Hawkeye: Rio Bravo, Matt Fraction, David Aja

I know that everyone thinks Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye run has been the best thing since sliced bread, and I wish I could feel it too. I can see objectively that it’s good — I like Aja’s art, I like the inclusion of Kate Bishop as Hawkeye, I like that Clint’s a doofus and I love the experimental storytelling like the issue from Pizza-Dog’s point of view and showing Clint’s sign language. Hell, I love the inclusion of Clint’s brother, the way Fraction re-introduces Clint’s deafness (which I think was originally a story in the 70s?).

But somehow it just doesn’t quite come together for me — possibly because there’s a lot of visual storytelling, and I am a dunce when it comes to visual skills. I can’t even imagine rotating a simple shape, or picture someone’s face in my non-existent mind’s eye, so even if I spoke American Sign Language (which I don’t and wouldn’t, since when I learn it I’ll learn British Sign Language) I wouldn’t be able to read Clint’s signs, and… the dialogue in a comic really helps to orientate me.

I still think this run on Hawkeye is fun, but I just don’t appreciate it in the way other people do, and I’m sure there are awesome parts I’m not even appreciating. I suppose that’s, in part, why I’m an unlikely comics fan. Still, I get some enjoyment out of it, and I do see why this run has been so popular!

Rating: 3/5 

Hawkeye: L.A. Woman, Matt Fraction, Annie Wu, Javier Pulido

This volume of Hawkeye collects a bunch of issues about the younger, cuter Hawkeye, Kate Bishop. What I kinda don’t get is how much like Clint she acts — she’s not the serious, dedicated leader of the Young Avengers here at all (and she doesn’t once that I can think of contact any of her team). The volume is mostly made up of new characters, aside from Kate and the antagonist, Madame Masque.

It’s fun, and the art is okay — I don’t like it as much as Aja’s — but I like Kate Bishop self-assured and telling Noh-Varr he’s a jerk, or helping Billy and Teddy save the world with love. We don’t get to see the Young Avengers off-duty like this much, which I guess is the format of these Hawkeye comics, but… I don’t know. And I half-expected her to come out with lines from Fraction’s Sex Criminals series: “This fucking guy”, etc.

She does still kick ass, but she also gets her ass kicked a lot, and often due to naivety and inexperience. Which is great, but, uh, the Young Avengers have taken down some pretty big threats, actually. Girl knows what she’s doing — and she has a support network other than Clint and her dad. A phone call to Billy or Teddy would’ve gone down well, Tommy could have been at her side in literally seconds, and America Chavez would gleefully have stomped Madame Masque’s faces. David could probably have set her up with a database, never mind files, if she’s gonna be a PI. Like, with Clint you can get him not asking for backup, because he’s a dummy. Kate isn’t. I’d at least have liked to see her think about calling her team, especially when she believes people are dying.

I don’t know, I guess one superhero being a dummy is kind of funny. Two is apparently overkill for me. Did like the gay couple who help her, though.

Rating: 2/5

Hawkeye: Little Hits, Matt Fraction, David Aja, Matt Hollingsworth, Chris Eliopoulous

Clint Barton continues to be a trainwreck in everyday life. And Kate Bishop continues to care about him even though he’s really kind of a loser in many ways. And Clint has a really great dog. That pretty much sums up book two. And the whole run could probably summed up with, “Clint Barton makes poor life choices.”

I’m not 100% into this comic, but I do enjoy it, and Fraction and Aja are certainly very creative, funny, and willing to take risks. Sometimes I find that their style of storytelling doesn’t work for me — I’m not a visual person, so the 95% visuals issue “Pizza Is My Business” was difficult for me, and that’s not the only time they rely on very visual storytelling. So I think my reaction is a pretty idiosyncratic one; it’s a bit weird that I’m even into comics, since visual storytelling is hard for me, and the best comics really make use of that in combination with the words, instead of illustrating the words.

Still, reading it again helped somewhat with comprehension, and I’ll keep that in mind as I get onto LA Woman and Rio Bravo.

Rating: 3/5

Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon, Matt Fraction, David Aja, Javier Pulido, Alan Davis

Reread this ’cause I couldn’t remember much about it, and I have volume three to read now and volume four to read as soon as they stop procrastinating and actually bring it out. I love the consistency of most of the art in this series, which suits the tone perfectly, though it makes the included bit from Young Avengers Presents look particularly out of place (and man, had I ever forgotten that Tommy’s crush on Kate was obvious even there).

This is a pretty relaxed comic. It’s not really about the superhero, Hawkeye, one of the Avengers; it’s about Clint Barton and Kate Bishop and all the trouble they can get into when they don’t have their teams backing them up. It’s about Clint being a dummy and Kate being really awesome and all the weird and wonderful arrows Clint has, some of which I’m sure refer to other comics (that you don’t have to know about it to make it funny). I love the generally irreverent tone of this: however much I adore Steve Rogers, and however much of a snarky little shit he can be, Clint Barton’s something else when it comes to doing stupid stuff and being an idiot about it.

Still not my favourite comic ever (hello, Captain Marvel) but pretty awesome all the same.

Rating: 4/5

The Invincible Iron Man: Demon, Matt Fraction, Salvador Laracca

This, for me, was one of those volumes which proves you don’t always have to keep up with every bit of every storyline to still enjoy parts of the larger arc. It was also the first time I really got enthused about Matt Fraction’s storytelling: I need to reread the Hawkeye books now that I’m more invested in the character, since it was sort of inevitable that I didn’t get on too well with his work on Thor — I’m not that big a fan of Thor (sorry honey). But when he’s working on Iron Man, well, Tony Stark’s got himself attached to my heartstrings somehow, and goodness does Fraction know how to work that.

Most of the book revolves around fallout from the Fear Itself event, which I only know a little about. I don’t know exactly what happened when Tony fell off the wagon, or why Pepper’s in disgrace over Rescue and something to do with her crying. I only know a little bit about Cabe and the various villains up against Tony. What I know about the main players is mostly based on the cinematic universe.

And yet. I still care passionately about Tony and his struggle with alcoholism, about his battle of wits with the Mandarin, about what’s happening with him and Rhodey and the struggle with the government to control Iron Man. (I was surprised there weren’t more laughs milked out of it when Tony ended up naked in battle.)

One or two things drove me a little nuts, like why would Tony voluntarily install the limiter? Without dismantling it first and checking if it is everything they say? If he did, how did they take him by surprise and make it hard for him to remove? Why didn’t he see that coming? Or was everything that happened in that battle planned?

I think it’ll take the next TPB or so to find out the answers to all my questions, but in a way, this was satisfying on its own in the sense that I jumped in, got captured by the story, had my heartstrings yanked, and enjoyed the experience without needing to know all the context.

Rating: 4/5

The Mighty Thor: The Galactus Seed, Matt Fraction, Olivier Coipel

I’ve never been quite as fond of Fraction’s work as others seem to be, but given his reputation I’m willing to keep trying. The Mighty Thor is okay; there are some fun moments, and it does feature kid!Loki, who is probably the most interesting character in the comic. That whole refresh of Loki’s character remains interesting to me because it plays with all sorts of stuff, bringing back the ambiguity of his character from the original legends rather than any straightforward comicbook villain stuff. (Some people don’t like that because it seems to be part of the woobification of Loki prompted by Hiddleston fans, but I see it there in the source material.)

Otherwise, the Galactus/Silver Surfer stuff seemed fairly routine — I knew how it’d go from playing Lego Marvel Superheroes, y’know? It’s not like there’s any real danger of Galactus being allowed to eat Earth.

Rating: 2/5