By: Matt Fraction (story), David Aja (art), Matt Hollingsworth (colors)
The Story: Rest in peace, Grills. You were a grill great guy.
The Review: If Hawkeye has a flaw—which may seem like blasphemy to some people, I understand—it probably lies with Fraction’s errant storytelling. The last arc, if you can call it that, has made major time jumps from issue to issue, often leaving one plot thread unresolved as it moves on to the next. We’ve gotten some strong individual issues out of that, but there’s an absence of cohesiveness which makes serial investment in the title worth it.
You’ve never doubted for a moment that Fraction would tie things together eventually, however, and this issue does exactly like that, quite literally filling in all the gaps between Grills’ death, Kate’s departure, and Barney’s arrival. Amazingly enough, despite the jumble of different scenes Fraction has to cover, he manages to maintain a logical and efficient narrative flow. Since the earlier issues already got most of the substance out of the way, the story can move freely from beat to beat without slowing down for some necessary exposition or action. The man has a plan, after all.
The flipside is with most of the big events already done and over with, we’re largely left with a lot of reaction scenes, which means Clint at his most bewildered, irritated, and helpless—in other words, at his most human. That’s been the most outstanding quality we’ve seen from our hero in this series, and it’s the reason why he resonates so deeply with his readers. As he awkwardly reaches out to his ex-girlfriend and fails, as he suffers backlash for an ill-timed joke, as he wordlessly embraces his dead friend’s grieving father, his comic book nature succumbs to the living, breathing person at his heart.
There’s one point which everyone in the issue kind of dances around, which is Clint’s responsibility for Grills’ death. Even though he acknowledges it directly (“They did this because of me, Kate.”) and New York’s finest all but accuse him of an indirect part in the murder (“Why would anybody prowl a building like this? Unless there’s another reason for violent people with guns to snoop around.”), no one else even mentions it. I don’t know if I find this weird or refreshing or what. As tiresome as I find the old conflict about a hero bringing trouble to his loved ones, it still feels bizarre that Clint’s tenants, at least, don’t have some qualms about remaining in a building where they may be killed just for their connection to their landlord, much less welcome their landlord’s brother “to the family.”
Speaking of which, Barney’s timing couldn’t be better. Now that Clint no longer has a girlfriend, a sidekick, or a dog, he could really use a steady source of support, and it looks like Barney will have to do. Given the brothers’ history with each other, you can’t rule out the possibility of another nasty split down the line, but I’d encourage Fraction to keep them on good terms for as long as possible. It’ll be fun to see if Clint and Barton can help each other grow, or if each will just wind up enabling the other’s bad habits.
Fraction had better thank his lucky stars every time he puts out another issue with Aja, because I really don’t know how he could deliver the output he does with each issue without Aja’s incredibly effective, miniature style. At 20 pages of 9 equally-sized panels each, that’s 180 panels, friends. Even more extraordinary is how each panel is drawn with the same attentive precision Aja brings to everything he does. By far his best feature is the range of expression he can convey in those tiny faces. Just watch Barney standing by as his brother introduces him to the other tenants; see how his face goes from wariness, to a kind of shame, to hopefulness. It’s a beautiful, natural transition which makes him as endearing as Clint.
Conclusion: It’s a testament to Fraction and Aja that even with an issue that’s mostly bridging the spaces between prior events, it still feels substantial and moving.
Grade: A-
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – If Grills’ dad is talking about the hot dogs when he says, “Sometimes they just have a mind of their own,” I totally agree. Can never consistently get those wieners to come off the grill perfect.
Grade
Conclusion