Hawkeye: A television program: A review by Warren Bull

 

Image from Wikkimedia

Hawkeye, the Television Program: A Review by Warren Bull

 

(This blog has been re-published from Warren's 2022 blogs. We will continue to re-post his blogs until he is able to return to WWK.)

 

This miniseries created by Jonathan Igla is based on the characters from Marvel Comics. Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld, Tony Dalton and Vera Farmiga star in this production. If you are not acquainted with Marvel Comic book heroes, you may not know that Hawkeye, also known as Clint Barton, is a member of a group of superheroes called The Avengers. Among the group he is unique in a number of ways. He does not have a technological suit of flying armor like Ironman. He was not physically enhanced by accident such as a bite from a radioactive spider (Spiderman) or exposure to gamma rays (The Hulk), or by plan such as injection with an unreproducible super-secret solution intended to produce a nearly invincible soldier (Captain America) or assassin (Black Widow.)  And he is definitely not a God (Thor.)

 

Hawkeye is a regular person who is in extraordinary physical shape who is an expert archer, martial artist, and swordsman. Hawkeye has a secret identity of sorts in that he has a wife and three children, which he keeps secret from the Avengers except from his friend Black Widow.

 

So, he is a superhero who is not super and his secret identity is that he is a husband and father. I find the twist on what makes someone “super” interesting.

 

The character is different in movies and in this television show than the character in the comics. The show has humorous inside references to the differences, for example in the comics he wears a purple costume that shows up from time to time in the series. When his wannabe sidekick in the series suggests he wear something like the costume, he rejects it. “I’m trying to stay in the shadows. My wife would divorce me if I wore something like that.”

 

One of the things I like about the series is its willingness to make fun of the comic characters. Hawkeye attends a Broadway musical based on the Avengers who have saved New York (a long and complicated story I will not go into), he turns his hearing aid off, and walks out. There are references to Mocking Jay, comic conventions, and adult roleplaying games. At one point he insists, “I am not a role model.” The series avoids taking the characters and the comic too seriously. 

 

Poor Clint Barton who is in New York to spend time with his children just before Christmas gets dragged into a gang war with an all-too-eager young women who has copied his skills and wants to be like the Hawkeye of legend.  Clint wants to clear up the mess and get home in time for Christmas.

 

The action is movie-like with remarkably poor shooting from the bad guys and gals and incredible escapes. The dialog is funnier if you get the movie references. I enjoy the skewed superhero approach. It is fun, lightweight material for when you have time to kill.