Trash Mutant Back Issues: "Hawkeye" #1-4 (1983)

- by Señor Editor, 1 June 2012

We  recently  posted  a review  of the Avengers movie here  and one thing that  I thought is less than cool about the movie is Hawkeye. He just looks so bland and boring there. Doesn't really seem to have much to do with the cocky archer from the Avengers that we've known for so many decades now. I kind of like Hawkeye though, and figured it might be a good idea to take a look at the character's first mini series from 1983, written and drawn by Mark Gruenwald. Was it a good idea? Is it even a good mini? Well, it definitely is a weird  and fun one and it's very, very "80s". That thing is odd enough to warrant an article in our Back Issues section though, so read on, comicbook lovers, and let's get right into it!

The "Rocket Sled"! Because YOU demanded it! Didn't you?

As  the  first  issue  starts, we find out  that  Hawkeye is  happy  that he's finally living the good life, outside of his Avengers duties (he notes that they cramped his style and he's ready to go solo). He got a new job as head of security for Cross Technological Enterprises. Working in security (even as head of it) doesn't seem to me like a real step forward after being in The Avengers but what do I know. I guess it's better than going from being an Avenger to being a mall cop or something. Either way, it makes our man Clint Barton happy! Plus, he's got a "rocket sled" now! His "techno buddies" custom made it for him! He's also got a new girlfriend, Sheila, who works in the company's PR department. Things are seemingly looking better than ever for ol' Hawkeye! What could possibly go wrong here? Is this gonna be a series about Hawkeye just enjoying the finer things in life?
Let's move on!

While Hawkeye is kicking it with his hot new girlfriend and co-worker, his beeper goes off, notifying him that there's an intruder in the Cross Technological Enterprises warehouse. He jumps on the rocket sled thing and confronts the intruder and we find out that it's Mockingbird!

She calls herself "Mockingbird". Everybody else just calls her crazy.

They fight for a bit, Mockingbird introduces herself etc, but Hawk manages to defeat her and hand her over to the CTE guards. When he returns to the warehouse later that night to check on things, it turns out things are not how they seem. The security goons who Hawkeye used to boss around turn against him and he finds out that Sheila was only romancing him to keep him distracted from the evil bussiness that takes place at the company. Along with Mockingbird, our hero gets thrown into some chemical waste pit (all major companies have those in their warehouses) and left to die. Except he doesn't, he calls out for his rocket sled (I am so tired of typing "rocket sled" by now, folks...) and escapes with Mockingbird, heartbroken by the night's revelations and looking like crap.


After all that, Hawkeye is really depressed. His pride doesn't allow him to just contact the Avengers and go back to living in their mansion, so he spends the night under some bridge, where he finally passes out and gets attacked by Random Comicbook Street Thugs (TM), apparently led by Street Fighter's Zangief:

It's a rocket sled, you dumb punk.

Clint promptly beats the crap out of them and decides to go check out his brand new apartment. Surprise! It's been totally cleaned out, none of his belongings (including his "arrow-making tools, rock & roll records and his video recorder"). Thankfully, Mockingbird is in there waiting for him and she wants to put their first encounter behind them so she takes Barton to her place. Since Hawkeye's costume is all torn up, Mockingbird offers to make him a new one, since all women obviously are really good at sewing. We are also treated to a flashback explaining Mockingbird's whole history (I'm skipping that, you need to buy this mini if you're interested... or Google it).

Here's the costume she makes for Hawkeye. It's actually my favorite costume the character has ever worn. DON'T JUDGE ME. After all that, the two heroes investigate the Cross company's files to solve the mystery. While there, they get attacked by an assassin, called Silencer, who is actually quite cool (and he's definitely much, much cooler-looking than any other of the 3 villains that will show up in this entire series). His gimmick is that he has an aura around him that nullifies all the sounds that he makes. He gets tossed into a big chimney pretty fast, though, and we're now officially at the start of issue #3 of this 4 part mini (I'm obviously skipping a lot of parts, like Hawkeye's tech buddy who looks just like George Lucas and is called "Jorge").

Alas, poor Silencer...

In the next issue, our protagonists run into even more trouble. There's another attempt to kill them, this time the culprits are Oddball and Bombshell. Oddwhat and who? I don't know if those guys appeared anywhere before this mini. I hope they got killed off by the Scourge or someone later on. They look ridiculous. One is a professional juggler (with balls rigged with various stuff like gas, explosives etc) and the other is a woman who apparently blows stuff up? And blow stuff up she does. In this case Bobbi's (Mockingbird. I will use her name every now and then because the alternative is calling her "Mocky" for short, like Hawkeye does) place, along with Hawkeye's sweet ride. Our heroes will confront them soon enough. First, they have to take the subway when they meet Captain America ("in his civvies!").

Steve's America-Sense is tingling.

When Hawkeye and Mockingbird get off the train (while Bobbi keeps talking about how "gorgeous" Steve is and asking Hawk if he's "one of them"... I can only assume she means superheroes), Oddball is already waiting for them! In fact, he's mocking them!

I have to pause here and say one thing... "Cockeye" is the worst superhero nickname ever. It's just HORRIBLE. Think about it and try not laughing. Every time I see it I can't stop thinking how anybody in the Marvel Bullpen thought calling him that was even close to being okay. If I was Hawkeye and somebody called me that (and that used to happen  often  in the older comics) I would immediately change my name. Anyway, Hawk and Mockingbird start chasing the fashion-challenged Juggler when Bombshell shows up and takes out Bobbi with some wrist-mounted weapon.

Meanwhile Hawkeye is after Oddball, who takes a hostage. The hostage can't bring himself to treat the juggling villain as a real threat (I'm with him on this one), so he gets a ball to the head! That looks bloody! Look at the red goop coming out of the guy's ear. The chase continues, Hawkeye catches up to Oddball and presumes to beat the hell out of him. It goes really well and Barton is thinking that maybe Oddball should be his new arch-nemesis or something ("Wonder if Oddball would consent to being my regular sparring partner?", the heroic  archer  ponders). I  don't  know  about  that,  man... I don't think a juggler should be anybody's "sparring partner", to be honest. Just as Hawk is winning the fight, he gets hit in the head by one of Bombshell's bombs, and that knocks him out. The heroes are defeated and are about to be taken to meet the guy who orchestrated this whole mini's plot! Exciting!

Crossfiiiyahh!

So who is the mastermind turning Hawkeye's life to shit?? It's... The Cross!

Oh wait, that's not his name. His name is Crossfire. He's really into crosses, you see. He has a cross on his eye, a cross on his chest, two on his arms, one on each leg and a bigass cross codpiece to top it off. He's also an orthodox Christian, and loves doing crossword puzzles whenever he has some time off.
He of course gives a typical villain speech to the captured heroes. You see, his mission is to "foment disorder for profit". To prevent superheroes from interveening in his cross-themed villainy, he's been working on a program to eliminate all superheroes. Crosscrotch here has a machine that uses soundwaves to get people mad enough to kill each other. To get all the superheroes in one place where they can do exactly that, he wants to kill Hawkeye (who, he says, is the weakest of the Avengers) and set off the machine at his funeral, where obviously all the heroes will show up. Why, he even bought the funeral house where superheroes usually say farewell to their dead buddies and rigged it with his villainous technology. Personally, I didn't even know Marvel heroes have a favorite funeral home, but apparently they do. They actually held the ceremony for the late Whizzer (heh. "Whizzer"...) there, Crossfire tells us. It was lovely and very classy, no dry eye in the room.

Before Hawkeye gets offed though, he will be useful for one last thing - testing the technology, of course! He and Mockingbird get thrown into a special sealed room where the sond makes them want to beat each other to a bloody pulp. Before it happens, Mockingbird (who's been really into Clint since she met him) gives  Hawkeye  a farewell kiss. Then the fighting starts. The two superheroes go at each other for  a  good few pages, destroying the surveilance cameras in the room in the process. Hawkeye has a plan, though! After all, it's his series! Of course he has a plan! You can read what he comes up with by yourself, here:

This makes him go deaf, but also he manages to think straight now, defeat Mockingbird without doing her too much harm and then fake a faint, so that the villains think they both KO'ed each other and are apparently done for. When Oddball and Bombshell go inside the room to grab the bodies, Hawkeye promptly beats them up and he's off to confront their boss. But Crossfire is already waiting for him, armed with Hawkeye's bow and an explosive arrow. He pulls the bow and... nothing. He doesn't have the strength to pull it and the arrow falls down at his feet, knocking him out cold. That's it for the villains, Hawkeye wins. He goes back for Mockingbird, who thankfully survived the beating he just gave her in the soundproof room.

So after the villains are taken care off, Mockingbird suggest to Hawkeye that they could maybe hang out together, go out on a date or something. She doesn't realise Hawk's entirely deaf and the man is so stupidly proud that he doesn't tell her ("I couldn't stomach pity", he reflects) and just walks away. That's a pretty fantastic scene and it makes me laugh whenever I see it.

Thankfully for "Cockeye" here, Mockingbird is stubborn enough to try again and get the guy to admit he can't hear for crap. Things get better for Hawkeye's hearing and their relationship soon though, and we're treated to this epilogue where we see the pair chilling in a pink heart-shaped bathtub, sipping champagne with their pinkies out. This comicbook is really something else. I recommend getting it, cause no comicbooks nowadays, Marvel or otherwise, ever get close to the wonderful level of ridiculousness and fun Gruenwald achieved here.

Awwwww!

Tagged: comics, Back Issues.

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