Avengers: Hawkeye (Marvel Premiere Classic)

Reprints Hawkeye (1983) 1-4, Tales Of Suspense #57, Marvel Super Action #1, Avengers #189 and Marvel Team-Up #95.

Written by Mark Gruenwald, Stan Lee, Mike Friedrich, Steven Grant & David Michelinie & Roger Stern.
Penciled by Mark Gruenwald, Don Heck, George Evans, John Byrne & Jimmy Janes.
Inked by Brett Breeding, Danny Bulanadi, Don Heck, Frank Springer, Dan Green & Bruce Patterson.

A note to readers:
I started this blog last September, shortly before some craziness entered my "offline" life. I've intended to restart this blog (that was barely started!) for a while. But the new Avengers movie will be released this May, so I thought this would be a great time to post reviews of Bronze Age Avengers stories (and "solo" stories that feature heroes who appear in the film) that have been reprinted as hardcovers or trade paperbacks. Hawkeye leads off!:

Hawkeye, the World's Greatest Archer (AKA Clint Barton) is enjoying life. He has a well-paid job as head of security at Cross Technological Enterprises (CTE) and is in a relationship with Sheila Danning, head of Public Relations for CTE. Clint has made peace with the fact that he's no longer an Avenger.

Alternate cover

One night, Hawkeye is called to investigate a burglary at a warehouse owned by CTE. When he gets there, Barton finds the Mockingbird, a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent turned costumed crime fighter. He attacks her, only to learn that she isn't a criminal. Mockingbird's break-in was part of an investigation into CTE's criminal activities! Hawkeye joins Mockingbird in battling CTE, but it costs him his job and his apartment (which gets blown up!). Clint Barton's life has been turned upside down!

Hawkeye and Mockingbird's investigation of CTE leads them into conflict with Oddball and Bombshell, a duo of evil jugglers, as well as the criminal mastermind known as Crossfire. If Hawkeye and Mockingbird fail to thwart the plans of CTE, all superheroes on Earth could be killed! In the meantime, Hawkeye and Mockingbird turn out to be a pretty good crime-fighting team.

Plus:

We get earlier adventures of Hawkeye and Mockingbird!

Before she became Mockingbird, Bobbi Morse briefly fought crime as the Huntress. She tries to take down a drug kingpin in her only adventure in her Huntress costume.

We see how Hawkeye got the job as Chief Of Security for CTE and his battle with a "mystery" villain, one who normally battles the X-men.

Hawkeye is hired by CTE in Avengers #189

Last but not least, Spider-Man teams with Mockingbird (in her first appearance in the 'bird suit). The heroes battle with agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.!

Review:

I'll mention up front that the content of this hardcover is pretty good, but I'm not crazy about the presentation of the stories. It opens with the reprint of Hawkeye's limited series, then jumps back in time 19 years (before the Bronze Age of Comics) to Hawkeye's first ever appearance where he served as an adversary of Iron Man. The stories that follow are in order of publication. But wouldn't it have made more sense to start with the first Hawkeye story, so we could see some maturation of Clint Barton? A minor quibble. Otherwise, I like the book.

Story:

The limited series is a good introduction to Hawkeye.  It's not a great story, as villains like Oddball and Bombshell aren't the most interesting characters. But Mark Gruenwald's script keeps things entertaining. The development of Hawkeye & Mockingbird's relationship feels natural, not at all forced.

The other stories are good supplements to the limited series, especially the reprint of Avengers #189 (where Hawkeye first goes to work for CTE) and Marvel Team-Up #95 (the first Mockingbird story).

Art:
The bulk of the art is handled by Gruenwald, best known as a writer and editor.  His pencils look good, with decent inking by Brett Breeding and Danny Bulanadi. The black and white piece that features the Huntress has some good art from old-schoolers George Evans and Frank Springer. John Byrne (at the height of his powers) provides the best art in the book (in the story from Avengers #189) and Dan Green's inks always worked well with Byrne's pencils.

Extras:
Hawkeye's aformentioned first appearance, in Tales Of Suspense #57 is reprinted (this story also features an early appearance of the Black Widow, when she was a Soviet spy). It's not a bad addition to the Bronze Age stories, but I wonder why we didn't get the Hawkeye story from Marvel Fanfare #3 (which was reprinted here) instead. That story actually takes place at CTE, and is even referenced in the limited series.

On a positive note, the book also reprints Hawkeye and Mockingbird's entries from The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. In addition to the characters' histories, it provides a nice technical rundown of the different types of arrows Hawkeye uses and the mechanics of Mockingbird's Battle Staves .

How does it look?
The reprinted pages look great. There's a scan above and here's another one:

Hawkeye pursues Oddball

Avengers: Hawkeye is a collection of good stories put together in a nice hardcover book. None of the stories are classics by themselves, but when you add them all together, they make the book a worthy addition to the library of any Bronze Age fan.

My rating:



.5

3 and a half Sals!