Bookish Thoughts

The final installment in Matt Fraction's Hawkeye  arc provided a thrilling conclusion and as much closure as you can expect from what will probably be an ongoing story arc, even after Fraction moves on. Although it might have worked better if I had a better memory of the previous arcs. I'll probably need to go back and read the entire story at some point to appreciate it all. Which I hope to do this summer. This volume introduces Hawkeye's brother and reveals the ultimate plan of the tracksuit bros. I'm still a little unclear how it all ties together with Kate's adventures in LA, but it was nice to see her ride to the rescue just in time. There's a big shoot out and a siege in an apartment building. The good guys win, mostly, and everything is all right in the end. On a deeper level, there's a really great storyline in here about Hawkeye losing his hearing. Hawkeye is canonically (usually, not in the movies) deaf, so it was nice to see that come around h...

The third volume of Hawkeye backs up a bit to redo the last few pages of the last issue, which was largely free of dialogue, as it was shown from the point of view of Hawkeye's dog, Lucky. In the opening pages we get to see the argument between the two Hawkeyes, which ends with Kate Bishop storming out and continuing to storm all the way to LA, where he life promptly disintegrates. This volume collects the issues that chronicle Kate's time in LA, looking for a place to live and a job, battling her nemesis Madame Masque, and uncovering some truly horrific secrets. Watching her find her feet as she has to work for money for the first time in her life is a lot of fun. She makes some cool friends along the way, acquires a cat, and continually pisses off a detective. In the end, she heads back to New York to pull Clint Barton out of a tangle he likely doesn't know he's in. She's smarter and faster and more determined. The next volume is the conclusion to this comic r...

The second volume of Matt Fraction's Hawkeye run contains the much lauded Pizza Dog story, an issue told entirely from the point of view of Clint Barton's dog. But that episode comes last, and it's so much sadder than I expected it to be. The thing is, Barton is kind of a fuckup. He tries to do the right thing. He tries really hard. He's an avenger after all. But he has a tendency to get in over his head. And in this volume, some of his mistakes from the previous volume come back to haunt him. There's the gang he forcefully bought the apartment building from, to save the tenants' homes and the girl who he probably shouldn't have gotten involved with. Both show up again, bringing more trouble and leaving Barton with even more danger hanging over his head. Even worse is the slow disintegration of his relationship with Kate Bishop, the other Hawkeye. Their relationship seemed rock solid in the first volume, but in this one cracks start to app...

My only complaint about the first volume of the new Hawkeye series is that it doesn't contain the infamous Pizza Dog issue, which is half the reason I decided to start reading this series in the first place. The first volume contains the first five issues, which cover three stand-alone adventures followed by a two-part story. The point is to get a sense of who Clint Barton is when he's not being an Avenger, so the stories are pretty low-key. Barton isn't super-powered like the rest of the Avengers, he's just a regular guy trying to do his best. His adventures have less to do with saving the world and more to do with helping his neighbors fight an eviction. Barton is something of a modern day Robin Hood. He's got a ton of money, enough that he doesn't have to worry about it. But he lives in a low-rent apartment, using the money to help others instead. Or pay his hospital bills, because without any super powers his choices land him in the hospita...