pine trees on top of the Putty Truck. It ended up being a bit more effective than the one Clint shot in the comics that managed to get a chuckle out of a couple of Bros. And, seriously, if you can’t hurt a Bro with an arrow with that much potential you should really be contemplating what you’re even doing with your life with a tequila shot in your hand. Point Bishop.

Acid Arrow

Kate proved herself as an incredible archer with these shots alone. Clint, on the other hand, shot a Mini Cooper as it was facing him. Good for him. The subtlety of this specific arrow was better applied in the show as it allowed for a precise and disruptive use of the arrow in a way not many other types could. Since it was Clint’s idea to use it as they did he does end up deserving some recognition. Even if it was Kate doing all the work.

Smoke Arrow

Again with the “Hawkeye Purple”, we get it. Kate manages to shoot it inside the Dodge Challenger which proves a much better idea than using it on the outside as Clint does in the comics. Could it be much worse than the usual NYC air pollution? My guess is Clint ended up doing the Tracksuits a favor. “Bro five!”

Cable Arrow

One of the most well-known types of arrows we’ve seen Clint use over the years. In fact, this was one of the first-ever arrows Kate saw Hawkeye shoot first-hand as she witnessed his escape from the Chitauri in the Battle of New York. This was perhaps the main reason she knew what to do when he jumped off the bridge and therefore managed to grab the bow in order to swing into the train tracks beneath. In the comic Clint uses it to rip through a Mini Cooper, stripping it of its roof (see the Smoke Arrow image above). This probably speaks more of Clint’s upper body strength than the Mini Coopers’ lack of frame reliability.

USB Arrow

Not present in Hawkeye #3, we get to see it put to good use seventeen issues later in Hawkeye #20 as Kate searches a computer for financial logs. I don’t know what’s more laughable, the fact that the pen drive only holds 256Mb of data or that the arrow exists in the first place. Either way, it opens up the door for future variations such as the LaserDisc Arrow (similar to the Predator’s Smart Disc) or the Kitchen Sink Arrow for the upcoming Young Avengers vs Looney Tunes.

Pym Particle Arrow III (Goliath Arrow)

This isn’t something we’ve witnessed in the MCU (yet!) but in the comics, it is said that Hawkeye has three types of Pym Particle Arrows:

• Pym Particle Arrow I (The Reduction Arrow) utilizes the famous size-shifting science to decrease the target’s size and strength.
• Pym Particle Arrow II (The Growing Barrage) creates a swarm of arrows by releasing an entire shrunken volley at once.
• Pym Particle Arrow III (The Goliath Arrow) uses Pym Particles for growth and is used to trigger his transformation into Goliath.

As we see in this panel taken from Hawkeye: Blindspot #3 where Clint is doing his best giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man impression, Clint has used it on himself while the show stuck to it being used on an inanimate object. All kidding aside, it was one of the best moments of the entire episode as it established a sense of the connected universe Marvel Studios intends these shows to have. All in a way that felt so natural, not needing any sort of exposition dump to have it make absolute sense.

Episode four is just around the corner (it’s tomorrow!) so we’ll be getting to the next few From Page to Screen in just a few hours. See you next week!

The live-action Hawkeye series has openly taken bits and pieces of Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye comic run. We looked at how Episode 1 incorporated the introduction of Lucky the Pizza Dog, and Episode 2 featured Clint’s capture by the Tracksuit Mafia that had some clear ties to the comic. This week, Hawkeye Episode 3, “Echoes, adapted one of the comic’s most iconic sequences: the trick arrow car chase. Unlike previous episodes, the car chase sequence is based heavily on Fraction and Aja’s work, and is as close to being “directly from the comic” as the series is likely to get. You might be surprised to see what the episode borrowed straight from the comic and what they changed.

What They Borrowed

The Chase

Of course, the car chase sequence happens both in Hawkeye Episode 3 and Hawkeye #3. In both stories, Clint and Kate are being chased by hoards of the Tracksuit Mafia with one Hawkeye hanging out of the window to shoot arrows at their assailants, causing mayhem throughout the streets of New York. A major difference, though, is that in the comic the two archers are also the original chasers. But more on that below.

The Arrows

The car chase wouldn’t be the car chase without the endless barrage of random trick arrows that Clint has on hand. We could write an entire article on the arrows in this episode alone…so we did. Check out the next “From Page to Screen” for that.

The Banter

As is their thing, Clint and Kate have a lot of back-and-forth throughout the chase in both the series and comic. It’s a bit different in the live-action version, however, because Clint mostly can’t hear Kate. For example, a running joke in Hawkeye is that Clint set out to label his trick arrows on that day, which led him down a series of poor choices, including the car chase sequence itself. In the episode, Kate complains that Clint should label his arrows. Another running joke is Clint’s concern for the red 1970’s Dodge Challenger, and both versions end up wrecked.

The Bridge

In both, the chase ends on a bridge and in a stand-off between archers and the Tracksuit Mafia. In the comic, Kate saves Clint, who’s held at gun point. A classic visual is Kate pointing an arrow at the sky, which is replicated in Hawkeye—the major difference being that the live-action scenario involved both Hawkeyes and a Pym arrow.

What They Changed

The Car

Hawkeye prominently featured a red 1970 Dodge Challenger. That car drove the plot as much as it drove the characters, so it’s no wonder that Hawkeye Episode 3 did give brief nod to a ’72 Challenger. But live-action Kate and Clint don’t use it, even though there isn’t too great of a reason for why not.

At the end of the day, if you enjoyed Hawkeye Episode 3’s car chase sequence, you can thank Matt Fraction and David Aja. It’s Aja’s art in particular that causes the original to standout—there’s an impressive amount of apparent movement on the page. Combined with the expertly layered panels that make it feel like you’re watching little details simultaneously with big moments, the original chase sequence in Hawkeye is one hell of a ride.

Following the Episode 1 introduction of Lucky The Pizza Dog, Hawkeye‘s second episode saw Clint go against at least a few vans worth of Tracksuit Mafia bros. This sequence bears some fairly obvious similarities with the one from Hawkeye #6 (probably one of the best issues of the entire run), where Clint Barton presented himself in a way the Mafia couldn’t miss him, inviting a much-needed confrontation.

In the Disney+ series, Clint made this decision as a way of getting to the bottom of the issues Kate stirred up by wearing the Ronin suit out in public. By facing the Mafia head-on, allowing them to take full control of the situation, he managed to get himself caught without much hassle. Finding himself in their hideout will then lead to uncovering the woman making all the calls, someone he’ll have to go through to make it home for Christmas. What he didn’t count on was that by not making his intentions clear to Kate Bishop, his actions might have ended up making her find herself in a much more dire situation than the one he was trying to get her out of.

Just like in the series, the comics show Clint placing himself in harm’s way by tacking on the Tracksuit Mafia head-on to protect people he learned to care about. By issue #6, we’d come to realize how Clint had become somewhat protective towards his neighbors with who he shared a building. With the Mafia endangering their enjoyment of the holiday season, he stepped up. As two full vans of Tracksuit bros drove up to the building he, unlike in the Hawkeye series, put up a fight and got himself captured against his will. He is then dragged to the Mafia’s hideout and we see him, much like we did in Episode 2, tied up to a chair as the Mafia brings forth their leader who presents Clint with an ultimatum: Leave the city in 24h or all-out war against himself will be a reality.

Episode 3 isn’t out yet so we’re yet to know what happens to Clint and Kate. In the comics, Barton is released and decides to, once again, stand his ground by not leaving town and living up to the idea of what a hero should do by protecting those who can’t protect themselves. In Hawkeye that would mean again postponing his trip back home and putting an end to the Ronin mix-up once and for all.

It’s no secret that live-action comic book adaptations consistently get their inspiration from, you know, comics. But Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye series has made it abundantly clear that Matt Fraction and David Aja’s critically-acclaimed and beloved Hawkeye run may very well be the genetic makeup of the Disney+ series. Each week, we’re going to highlight scenes from the Hawkeye comic that made their way into the live-action Hawkeye. 

In the comics, Hawkeye #1 introduced Lucky the Pizza Dog at the very beginning of the run, but his origin with Clint Barton is much more involved and dramatic than in the first episode of Hawkeye. Lucky was owned by the Tracksuit Mafia. Clint feeds Lucky – ironically known at the time as “Arrow” – a slice of pizza. As a result, he later protects Clint from the Mafia by turning against them. After they beat him, the poor dog darts into traffic to be saved at the last minute by Clint instead. Lucky barely survived, but our favorite archer takes the Pizza Dog to a veterinary hospital and keeps an eye on him throughout his surgeries and the loss of an eye. After that, the elder Hawkeye takes in and renames Lucky, who continued to enjoy pizza and befriends Kate. Aja‘s masterful art throughout adds to the intensity, peril, and ultimately relief of Lucky’s origin.

Like the comics, the very first episode of the series introduces the already-fan-favorite furry friend. In the show, however, Kate Bishop is the one who comes across Lucky. She finds the already one-eyed puppy standing outside the gala she was attending. After this, the episode takes strong cues from Fraction and Aja. He runs off behind the hotel and attacks members of the Tracksuit Mafia who were breaking into the hotel’s cellar. Fleeing the Mafia, Lucky runs away into a crowded street and is rescued from oncoming traffic at the last minute by Kate. She decides to bring him to her apartment and offers him the only food she has around: pizza. There’s no doubt that Lucky’s origin here is lighter and lacks the depth of the original, particularly since he avoids the violent attack from the Mafia. Still, it’s interesting that live-action Lucky has already lost an eye and seems to maybe have some connection with the Mafia. Perhaps some of his classic origins is embedded in his history in the show.

The comic run has plenty more Lucky adventures, including an entire issue dedicated to the Pizza Dog’s point of view. Time will tell how the live-action Hawkeye explores the fluffy favorite in more detail, especially with how he seems focused on the item that the Tracksuit Mafia were out to steal from the auction. Perhaps there’s more to this story we are about to uncover throughout the remaining episodes for Marvel Studios’ last Disney+ series of 2021.