Alternative versions of Hawkeye

Alternate versions of Hawkeye
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Tales of Suspense #57 (September 1964)
Created by	Stan Lee Don Heck

Hawkeye (Clint Barton; also known as Goliath and Ronin) is a comic book superhero that appears in Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Don Heck, the character first appeared as a villain in Tales of Suspense #57 (Sept. 1964) and later joined the Avengers in Avengers #16 (May 1965), and has been a prominent member of the team ever since. In addition to the mainstream Marvel Universe (designated Earth-616) version of the character, Hawkeye has numerous alternative versions throughout the Marvel Comics multiverse.

Age of Apocalypse

In the Age of Apocalypse timeline, Hawkeye relocated to Europe and was a pilot for the Human High Council, piloting Tony Stark when he went to collect Don Blake after a mission in Wakanda.

Amalgam Comics

Hawkeye and the DC Comics archer Green Arrow were combined into two different characters in the Amalgam Comics universe. One of which is an archer named Hawkeye who is Clint Archer, a man who developed his extraordinary archery skills through ardent study at a monastery in Tibet. His skills are strong enough to have him become a member of the Judgment League Avengers. Despite being named Clint, having the superhero alias Hawkeye as well as the costume, and being a master archer, his mask and costume colors are from Green Arrow, and his Tibetan monastery origins are similar to that of the Connor Hawke version.

Oliver Queen in the Amalgam universe is Goliath (Clint's second superhero identity), who was aided in the development of his growth serum by Hank Pym. The two of them are also in a love triangle with their fellow Judgment League Avenger, Canary (a combination of DC Comics' Black Canary and Marvel's Mockingbird, the respective love interests of the two archers in their main universes), whose name is Dinah Barton.^[1]

All-New Hawkeye

The recent run of the All-New Hawkeye series featured Clint and Kate give up Project Communion (Inhuman orphans with powerful and dangerous psyonic abilities) to Hydra after failing to protect them. An alternate future is shown where Clint and Kate split up for twenty years. An older Clint has retired from heroics and just spends time with his new dog, Lucky 2, until the middle aged Kate arrives and forces Clint to help with a mission. Kate at this point has made an entire organization stemmed from the Hawkeye name, and is generally recognized as the Hawkeye by other heroes and villains due to Clint's absence. She and Clint attempt to rescue the Project Communion children from the Mandarin and Maria Hill while utilizing Kate's connections to other superheroes like Marvel Boy and Captain America Chavez. However, Hill has them cornered and kills one of the subjects, leading them to regret splitting up twenty years ago. This future was averted in the main story as they successfully rescued the children in the past. The older Hawkeye still uses hearing aids, and objects to Kate's suggestion of wearing Pym-Plants due to his experience with Ultron.^[2]

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Hawkeye's film counterpart portrayed by Jeremy Renner carries a lot of elements of his Ultimate counterpart in both his costume and certain aspects of his background, such as the fact that he was a normal human being "with a high skill set"^[3] and had a family. He is married to a woman named Laura and has three children. They live on a largely self-sustained farm off the grid and off S.H.I.E.L.D. records, as part of an arrangement by Nick Fury to keep Laura and the children safe.

Barton grew up on a farm and eventually became an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and on one mission was assigned to assassinate Natasha Romanoff, but he refused to kill her and instead brought her into S.H.I.E.L.D. where she became one of his best friends and field partners, with the two going on many missions in Budapest, Abidjan, and other locations. According to S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel records, the duo were members of S.T.R.I.K.E. and designated "Team Delta". Unlike her Ultimates counterpart, Romanoff is close to the Bartons and the children call her "Aunty Nat". Barton's full personal background in the MCU is generally unknown or ambiguous as he was not subjected to the visions and dreams induced by Scarlet Witch like the other Avengers were in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

He was first introduced with an uncredited cameo appearance in Thor, where he was sent to New Mexico after Thor's hammer was discovered and assigned as the marksman to take out the Asgardian as the latter taking down S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. In The Avengers, he led the protection detail assigned to guard the Tesseract and Erik Selvig's team of scientists. He and most of his men were brainwashed by Loki into doing his bidding until Black Widow hits him in the head and frees him from Loki's control. Determined to get revenge on Loki and avenge the deaths of Coulson and other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, he joins Tony Stark, Steve Rogers and Romanoff and hold their own against Loki's Chitauri army before Bruce Banner and Thor arrive. Hawkeye served as their "eye in the sky" and shot an exploding arrow at Loki, incapacitating him long enough to be captured. After Loki is repatriated to Asgard, the six become part the "Avengers Initiative" started by Coulson.

Between the films, Hawkeye questioned his role on the team in the tie-in comic Avengers: Operation Hydra, but was reassured after he managed to rescue the Avengers from Hydra Scientist Dr. Jensen.^[4]

In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Hawkeye contributed on the attack on the HYDRA base but was distracted by metahuman Quicksilver. He is wounded in the fight and Tony Stark calls in a favor from his friend Helen Cho, who uses a machine to regenerate tissue and accelerate healing. During the confrontation with Ultron and the Maximoff twins in South Africa, Hawkeye is the only Avenger not to fall victim to Scarlet Witch's hypnosis as he incapacitated her with an electric arrow before she could use her powers on him, quipping that he was "not a fan" of "the whole mind control thing", referencing his experience in The Avengers. Due to Ultron and the Scarlet Witch's manipulations, the team falls into disarray, which ended with the Hulk and Iron Man fighting in full view of the civilian population. Hawkeye takes the team to his farm for safe haven and introduces them to his family as they regroup and lay low. In Sokovia the team are joined by the Maximoffs, who have turned against Ultron, and Hawkeye reassures an overwhelmed Scarlet Witch into using her powers to fight alongside the Avengers. When trying to save a boy from Ultron's quinjet, he is rescued by Quicksilver, who died in the process. After the battle he quits the Avengers to return home to his family and his second son is born not long after. He named his son Nathaniel Pietro Barton after Natasha Romanoff and Quicksilver.

In Captain America: Civil War, Barton is called out of retirement by Captain America to aid him in the Sokovia Accords conflict. He helps Scarlet Witch escape from Vision and recruits Ant-Man (Scott Lang) to join Captain America. He is forced to fight against Romanoff, who sided with Stark. After the two sides fight, he is captured along with most of Captain America's team and imprisoned in the Raft, where they are later rescued by Captain America himself.^[5]

Marvel Mangaverse

Hawkeye appears as a member of the Avengers. He is said to as an expert marksman and wears something similar to his new costume and to the Ultimate incarnation's. When Doctor Doom attacked an international conference Doom kills Hawkeye off panel and he is seen with half of him blown off. Captain America and the Vision were also killed.

Marvel Zombies

In Marvel Zombies Hawkeye was one of the first heroes zombified by Sentry, and goes on a rampage with the other zombified Avengers. During the fight against Magneto, he manages to hit him with an arrow, but Magneto decapitates Clint's head with Colonel America's shield. 40 years later his head is discovered by T'Challa's grandson and given the Wasp's robotic body as it appears his hunger has diminished. He is killed by a rampaging Hulk and given a funeral with the other fallen heroes.^[6]

MC2

In the MC2 universe, Hawkeye is retired due to his blindness, but he continues to serve as a combat trainer for new heroes.^[7]

Old Man Logan

Set fifty years in the future, an old and blind Hawkeye hires Logan to help him deliver a secret package to New Babylon. He's had three ex-wives, the third of which was Peter Parker's daughter, Tonya. He had a daughter with her named Ashley, who would go on to become this universe's Spider-Woman. As it turns out Clint was delivering a batch of Super Soldier Serums to a supposed underground league planning to form a group similar to the Avengers, but it turns out it was a set up which results in Clint's death.^[8]

Queen's Vengeance

In one Avengers storyline, Morgan Le Fay caused a reality distortion wave that set the time period in a medieval setting and the Avengers to be brainwashed into an elite guard known as the Queen's Vengeance, who protected Morgan. Hawkeye was renamed Longbow and his design is an amalgam of his classic costume and a medieval hooded, bearded archer (bearing a strong resemblance to Robin Hood). He was the second Avenger to break free from the illusion with interference from the first one, Captain America, who ambushed Clint because Clint's strong feelings towards the Avengers was enough to break him free from Morgan's curse.^[9]

Secret Wars

-In Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, Hawkeye is the leader of the resistance in S.H.I.E.L.D. to stop Regent's rule. He was one of the few survivors of Regent's onslaught, but lost his eye in the process (giving him two similarities with Nick Fury). He has a grudge against Spider-Man for not choosing to aid the Avengers in their time of need (as Spider-Man was more concerned with saving his family). In the final battle against Regent, he tries shooting an arrow at Regent with an inhibitor chip to disable most of his powers but Regent inherited Peter's Spider Sense and stopped it. He gave the arrowhead to Annie Parker before she went to save her father, and thanked the Parker family as he and the rest of the heroes arrested Regent.^[10]

-In the Secret Wars version of House of M, Hawkeye is one of the remaining humans that is being hunted down by the mutants and Sentinels with Black Cat and Misty Knight. They attempt to assassinate King Magnus and Hawkeye uses a specialized arrow to disrupt Magnus' magnetic powers. However they are forced to work with Magnus when Quicksilver and Namor take over the throne, and despite Magnus reclaiming his powers and title, he chooses to spare the resistance for their help.^[11]

-In Civil War, Clint is now the new version of Venom and is on Captain America's side. He is part of Peter Parker's strike team to obtain something for Beast's machine, and defeats King Ock- a brain-dead Kingpin who killed Doctor Octopus and stole his tentacles- using the club of the deceased Elektra.^[12]

-A 2099 version of Hawkeye appears as part of Alchemax's Avengers team in Secret Wars 2099. His name is Max and his DNA was mixed with a hawk, giving him claws and wings.^[13]

Ultimate Marvel

The Ultimate Marvel imprint title the Ultimates features a version of Hawkeye who uses a cover story of being a former Olympic archer to hide his conviction of an unexplained murder charge when he was recruited by Nick Fury into the Ultimates program, a government sponsored program made up of humans with extraordinary abilities and super-human operatives. During his time with the Ultimates, most, if not all, of his missions were of the Black Ops variety in which he partnered with the Black Widow, who turned out to be a traitor to the group and killed Barton's wife and children.

Seeking revenge, Hawkeye tracked down the Black Widow, passing herself off as a wounded civilian after the invasion, and executed her.^[14] As addressed in "Ultimates 3", it was shown that the events during the invasion left him brooding and emotionally devastated, seeming almost to have a "death wish," and his brash, morally ambiguous and borderline sadomasochistic behavior became even more of an issue.

While Hawkeye is traditionally just a normal human trained to a high level of skill, Ultimate Hawkeye was altered via some type of experimental optical surgery. His superhuman accuracy also extends beyond archery, to anything he can throw like 616 Bullseye. Whether or not his teammates know of his augmentations is unknown, with the exception of Nick Fury, who has confirmed his knowledge, but it would appear that, in Hawkeye's favor, they remain unaware of his full abilities.^[15] It has also been remarked that before the "Ultimate Hawkeye" miniseries, he claimed to need to wear corrective goggles to see properly, but it appears that that too may have been a ruse.

The film version of Hawkeye borrowed many aspects of this character, such as the costume and family.

What if? Dark Reign

In What if? Dark Reign #1, Clint Barton succeeds in killing Norman Osborn. The superhero community then hunts him down for his crimes, while the public and the government turn completely against superheroes. While Mockingbird gives him what he needs to escape, he ends up being shot and killed by a mentally unstable man who wants to prove a point against superheroes, leaving Victoria Hand completely in charge of HAMMER.^[16]

X-Men Forever

Hawkeye was a member of the Avengers when they went after the X-Men in response to accusations that they had been involved in the deaths of Tony Stark and Beast, nearly being killed by Sabretooth before Shadowcat convinced him to spare the archer. He subsequently witnessed the destruction of Avengers Mansion and the apparent death of the Avengers.^[17]

References

1. JLX #1
2. All-New Hawkeye (series)
3. Adamek, Pauline (January–February 2012). "Avengers Assemble!". Filmink. FKP International Exports: 70–75.
4. Avengers: Operation HYDRA #3
5. Whitbrook, James. "Captain America and Iron Man's Civil War Teams Revealed". io9.com.
6. Marvel Zombies (series)
7. Last Hero Standing #2
8. Old Man Logan
9. Avengers Vol 3. #2
10. Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows Vol. 1
11. House of M Vol 2.
12. Secret Wars: Civil War #3
13. Secret Wars 2099 #1
14. Ultimates 2 #6
15. Mark Millar (w), Bryan Hitch (p), Ultimates #7 (September 2002), New York, NY: Marvel Comics
16. What if? Dark Reign #1
17. X-Men Forever: Giant-Size Annual #1

6.Marvel Mangaverse #5