Hawkeye Annual #1 – Review

By: Matt Fraction (story), Javier Pulido (art), Matt Hollingsworth (colors)

The Story: California, here she comes!  And she’s brought her exploding arrows with her.

The Review: Would it be shocking for me to say that as much as I enjoy, even love, Hawkeye, I still find all the gushing acclaim a touch excessive.  It’s certainly a fun title with plenty of smarts and ambition behind it.  Fraction’s dialogue is always consistently entertaining.  Yet I think you’ll agree with me that the plot has been rather vague and mostly meandering.  Even now, you’re a little hard-pressed to explain what the series is actually about.

For example, it’s a bit lost on you what Clint has done this time that’s got Kate once again all up in arms.  “You can’t just bail when it gets hard,” she fumes.  But bailing from what, exactly?  If it’s because of what happened to Grills, that makes sense, but that doesn’t come through in the exchange.  The two Hawkeyes are much more interested in tangential repartee than actually responding to each other.  “Go to hell,” she tells him after he shrugs off her rant.

“Seriously, that’s my quiver,” he replies.

Maybe Fraction lets these details slip because the specifics are irrelevant to the annual.  His goal is simply to give Kate a good reason to part ways from her “mentor” and do something as drastic as hightail herself and Lucky to L.A.  In that case, he could easily have done away with the already done Kate-gets-pissed-at-Clint routine and accomplished the same thing.  Besides the sheer dullness of debutante life, the tensions between her, her dad, and especially her dad’s young wife are overwhelming enough to make most people want to flee.  “You’re three years older than me,” says Kate exasperatedly in the face of her step-mother’s obliviousness.  “We were literally in school together, Heather.”

Heather, however, just doesn’t get it.  “That was a nice time.  Diazepam?”*

Obviously, Kate has a strong judgmental streak to her, which is part of her appeal.  And that’s the only part where her Hollywood re-encounter with Madame Masque falls flat.  It’s really weird to see Kate act “goon-y” around a person when most of the time, she looks like she can’t be bothered with anyone.  “[E]verybody sucks but me” is a pretty accurate description of her general attitude.  So the idea that Kate can be so taken with the unmasked Masque definitely feels irrationally out of character.  What’s the attraction?  Because of how pretty (or “striking,” as Kate gushes) the older woman is?

Kate’s unreasonable worship is soon redeemed by her quick realization of the person who’s taken the young hero under her wing, leading to a merry charade to see which woman can put on the other best.  All that internal monologuing she goes through proves something you’ve suspected for quite a while: that Kate’s most compatible, challenging, and entertaining partner is herself.  As she wonders whom to contact about her predicament, she muses, “—do the Avengers have an app?  They should.  I should make it.  That’s a million dollar idea, Kate.  Wait, you’re gonna charge the Avengers to use an app that draws from their own database–  That’s dumb.  Think, Kate.”*

It’s a good thing that Kate enjoys her own company so much, as she’ll be spending a lot of time with herself by the time the annual concludes.  Fraction ends the issue on the perfect note.  Kate may be down on her luck, but true to the philosophy she keeps spouting to her ex-partner, she takes her challenges in stride and places complete confidence in her own competence.  You have no doubt she’ll be fine, and considering her age, this means there’s hope for the next generation of Avengers yet.

I was excited to see Pulido on art credits for this issue, particularly since he was a favorite artist of mine from last year.  Unfortunately, for whatever reason, his work here is far less striking than what I saw in his work on The Shade or his last bout with Hawkeye.  He’s never been much of an action-driven artist, but the fight and chase sequences look more wooden than usual—and so much of it purposely obscured by shadows.  It’s a stylistic choice, obviously, but one that works against the issue.  In contrast, all those captions with chibi-Kate’s reactions in the corners (I love her bulging “Holy crap—holy crap—” eyes) look gimmicky, but actually help to make her long, rambling monologues even more interesting.

Conclusion: It’s Kate Bishop taking a solo road trip to Hollywood.  How can that not be guaranteed entertainment?  Too bad it’s not quite as fully realized as it could be.

Grade: B+

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: * Diazepam, for those who aren’t prescription drug addictions like myself—I have a lot of pain—was once upon a time known as Valium, used to treat anxiety disorders, alcohol withdrawal symptoms, and muscle spasms.  So it’s perfect for me, in other words.

* Kate’s inner voice is fun, but her outer voice is even funner.  She checks into her hotel as, “Ivana Dancealot.  Und I am here for ze dringks and ze poolboys in der hammocks of ba-nah-nah.”

– Major respect points to anyone who can identify which comic that obviously Kirby-inspired pop-art panel in the living room of Kate’s house is.