Hawkeye in Animation - A Retrospective

[RoyalRubble]

I started a retrospective on Green Arrow over on the DC forum (link), so I figured one for Hawkeye would be appropriate as well. This thread will chronicle all of Hawkeye's appearances in cartoons, both good and bad, since the 60s to today. Most of the images featured in this thread will appear courtesy of Marvel Animation Age, and I hope you all enjoy reading it! With a little luck, I might be able to finish this retrospective by the end of the year.

Hawkeye (real name Clint Barton) made his debut in the comic book Tales of Suspense #57 (from September 1964), and was created by writer Stan Lee and artist Don Heck. Initially depicted as a reluctant villain, clashing with Iron Man a couple of times, Clint would eventually join the Avengers and would remain a member of the team for years, throughout most of the team's line-ups. Over the years he has also been presented as a founding member of the West Coast Avengers, as well as a special SHIELD agent, usually paired with Black Widow. His main love interest though has been Bobbi Morse (codename Mockingbird), also a member of SHIELD. Throughout his career, Clint has had other code-names as well, most notably Goliath (a title he inherited from Henry Pym, the original Ant-Man). His interactions with pretty much every other member of the Avengers have been pretty entertaining over the years - he didn't really get along with any of his teammates, but with time he did grow closer to them and started respecting some of them (most notably Captain America, I guess).

Clint is an exceptional fencer, acrobat and a grandmaster marksman. As a child he was trained by the criminals Swordsman and Trick-Shot, and as an adult he has survived through Captain America's training in tactics, martial arts, and hand-to-hand combat. Hawkeye also carries a number of gadgets, his customized trick arrows which include arrows that shoot gas, nets, explosives, etc. but also sillier weapons such as boxing gloves. Please note that I won't be offering a complete checklist for how many arrow of each type Hawkeye has used in each of his many animated appearances. He's also usually seen riding around on his sky-cycle, which as the title implies is a flying mode of transportation. I've always liked Hawkeye - but I tend to like fictional archers in general (something I always thought it was because of my zodiac sign).

Hawkeye's first animated appearances were on the Marvel Super Heroes Show, which aired in syndication in 1966 and featured five of Marvel's superheroes starring in their own series each one consisting of 13 episodes (separated into three 7-minutes long segments). This show had very limited animation, and was composed almost entirely of actual comic book panels with a voice-over; basically an early version of today's motion-comics. He was present in both Iron Man and Captain America segments, and apparently had two voice actors throughout the show's run: Chris Wiggins and Paul Soles. Since I'm not an expert in identifying voice actors and the two voices sound pretty similar to me, I don't know when exactly the switch was made.

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His first animated adventure was on the Invincible Iron Man segment titled "Enter Hawkeye", which is basically the same as his first comic book appearance. After witnessing Iron Man in action at a carnival, Clint realized he could be just as good, if not better than the armored avenger. He made up a silly looking outfit (his classic purple outfit, and to be honest I like this costume a lot more than his current look in cartoons), and set out to fight crime on the streets with his bow and arrows. He soon encounters the Black Widow for the first time and falls in love with her; she tricks him into confronting Iron Man and stealing Tony Stark's tech for her (this was back when Natasha was a spy for the Soviet Union). His mission fails, and after Natasha is injured in one of his fights Clint quits being a villain and decides to be a "straight-shooter" from then on.

Without any real explanation, Hawkeye is next present in a couple of Captain America segments, as part of the Avengers (specifically, the "Kooky Quartet" era, alongside Cap, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver). Cap is usually in the spotlight (it's his segment after all), but the stories continue to be as faithful as possible to the comics. As such, Hawkeye briefly appears in "Let The Past Be Gone" (but long enough for the Super-Adaptoid to copy his skills), and in "The Sleeper Shall Awake" (where alongside the other Avengers listens to Cap's story about how he defeated the Red Skull, "20 years earlier"). He features more prominently (though still doesn't do anything spectacular) in the following episodes:

• "The Coming of the Swordsman", where we also get a neat short flashback to Clint's origin, depicting his training under the Swordsman until he realized his master was a thief and managed to escape. The story sees the Swordsman making a deal with the Mandarin, who upgrades the former's sword enabling it to shoot various energy beams; his mission is to infiltrate the Avengers and place a bomb inside their headquarters. Not wanting to harm Wanda the Scarlet Witch, Swordsman tries to disarm the device but the others thinking he is trying to sabotage their computers attack him. In the end everything is explained, and Swordsman claims that he'll return to join the Avengers when he is worthy.
• In "The Bitter Taste of Defeat", the Enchantress uses her spells to make the Avengers argue among themselves, and also creates illusions for them to fight to turn the city against them. Enchantress' partner here is super-villain Power Man (the original Erik Josten version, not the good guy Luke Cage). Her plan initially works, as the Avengers split up thanks to her magic tricks. Hawkeye is the first one who is captured by the villains, after Power Man defeats him in combat. In the end Cap tricks the villains into revealing their plan and recording their confession on a tape recorder - thus, acquiring the proof they needed to clear their names. The episode also features one of those rare instances where Clint argues that Cap is too old to lead the Avengers, and feels he should be the leader.
• In " When The Commisar Commands", the Kooky Quartet travels to the fictional country of Sin Cong, where they confront the giant, super-strong Commisar. Hawkeye gets to use some neat trick arrows this time (as well as a great line to Cap, after listening to his speech about freedom: "Hey Cap, did you take lessons on how to be a corn-ball, or does it come natural?"). None of his weapons are enough to defeat the Commisar though. After single-handedly beating all the heroes one by one, the villain is revealed to be an android controlled by a communist general, and Wanda is the one who manages to stop him by using her hex powers. A decent episode though a little boring to be honest.

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All in all, Hawkeye's first animated appearances were pretty good - the stories are more or less faithful adaptations of the classic comics, and I find them entertaining enough. I think it would have been nice if the show also adapted the story of how he joined the Avengers, but other than that I don't really have any complaints. Next: Hawkeye on Iron Man: The Animated Series!

 

[King_of_doom]

Thanks RoyalRubble on making a thread over Hawkeye and his appearances in animation and can't wait to see more on it.

 

[RoryWilliams]

I always felt hawkeye is still waiting to be done well in animation. Closest I guess is EMH but I hated his design there.

 

[King_of_doom]

Closest I guess is EMH but I hated his design there.

Really? Don't see bad on his design aside that they where close to his design from the comics, the ones i hate are from Avengers UTS and AA, just hate the Ultimate look so much....

 

[RoryWilliams]

I tend to hate his classic look quite a bit and trying to make him a SHIELD agent AND keep the stupid purple duds just highlighted to me how bad it looked. But then again I always felt the visuals in EMH were very lacking.

 

[RoyalRubble]

It would take Hawkeye nearly 30 years to star in an animated series again. Was it worth the wait? Well, not exactly. A new Iron Man animated series started airing in 1994, paired with a new Fantastic Four animated series airing in syndication inside a block named The Marvel Action Hour. The stories were more or less faithful to the comics but the character designs and animations were pretty bad, making the first seasons of both these shows hard to sit through. Hawkeye (voiced by John Reilly) was one of Iron Man's teammates, in the so-called Force Works, alongside other heroes such as War Machine, Spider-Woman, Scarlet Witch and Century. Unfortunately due to the nature of mostly stand-alone stories, as well as the large number of characters, not one of them was actually developed, or especially entertaining during this season. They were just.. there, present in every episode and there wasn't even an attempt at developing their characters or explaining who they are. (I'd say most of the recent Marvel toons are also somewhat guilty of this).

The basic plot of pretty much every episode in the first season was that the Mandarin (and his army of minions, composed of MODOK, Dreadknight, Blizzard, Blacklash, Grey Gargoyle, Hypnotia, Whirlwind, Living Laser and sometimes Fin Fang Foom - more under-developed characters, yay!) would come up with some ridiculous plans to try and steal Tony Stark's tech, which he believes would help him rule the world. Every single time he's defeated by Iron Man and his team, and everytime he starts suspecting Iron Man's real identity (this was back in the "good ol' days" when Iron Man still had a secret identity), something silly would come up to convince him he was wrong. As you can imagine, if you haven't seen these episodes before, you're not missing much. To make matters worse, the character designs for most of the characters seen here aren't that appealing either.

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Since Hawkeye was featured in every story this season, I'll just comment on his most notable appearances... which to be honest aren't that many. Not even the one episode that actually puts Clint in the spotlight (sort of) doesn't exactly add anything to his character. In "The Defection of Hawkeye", the Mandarin uses Hypnotia to hypnotize Hawkeye in order to frame him and turn all the other heroes against him. After carefully examining recordings of Clint's previous adventures, Iron Man arrives to the conclusion that he is in fact a traitor. He'll change his mind by the end of the episode in a rushed, unconvincing way which takes away pretty much all the tension seen in this story, which wasn't much, or that well written anyway. There's a neat mention that Rhodey is the one who brought Clint on the team, but that's about it. Apologies if you were expecting a longer review, but there's just not much to talk about this lackluster first season.

Thankfully, the second season of this Iron Man animated series premiered in fall of 1995 and just about everything about it was better than the first season. It was especially nice seeing characters that have been presented rather poorly in the first 13 episodes get some well deserved character development and actually become more interesting (most notable War Machine, I'd say). The season premiere, "The Beast Within" offered us a lot of stuff in a single episode; both a pretty great story, as well as setting the stage for most of the following episodes. After Tony Stark fakes his death (and even more rude, he didn't trust his teammates to tell them the truth), the Force Works officially disbands - Julia (Spider-Woman) and Rhodey stay with Tony, but the others go their separate ways. This really helped the show; having that many characters in the same place was just one of the problems the first season suffered from. While the other heroes would return in the series finale, Hawkeye did pop up occasionally on the show, and the tensions between him and Iron Man would lead to some pretty awesome moments.

Hawkeye returns in the episode "Iron Man, On The Inside", where he is injured during a fight with a revived Ultimo. With a high chance of Clint getting paralyzed because of the injury, Tony shrinks himself and travels inside Clint's body to cure him using one of his latest inventions (think "Fantastic Voyage", only with super-heroes). The plot isn't that original but it's an enjoyable episode overall. The villain of the story, the teenage Hacker isn't that great either but what I liked the most about the episode was the aftermath of the Force Works break-up earlier this season. Obviously Clint still resents his former boss, though he does realize he just saved his life and barely manages to thank him for that. There's a neat moment where Tony tries to make amends with Clint, but the latter isn't ready to just forgive everything. Personally I'm glad their conflict wasn't resolved that easily, as it lead to another awesome moment in a future episode.

This season also featured an adaptation of the Armor Wars story-line from the comics, which as to be expected differed from the original version but as a whole it's probably the most well-remembered thing about this show. Realizing his armor designs have somehow been stolen, Tony Stark goes on a rampage, confronting pretty much every armored character in the Marvel Universe, to make sure his own inventions aren't being used to harm others. This leads to some great scenes, such as him battling the likes of Stingray, Stilt Man, the Beetle and even his own friend War Machine. There's a neat moment where Tony attacks the super-villain prison the Vault, and subdues its mechanical guards (the Mandroids) thinking they're also built using his designs. As a bonus, he's confronted by his old pal Hawkeye, who thinks his old boss has gone insane (he's not that far from the truth), and this is where their past conflicts pay off. Their fight isn't that long but has a great impact. I know in the original comic story, the one who confronted Iron Man was Captain America, but having Hawkeye here felt much more natural, seeing their long history and how their partnership developed throughout the show up to this point.

​

Hawkeye is also featured in the series finale, the two-part story titled "The Hands of the Mandarin". The green-skinned villain has recovered his ten power rings (long story) and has returned with his newest creation, the Heart of Darkness, a crystal which emits an anti-technology field. Mandarin requires super-powered humans to fuel his crystal. There's a pretty cool scene where Clint is the first one Tony calls for help, and eventually the others return as well, reforming the Force Works team. They are all captured by the Mandarin, who uses them (as well as his own minions) to power-up his crystal. In the end the good guys obviously win, and the final battle is pretty awesome. Clint gets some good scenes and lines here and the episode works well enough as a finale. All in all, even though Hawkeye wasn't used that much this season, the stories were better as well as his characterization. I find the few episodes he did appear in more entertaining then the entire first season.

Also somewhat note-worthy, Clint makes a cameo in an episode of the Fantastic Four animated series which aired alongside this Iron Man cartoon as part of the The Marvel Action Hour. In the second season (likewise an improvement over the first) episode "To Battle the Living Planet", Clint appears (in his Goliath persona) alongside other Avengers, and helps them save some people from a car trapped under a collapsed bridge. While I didn't realize who he was when I initially watched the episode, now I think it's neat that another one of Clint's costumed identities made it into animation.

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Next part: Hawkeye on Avengers: United They Stand!

 

[King_of_doom]

I remember a bit on the Iron Man series and yeah pretty much i don't remember much on what Hawkeye did in the series(mostly 1st season) the one i remember more was Julia (Spider-Woman). Nice catch on that FF episode cameo he had.

Here it comes the worst Hawkeye of them all......United They Stand....

 

[ShockDingo]

Great job dude, this is a nice walk down memory lane. I totally forgot Hawkeye was in Ironman. I loved the EMH one and I gotta say, I'm pretty bummed out that these days his outfit is basically the ultimate look with purple sunglasses. It's just not as visually striking or impressive as the past suits. :/

 

[Rick Jones]

Hawkeye was probably one of the first Avengers I knew, due to reading and perusing my big cousin's comics, and I always liked him. Everything about Hawkeye appealed to me, and it also helped that he happened to be a playable character in two arcade games that I started wasting a ton of quarters on. I still remembering reading a snippet in one of my grandma's entertainment tabloids about a new Marvel Action Hour block with Iron Man and FF cartoons and being pretty excited about it, only to be a little disappointed when the shows weren't exactly what I pictured in my head (Just a little disappointed. As much as I loved them, I was probably the least critical kid in the world when it came to cartoons). I was happy that among all the other weirdos running in Iron Man, that they at least picked Hawkeye to be part of the show though. He seemed pretty much how I might have expected him to be but he was nothing special in the first season, as was said. During the second season, I always liked when he would show up but there was part of me that still hoped for a proper team-up with Iron Man that might show Hawkeye in action, being as cool as I always thought he was. I had no idea how long I'd actually have to wait before a show managed to do that with Hawkeye.

 

[RoyalRubble]

Hawkeye was a main character on the Avengers: United they Stand animated series which started airing in the late 90s also on Fox Kids. The show lasted for only 13 episodes; it didn't feature any of the more well-known Avengers as regular characters (although Iron Man and Captain America did guest-star each in one episode). It was mostly based on the West Coast Avengers team roster, and the heroes had some silly armors they had to wear during their missions. The heroes used on this show were Ant-Man (the leader of the team), Wasp, Tigra, Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye; Wonder Man was also part of the team but pretty much gets replaced by Falcon and Vision from the first episode. Once again, too many characters and not nearly enough time to give each one a somewhat interesting character arc or develop their personalities enough for me to particularly care about them.

Apart from his "normal" armor, Hawkeye got to wear other models as well, such as jungle armor (in "Remnants"), or space armor (in "Shooting Stars"). It might work for Iron Man, but it just seems out of place for every character to don these kind of armors. It just feels like a bad rip-off of Power Rangers (not trying to bash Power Rangers, but you got to admit it's hardly a masterpiece). I'm not that crazy about Spider-Man's Iron Spider Armor from the comics or Ultimate Spider-Man either, but it at least looks pretty cool.

Overall, the show was pretty bad and none of the characters ever did anything that interesting, making the show very boring and forgettable. I never really liked any of the characters featured on this show, though to be fair I was never a big fan of either Ant-Man, Wasp, Hawkeye or any of the others, at least until Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes premiered. Pretty much every character on this show was presented far better than on United They Stand. Hank Pym (as both Ant-Man and Giant-Man), Wasp and Hawkeye are all awesome on Earth's Mightiest Heroes and make this first attempt at an Avengers show even more forgettable. But I'll get to Earth's Mightiest Heroes in due time, and I'm pretty sure I'll have nothing but good things to say about it. Until then...

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Since Hawkeye was featured in every episode of Avengers: United they Stand, I'll just comment on his most notable appearances on the show - which once again, aren't that many. He was voiced by Tony Daniels (who previously voiced Gambit on the latter episodes of X-Men: TAS, though here he's pretty much unrecognizable due to his "tough guy" like voice; I'd say he sounds like he's trying to sound like Wolverine). From the beginning it's clear he doesn't really get along with the other heroes with maybe the exception of Wonder Man (Simon Williams), who'll end up in a coma by the end of the series premiere, the two-part story titled "Avengers Assemble". In this story, we're also introduced to Falcon (Sam Wilson), the newest recruit of the team, as well as the main villain of the show, Ultron and his minion the Vision. Vision would also join the Avengers once he is defeated by the team, and Wonder Man's memories are transferred into the android's body, similar to how it went down in the comics. Unlike the comics though, none of these characters are too entertaining, just generic I guess would be the best word to describe them. Ultron is a boring villain here, when he's usually portrayed as a much more threatening foe. On this show I just couldn't take him seriously enough.

In a similar fashion as with the previously mentioned Iron Man animated show, not even the episode where Hawkeye is put in the spotlight helps make him a more interesting character. In "Comes a Swordsman", Clint goes undercover back to the carnival where he grew up, trying to investigate a series of thefts of powerful bacteria. He is reunited with his former mentor the Swordsman, and we get a neat little flashback showing us Clint's training, and how after robbing a building Clint escaped while Swordsman got arrested. The carnival is lead by the Ringmaster, a rather obscure villain from the comics who turns out to be pretty interesting here, at least by this show's standards. We also get to see Hawkeye wear an even more ridiculous outfit in this episode, while he travels with the carnival of crime. In the end he confronts his former friend the Swordsman in a decent enough fight and the villain apparently meets his end at the hands of Taurus, leader of the Zodiac. It's not a great episode by any means, though I kind of liked how it tied in with the Zodiac story-arc. In hindsight though, since that particular arc never really went anywhere this episode just seems pointless.

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As for the rest of the series, well Hawkeye remains pretty much the same; always portrayed as a loner, arguing with just about every other character on the show (up to the point he got pretty annoying) but without any of the charm he had in the comics. There are a couple of scenes and "revelations" that are most likely meant to add some drama to the show but they ultimately fail and to be honest I didn't particularly care about any of the characters on this series. Not having the original Avengers in the line-up was disappointing, but I feel that if the stories would have been more interesting and the characters developed a little and not so annoying, this show would have been better. The series finale, the two part episode "Earth and Fire", features the Avengers fighting the Zodiac, a group of alien super villains who have had cameos in two previous episodes (the previously discussed "Comes a Swordsman", and "Shooting Stars"), but their origins or motivations weren't really explained. Apart from their leader Taurus who gets a decent amount of screen-time (but not even that makes him an interesting enough character) most of the other members don't even get to speak. This two-parter has some long, drawn-out and uninteresting fight scenes between the Avengers and the Zodiac, which make it pretty boring. Hawkeye for example, gets to battle Aries in a rather lame fight which doesn't really add anything to the episode - it's basically filler.

Most if not all of the story lines spread throughout the 13 episodes of this show don't get any proper resolution and end on cliff-hangers, and to be honest I doubt any kind of conclusion would have been satisfying to these rather poorly written stories. Overall, the entire show was pretty much a mess and I personally wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it before. Next stop: Hawkeye's brief appearance, and Hawkeye Junior's role on Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow!

 

[King_of_doom]

Nice work RoyalRubble on reviewing Hawkeye from United We Stand. You have summon everything i hated about the character, the voice was the one i hated the most......seriously it's like hearing Christian Bale doing his Batman voice.....kinda odd that this was way before Batman Begins. As you mention, everything from UWS was boring and didn't had any memorable moments where the characters are not that interesting(till EMH came up).

Fox tried to compete with WB when Batman Beyond by making this show and Spider-man Unlimited but the way they executed was just done poorly also the one who came up with the brilliant idea of having the team wear armors think it was a good idea to sell toys......big mistake.

What i hated about this show where the villains aside that they where boring and not as menacing as the comics, they changed both their origin and appearance as we saw with Kang. So glad this show only had 13 episodes. can't imaging having more and doing more dull stories and make Hawkeye even more of a jerk then before.

At least the upcoming review is better.

 

[RoyalRubble]

In 2008 Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow was released as a direct-to-DVD animated film, the fifth entry released by Lionsgate Home Entertainment as part of the Marvel Animated Features series. The movie depicts a "what if?" reality where most of the Avengers have been killed in battle by Ultron and his army of machines. Iron Man, one of the few heroes that survived, took the children of the Avengers to a refuge hidden somewhere in the Arctic Circle, where he keeps them safe and trains them for twelve years. The group of kids - James Rogers (son of Captain America and Black Widow), Torunn (daughter of Thor and I'm guessing Sif), Azari T'Challa (son of Black Panther and Storm) and Henry Pym Jr. (son of Ant-Man/Giant Man and Wasp, obviously) - are told each night by Tony Stark the story of how their parents gathered together and about their adventures up to their defeat. Hawkeye was seen part of the team in flashback scenes and he was identified as "the Archer".

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That opening narration, featuring sepia-toned images of how the Avengers formed, fought against evil, eventually disbanded and their ultimate defeat was probably the best part of this movie for me. As a bonus, Ultron was portrayed here as a more serious, nearly unstoppable foe - a huge improvement over his previously discussed boring incarnation on Avengers: United They Stand. I don't think he's as awesome as he was during Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (even though both versions have the same voice actor, the great Tom Kane), but it works great within the context of this movie. There's not that much to talk about here, though I got to admit the movie does have a couple of neat moments.

The story really starts when the Vision arrives at their refuge, badly damaged by Ultron's forces. He was another one of the heroes that survived (though technically you can't kill a machine) and has been hiding from Ultron inside his headquarters, Ultra City. He has returned to Tony to inform him that Ultron has now conquered most of the world, and that he has learned Hwekeye's son (Francis Barton, and his mother was most likely Mockingbird) has also survived and they have to go find him. As the story progresses the kids encounter Francis Barton who joins them on their mission to stop Ultron. Francis has obviously inherited some of his father's archery skills as well as some of his people skills, as from the beginning he forms a rivalry with James Rogers - sort of mirroring their fathers. Francis' design looks pretty good - I'm probably missing something as to why he has white hair though. His voice actor is Adrian Petriw and he does a decent enough job here, as do most of the other kids' voice actors. There's not much to talk about here, especially since Clint is nowhere to be found in the story, but there is this little quote I liked, which pretty much describes Clint's personality:

Tony Stark: Can you help us get out of the city?
Francis: Yeah, right. Help the guy who created Ultron, who got my dad killed? What do you think my father would have done, Stark?
Tony Stark: Clint? He would have punched me in the face, then he would have helped me.
Francis: Wow. You really knew my dad.

​

The one who ultimately destroys Ultron is the Hulk, the last of the surviving heroes who has been hiding in the desert all these years. The fight between Hulk and Ultron was pretty great, as well as the fight between the kids and the Iron Avengers (robots based on their parents, with all of their abilities). Each one of the robots had a pretty neat design, including Hawkeye's who retains his classic, purple outfit. The Hawkeye android is destroyed by Hawkeye Junior with the aid of an exploding arrow. Francis gets the chance to partake in some nicely done action scenes, and overall this was a fun movie though it's nothing spectacular. Even if it's obviously intended for a younger audience, it's more entertaining than most of the current Marvel animated series, which are supposedly " only for kids" as well. If the plots would be a little more serious and the dialogue improved a little, I'd say this could be a pretty decent animated series.

The one major complaint I have about the movie concerns Thor - he pretty much quit defending Earth and lived (presumably) a peaceful life in Asgard while most of his teammates and friends were destroyed by Ultron. You'd think he'd at least try and do something about that, but he's absent from the majority of the movie, and (apart from the flashback at the beginning of the story) only appears at the end, to speak with his daughter. I thought Thor's characterization (or lack of it) here really hurts this movie. Other than that though, like I said it's a pretty fun film. Apologies for the rather short article this week; there's just not that much to talk about when it comes to this movie, but I figured it warranted a full article rather than to pair it up with the next installment. Next time: Hawkeye's minor appearances on both Iron Man: Armored Adventures and The Super Hero Squad Show!

 

[King_of_doom]

Nice review again, RoyalRubble. Agreed, the opening where they show the Avengers how they started and the villains they had fought was really cool(which kinda regrets that we didn't that type of movie instead of this and Ultimate Avengers)

Not much to say about Hawkeye but i did like how they gave his kid the same personality he has, i laugh when Tony told Francis that Hakweye would first punch Tony then he helps him.

Still not getting on the best Hawkeye yet(EMH) still can't wait for those 2 being reviewed.

 

[JTMarsh]

The one major complaint I have about the movie concerns Thor - he pretty much quit defending Earth and lived (presumably) a peaceful life in Asgard while most of his teammates and friends were destroyed by Ultron. You'd think he'd at least try and do something about that, but he's absent from the majority of the movie, and (apart from the flashback at the beginning of the story) only appears at the end, to speak with his daughter. I thought Thor's characterization (or lack of it) here really hurts this movie.

I'm pretty sure Thor got screwed over due to politics - this was a 2008 feature and who had big movies that year? Hulk and Iron Man, so they got big roles. Who didn't have a big movie that year? Thor, so he got completely derailed character-wise in what was admittedly a pretty lackluster feature (though I like to pretend that Asgard had a huge war going on so he couldn't be more involved with Earthly matters).

Anyhow, good reviews of Hawkeye's animated appearances so far Royal. Looking forward to the next one(s).

 

[Rick Jones]

I've been a big fan of Next Avengers, a movie that turned out a lot better than it had any right to be IMHO, and I really liked what they did with kid Hawkeye. As the latecomer to the group, it wouldn't have been too hard for him to have been a throwaway character but you can see Yost's fanboy love for the character seeping through at times, especially in a scene like his verbal exchange with Tony. After the absence of Hawkeye between A:UTS and this, I was just happy when this character turned up here.

 

[RoyalRubble]

Below is the final update for this year. The next part will finally reach Avengers: EMH, and I'll have plenty to talk about the show next month. Hopefully it'll be worth the wait
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In 2009 Iron Man received a new animated series, this time titled Iron Man: Armored Adventures, which originally aired on Nicktoons. Using some neat CGI models, the show presented Tony Stark and most of his supporting cast, as well as some of his enemies as teenagers. While the series has some less than stellar episodes, as a whole it's probably the best Iron Man show so far, with the pretty large number of characters it featured, as well as the long-running and rather complex story and character arcs it presented, which often ended up merging along the way. Once the second season premiered, other characters from the Marvel Universe guest-starred in certain episodes (Hulk - although he debuted in the first season; Doctor Doom and Magneto), as well as lots of allusions and references to the other members of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. His teenaged pals Rhodey and Pepper also get their own armors donning the identities of War Machine and Rescue, respectively. Among others, Hawkeye is also introduced this season (though he'll only appear in 3 or 4 episodes), alongside his partner Natasha Romanoff the Black Widow. His design here is basically his look from the Ultimate Marvel Universe, though with some modifications. I liked that this outfit still contains a lot of purple; it's nothing spectacular, but I think it still looks better than his design in the current Marvel animated series.

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Hawkeye (voiced by Andrew Francis) makes his debut in "The Hawk and the Spider", where he steals a new high-tech User Interface Chip from Obadiah Stane (which Iron Man was planning on regaining as well, as Stane took it from him in the first place). Iron Man ends up having to go up against Clint and manages to subdue him temporarily but is electrocuted by Clint's partner the Black Widow, and the duo gets away. It's a pretty cool update on Iron Man's first encounter with these two characters in the comics, back when they were introduced as thieves rather than his fellow super-heroes. There are some neat mentions about Clint's back-story in this episode - he's revealed to be an Olympic level master archer, and that he has a brother named Bernard who is indebted to the Maggia, the crime syndicate lead by Count Nefaria. Clint has convinced Natasha to join him in a series of robberies for the Maggia in order to clear his brother's debt. Realizing the two thieves stole the UI chip for Nefaria, Iron Man tries tracking them down but his nemesis Titanium Man (piloted by his rival, Justin Hammer) has found it first and after defeating them in combat takes the chip for himself.

What follows is a pretty amazing fight inside Hammer's office building, with all three heroes going through Hammer's new high-tech security systems including his newest toy, MODOC. Hammer's men found the creature at the bottom of the East River (following his previous encounter with Iron Man), and upgraded him; now Hammer controls MODOC and tries using him to crush the intruders. Using his mental powers MODOC learns and informs Hawkeye that Black Widow was actually planning on betraying him, by re-selling the chip they stole back to Stane. Once MODOC is neutralized (as well as the chip, which short-circuited), Natasha disappears leaving Clint alone who reluctantly thanks Iron Man for his help and mentions that he's going to try and do some good deeds, for a change. All in all, a pretty great introduction for both Clint and Natasha - Clint for the most part stays true to his comic book origins and retains most of his charm and attitude. His action scenes looked good and he used a nice number of trick arrows, and I liked how many allusions to DC Comics' Green Arrow they added to this episode (most notably, calling him Purple Arrow I guess).

Clint returns in "Iron Man 2099". In this story, Andros Stark (Tony's grandson from the future) has time-traveled to present day in order to stop his grandfather from developing the Vortex Virus, which would eventually destroy the world and his future. Unable to counteract Andros' futuristic tech, Tony develops some virus chips, similar to the Technovore's technology which would cripple his grandson's armor long enough for him to take him down. In order to attach such a chip to his opponent however, he's going to need the help of Hawkeye. Clint is first seen fighting off some Maggia goons and stopping them from robbing a bank, which was a pretty cool showcase for him as well as keep some continuity about his own personal war against Nefaria and his men. He is soon contacted by Iron Man and the two confront Andros just as he was attacking the SHIELD Helicarrier. Clint is reunited with Natasha (who joined SHIELD in a previous episode), and the two seem to reconcile easily enough. In the battle, Clint gets one of his arms broken by Andros, but still manages to shoot a virus chip attached to one of his arrows, using his mouth instead of his broken arm. In the end it's revealed that the virus Tony has just created was the Vortex virus Andros came to prevent from ever happening - it's a pretty weird revelation but time travel stories are usually difficult to pull off so I didn't mind that much.

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Hawkeye is also present in the series finale, the two-part story titled "The Makluan Invasion", with each part having its own subtitle; this first part's subtitle is "Annihilate". The Mandarin has collected his tenth and final Makluan ring (long story) and plans on ruling the world but the real Makluans, the alien race that forged the magic rings arrives on Earth and their Overlord plans on regaining his rings and destroying our planet. Hawkeye is briefly seen in this part, noticing the fleet of alien ships and commenting that he won't be able to take them all down with a glue arrow. In the second part (subtitled "Unite") Iron Man puts together a team of heroes to stop the Makluan invasion - other than his sidekicks War Machine and Rescue, he's joined by Black Panther, Black Widow, Grey Hulk, Nick Fury and Hawkeye. After defeating Ultimo once again (or perhaps a different Ultimo, since he had a different design), the heroes manage to infiltrate the alien ship and split into two groups to both defeat the overlord and destroy the vessel. Clint is on the same team with Natasha, T'Challa and Nick Fury and their mission is to place explosives aboard the alien space ship to destroy it's reactor core. Clint gets some great scenes here as well as lines, usually hitting on Natasha (like inviting her to an alien invasion movie once their mission is over). He also manages to activate the last detonator with an arrow, which first ricocheted off the heads of two Makluan soldiers. In the end the day is saved (obviously) and the heroes escape safely, as well as the Mandarin who realizes that perhaps he was not meant to rule the world, but rather to protect it.

All in all, Hawkeye was pretty great on this show. He wasn't seen that often but when he did show up, it was mostly good stuff. His personality was presented well enough, with his interactions with the other characters being pretty entertaining. Like I said I wasn't too crazy about his design here - just not as unique as his classic outfit, but it animated nicely and fit in with the tone of the show, I guess.

The Super Hero Squad Show premiered in fall 2009, and originally aired on the Cartoon Network. It was based on the Marvel Super Hero Squad action figure line from Hasbro, which portrays all the characters in the Marvel Universe in a super-deformed-style, and was aimed at a younger generation. The show featured a lot of characters from the Marvel Universe, but primarily focused on a team of heroes including members of the Avengers and the X-Men. It was mostly a parody of super hero shows, and I doubt it ever wanted to be taken too seriously. The story-arc for the first season was about the "Squaddies" trying to stop Doctor Doom's Lethal Legion from collecting the Infinity Fractals, shards from the broken Infinity Sword, which Doom plans on using to rule the world.

Hawkeye appeared only in a few episodes, sporting his classic purple outfit. Here he was voiced by Adrian Pasdar, who now is pretty much the "default" voice for Tony Stark/Iron Man in most recent Marvel animation projects. Interestingly, this is the second time something like this has happened - Adrian Petriw who voiced Hawkeye Junior in the previously discussed Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow movie went on to voice the teenage version of Tony and his armored alter-ego in the aforementioned Iron Man: Armored Adventures animated series. Not really important but it's just a little bit of trivia I figured would be worth mentioned.

• He first appears in "To Err is Super-Human", where he's introduced as a SHIELD observer who comes to inspect the Squad and its newest recruit, Reptil. He spends most of his on-screen time making fun of the young hero, somewhat living up to his personality from the comics. He later joins the heroes in their fight against the Wrecking Crew, and he's seen holding his own against the Wrecker.
• In "Mental Organism Designed Only for Kissing", Ms. Marvel falls in love with MODOK thanks to the Enchantress' magic love lutefisk (which was intended to make Thor fall in love with her). Hawkeye arrives on direct orders from Nick Fury, to take down Ms. Marvel before she could reveal any SHIELD secrets to the bad guys. Enchantress gives him a special arrow, with a gem on its tip which can negate the effects of the love spell.
• Hawkeye is briefly seen in "Election of Evil", as one of the many heroes who are mind-controlled by Egghead into supporting him in his electoral campaign. The only ones immune to his mind-control device were Wolverine (thanks to his enhanced hearing), the current ex-Mayor (thanks to him being tone deaf) and Doctor Doom (I'm guessing because he's the one who gave Egghead the device in the first place). Hawkeye is only seen at the beginning of the episode and is absent from the final battle.

Overall, this shows' version of Hawkeye was decent enough and the episodes had some pretty funny moments, though not many directly linked to him. He might have appeared in some other episodes or at least have cameos but I think I managed to track down his most notable appearances. Up next: Hawkeye on Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes!

 

[Christopher Glennon]

Nice retrospective (so far). What's interesting about the second season of the 90's Iron Man show is that Hawkeye was in the two part premiere and finale, as well as "Iron Man, On The Inside", one part of the "Armor Wars" and technically the clip show. He was in half the episodes of season two!

Hawkeye also carries a number of gadgets, his customized trick arrows which include arrows that shoot gas, nets, explosives, etc. but also sillier weapons such as boxing gloves.

Hawkeye's used a boxing glove arrow? I know Clint and Ollie tend to kinda share trick arrows, but I always thought the boxing glove arrow belonged solely to Green Arrow.

Don't turn around, uh-oh...

• " When The Commisar Commands"

Uh-oh!

In the end it's revealed that the virus Tony has just created was the Vortex virus Andros came to prevent from ever happening - it's a pretty weird revelation but time travel stories are usually difficult to pull off so I didn't mind that much.

It may be a reference to the Iron Man song by Black Sabbath (which also has a weird time travel thing going on).

 

[RoyalRubble]

Hawkeye's used a boxing glove arrow? I know Clint and Ollie tend to kinda share trick arrows, but I always thought the boxing glove arrow belonged solely to Green Arrow.

Now that you mention it, I'm not sure. I actually copied the introduction from my Green Arrow retrospective and tried to adapt it for Hawkeye.
Though apparently Clint has used a boxing glove arrow at least once, according to this image on the Marvel Wikia (#106).

 

[RoyalRubble]

Just as a head's up, this and the next part turned out a lot longer than I expected them to be; I did mention in a previous part of this retrospective that I'll have plenty to talk about once I reach Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and I wasn't kidding. Hawkeye was featured in most of the show's episodes (and each season had 26 episodes, so there's a lot more stuff to actually mention here), and usually had some pretty amazing scenes which I just had to mention in this thread. I also think this is the best incarnation of Hawkeye that's been animated up to this point, so I think he deserves pretty much all the praise he can get. Regardless of the length of these articles, I hope you'll still enjoy reading them!

The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes premiered in fall of 2010 on Disney XD. The first five episodes of the show were split into 20 micro-episodes which were released online prior to the shows' premiere on television. Like I mentioned in a previous part part of this retrospective, this show managed to give pretty much every Avenger a decent amount of screen time and offer them some character development they lacked in United They Stand. Inspired and adapting or updating some of the earliest Avengers comics at first (once the team is formed, the show mirrors the original comics pretty good), the show managed to add some twists and turns to the stories along the way, while still keeping true to the character's story-arcs from the comic books. It's a pretty amazing series, probably the best super-hero team show Marvel has done so far, with the pretty impressive number of characters (both good and bad) they managed to fit into the episodes. The stories themselves were awesome as well, for the most part and brought us plenty of good story-arcs and neat sub-plots for pretty much every one of the main characters. Hawkeye here was voiced by Chris Cox and was initially a special SHIELD agent, with the Black Widow as his partner. Throughout the first season, we see him go through a lot of changes - from special SHIELD agent to fugitive, then vigilante (following his own personal vendetta against Natasha) and later as an Avenger. His interactions with the other heroes are a lot of fun, and I liked the way he gradually grew closer to some of them and formed some kind of friendships with the Hulk and Black Panther. His personality reflects the comics, with him having a hard time following any kind of orders and usually arguing with those in charge.

Hawkeye here continues to wear his trademark purple outfit (with some slight modifications, making it look pretty cool), and I think it's a shame this is probably the last show where we'll get to see Clint in such a get-up. Thankfully he didn't get a re-design (as in, a new suit) in the second season like some of the other Avengers, though on a couple of occasions he did have to wear a space armor when dealing with the likes of Kang or the Kree. He never really had a chance (or good reason for that matter) to change his uniform throughout the show, and I kind of liked that. Not all the design changes for the other heroes starting with the second season were really that necessary either, but I'll get around to talk more about all the second season episodes (or at least the ones where Clint is present) in the next part of this thread.

Clint debuts in "Hulk Vs. the World", sent by SHIELD alongside Black Widow to stop the Hulk's rampage and afterwards transport the creature to the Cube. His first line on the show is simply "Tick-tick-boom" (in regards to the exploding arrow he just shot at the Hulk), which is a little odd, but I thought Hawkeye made it sound better than it should have. Hawkeye uses a nice array of trick arrows here, and he first witnesses the Hulk's heroic nature when the latter saves SHIELD agent Bobbi Morse, who was in peril thanks to General Ross' attempt at capturing the Hulk himself, not wanting to be upstaged by SHIELD. Hulk is captured and reverts back to Bruce Banner (something you don't see in cartoons these days) and Clint confronts him in his cell, expecting an explanation as to why the Hulk saved someone's life when he could have easily escaped. By the end of the episode trying to stop Black Widow from betraying SHIELD and giving a sample of Banner's blood to Hydra Clint is framed by his former partner and he is the one taken into custody by SHIELD. There's also a neat moment where Clint tried to hack Natasha's computer; trying to guess her password.

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In the two-part episode "Breakout" a.k.a. the episode where the team is officially formed Hawkeye is still an inmate at the Vault, but escapes thanks to the massive breakout alongside all the other villains. He's seen punching Chemistro in the face (something which will be addressed again in a pretty hilarious manner towards the end of the season) and regains his bow and quiver. When Iron Man shows up to stop the breakout, he mistakenly believes Clint is also a criminal and attacks him, but the archer manages to escape (after he saves Tony's life from the Crimson Dynamo). Interesting how they made Iron Man believe Clint is a bad guy in their first encounter, I'm guessing to mimic their first meeting in the comics.

Clint returns in another two-part story, "Gamma World". The episode begins with a pretty cool chase scene; the Avengers try to catch Hawkeye but without success. Clint has managed to track down Natasha and confronts her inside a Hydra facility, where he manages to defeat pretty much every villain present, as well as finally capture his former partner. Knowing SHIELD wouldn't believe his story, Clint plans on taking Natasha to the Avengers when he notices the Gamma energy dome the Leader has created in Las Vegas. He leaves Natasha there (obviously she managed to escape but we sadly don't get to see how; though seeing her tied up pretty much made up for that) and goes out to locate an expert in Gamma radiation, Bruce Banner. He finds the Hulk hunted by the Hulkbusters, and helps him escape. There's a pretty amazing scene where he asks the creature for help, threatening him about what he'd do if he doesn't revert to Banner, which results in the Hulk laughing his head off, all the while reverting into Banner (who's also laughing).

Banner comes up with an antidote for the Leader's Gamma mutations and the duo leaves to stop the villain and save everyone. In the end everything is back to normal - even better actually, as Hawkeye's "criminal record" has been deleted by SHIELD, who welcomes him back but Clint declines realizing how easily the organization just locked him up in the first place, without trusting him. He claims he'll keep hunting down Natasha on his own; Tony offers him a place on the Avengers, which he turns down as well. The Hulk is also asked to rejoin the team, and ol' Jade Jaws accepts, but only if "Cupid" also stays. It's the beginning of a weird, but "beautiful" friendship between Hulk and Hawkeye, one of the many things I really liked about this show.

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In "Masters of Evil", Baron Zemo aided by the Enchantress forms the Masters of Evil and attacks the Avengers Mansion, taking everyone inside as prisoners. Hawkeye, Black Panther and Ant-Man start a rescue mission and manage to free their teammates; Clint gets some pretty neat moments when fighting the Enchantress, Zemo or Skurge the Executionner. But for me, his lines here were probably better, most notably his "bond" with Black Panther (with T'Challa tricking Clint he has eaten something poisonous, or making him believe he might get elected the team's leader soon). There's lots of other pretty awesome Hawkeye stuff in this episode - his critique of all the other Avengers (apart from Captain America, possibly hinting that he respects "the old man" as he calls Cap at least a little), his line to Abomination when he is captured ("Please, I'm begging you... brush your teeth!"), or the way the episode ends, with Clint having second thoughts about being a member of the Avengers, a.k.a. the team he needs to save every week.

In "Widow's Sting", Clint continues his hunt for Natasha by fighting both Hydra and AIM, despite Nick Fury's order to not get involved. The episode opens with Clint taking down a group of Hydra and AIM soldiers in a pretty awesome way. Captain America and Black Panther follow him on a mission to infiltrate Hydra Island, though they are also assisted by Bobbi Morse, now called Mockingbird who has taken Clint's place on SHIELD's special agents. She was originally supposed to just distract him from his mission as per Fury's orders, but eventually agrees to help the heroes with their plan. Clint and Bobbi let themselves get captured by the Grim Reaper and are brought in front of General von Strucker. Clint is briefly reunited with Natasha but refuses to listen to her "apologies", and once he escapes from his cell (we don't see how, but he claims it's one of the tricks he learned while growing up with the circus) gets to fight his former partner in a pretty amazingly choreographed fight scene. Natasha breaks his bow and gets the better of him (apparently she was always better than him in hand to hand combat), leaving Clint helpless in front of von Strucker who tries to absorb his life energy with his Satan's Claw. Natasha saves Clint's life though, as she electrocutes the Baron from behind and escape the island before it blows up - her betrayal isn't discovered immediately, as she explains that the Black Panther was the one who hit her leader, not her. All in all, an amazing episode which also sets the stage for some more future plot-lines (most notably, the Cosmic Cube and the Skrull's secret invasion of Earth).

Hawkeye also takes part in the Kang the Conqueror story-line. The time-traveling conqueror has arrived in our time period to destroy Captain America, whom he believes will be the cause of the planet's destruction. The first episode of this three-part story "The Man Who Stole Tomorrow" begins with a little training session between Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, with the latter getting knocked around quite a bit. Clint and Hulk are in the gallery, laughing their heads off each time Tony hits the ground. Pretty hilarious stuff. Once Kang attacks, Hawkeye tries to take him down alongside the others, but the villains' futuristic tech seems to be pretty much unstoppable. In the second part, he's seen alongside most of the other Avengers fighting Kang's army of robots on the streets; he gets some pretty awesome moments but what I liked the most here were his lines - for example how he shuts up both Hulk and Thor (who were having a contest to see who can defeat more robots) by boasting he took down more enemies than both of them put together.

There's also a great scene where he says he can take care of all the robots that reached the bridge, only for the robots to combine into one giant robot; what makes the scene so great I guess is seeing Clint's and Hulk's reactions to that. In the third and final part, Clint joins the others on a mission into space (wearing a special armor/outfit that at least looked better than his "space armor" back in Avengers: United They Stand, served an actual purpose and it's the only kind of alternate outfit Clint had during this series, as well as match the others' outfits - more like an outer-space uniform) to stop Kang once and for all. On their way, Clint operates the Quinjet's defense systems, since he's the most skilled. Once inside Kang's Damocles Base, they face off against Kang's elite guard, which move at super-speed and can't be defeated that easily. Clint is actually the one who manages to weaken them, by using one of his trick arrows to blind them long enough for the others to take them down. All in all this was a pretty amazing trilogy of episodes focusing on Kang. Unfortunately when Kang's story-arc will be revisited during the second season, things won't be the same.

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In "The Casket of Ancient Winters", Clint can be seen out of costume relaxing at the Avengers Mansion pool during the hottest day of the year (though the highlight of these pool scenes are probably seeing Jan in a yellow bikini). I got to admit I first thought he looked pretty similar to Hank Pym (Ant-Man), without his costume or face mask - one more reason his purple costume is so unique I guess; it also apparently leaves some heavy tan lines on his arms. Once Malekith the Accursed opens the Casket of Ancient Winters and freezes pretty much the entire planet, also releasing some ice creatures in the city Clint suits-up and joins most of the other Avengers in the fight - plus some neat cameos by the Human Torch and the Thing. Not Clint's best appearance on the show but still pretty entertaining, and an overall great episode which continues to build up events for the season finale. There's also a neat mention about moving the team to the West Coast, a pretty funny allusion to the West Coast Avengers comics where Clint was featured.

The Black Widow story-line is pretty much tied up in "Hail Hydra!", where Baron Von Strucker declares war on AIM, resulting in an all-out attack on the streets of New York with the winner claiming the right to touch the Cosmic Cube. The Avengers find themselves trapped in the middle of the fight, with Black Widow joining them and explaining how she was only infiltrated HYDRA as an undercover SHIELD agent. Hawkeye understands (but admits he doesn't like it) Natasha's mission, and the two reconcile (their story here ends with them sharing a kiss), but since Nick Fury has mysteriously vanished, she has no way to prove her story and continues to be on the run. She asks Clint to join her, but he can't - he's an Avenger now.

There are also some awesome Hawkeye moments - for example, in the beginning of the story he's seen practicing his archery skills, despite his teammate's discouraging thoughts (Cap seems to be the only one who trusts Clint can make it). Thanks to a blackout in the city (caused by the war going on outside), we don't get to see the results, but in an even more awesome scene, Clint makes an upgraded and spectacular shot, by shooting Ant-Man on one of his arrows through several buildings to stop von Strucker from touching the Cube. Clint also destroys Strucker's Satan Claw, by pinning it to a wall with one of his arrows. Lots of other awesome stuff happened in this episode as well, such as Maria Hill taking over SHIELD and wanting the Avengers to be registered super-heroes, or Cap's apparent wish granted by the Cube, to revive his old partner Bucky.

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Hawkeye is also present during the Ultron story-arc. In the first part (titled "Ultron-5") before all the serious stuff starts, he's injured during a fight with the Serpent Society. He refuses to let a doctor check his injury leading to some amusing scenes, such as Tony's advice to Cap to get Clint to see Jane Foster ("Knock him out if you have to. Or even if you just want to.") There's also a neat allusion to his bizarre (but cool) get-up, with the paramedic not knowing if that's a shirt or anything else he's wearing. Once Ultron starts his attack on the Avengers and takes over the Mansion's systems, Clint and Cap are trapped inside the training room, where they have to survive the training course. Clint then joins the others in fighting Ultron though his arrows aren't really that effective against the machine. Hulk is the one who stops the villain (in a scene similar to the one from Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow, by ripping Ultron apart) though unbeknownst to the heroes the robot has downloaded himself into another body before being destroyed.

This leads to the next episode, "The Ultron Imperative", where Ultron returns and plans on exterminating the human race by launching all nuclear missiles in the world at once. To keep the others busy he controls all of Tony's armors inside the Mansion and uses them to attack the heroes. Clint gets a neat scene where he heroically stays behind with Black Panther to finish off the Iron Man armors while the others leave towards the SHIELD Helicarrier to stop Ultron. He eventually joins his teammates alongside the "revived" Thor (he never actually died), and Ant-Man is the one who ultimately stops Ultron (with science!); everything went according to plan more or less (even though Clint had no idea they actually had a plan in the first place). All in all it's a pretty amazing story-arc and I can't really do it justice by focusing mostly on Hawkeye's scenes. Ultron was a great villain (though the same can be said about pretty much every character on the show), and his return in the second season was exciting as well as opposed to other great villains which turned out to be pretty disappointing the next season (most notably Kang, I guess).

The first season finale is actually a three-part story, featuring the Avengers getting trapped on Asgard (and its other mythical realms) as part of Loki's master plan. In the first part of the story ("This Hostage Earth"), the heroes split to take on seven different villains (the newly reformed Masters of Evil, with some new members) and stop the Enchantress from using the magical Norn Stones to re-connect Earth with the other realms of Asgard. The episode has some great action scenes - the Avengers versus the Masters of Evil moments are a lot of fun, especially seeing how everyone reacts to their opponent. Hawkeye for example, is pitted against Chemistro (a.k.a. the guy he punched in the face all the way back in "Breakout"); I just love how Clint apparently has no idea who the guy is (I'm still not sure if he's just messing with him or he really doesn't know).

When the Avengers try destroying the Norn Stones, they just end up transported to different realms of Asgard. In "The Fall of Asgard", Clint finds himself in Alfheim, the land of the Light Elves. He befriends Faradei the elf, and together try to survive the attacks of Loki's pack of wolves. They are saved by Black Panther (who is revealed to have the ability to see the portals connecting the magical realms) and then all continue on their journey to find the others and plan a final assault on Loki who has conquered the throne of Asgard. The other Avengers have their hands full as well, taking on Loki's forces in the other realms while also meeting and helping other of Thor's supporting characters (the Warriors Three, Sif and Valkirie, etc). In the meantime, Loki reveals to a captive Thor how he orchestrated half of the major events that occurred on the show up to this point (the most notable exceptions being Kang and Ultron) - proving himself to be a true evil mastermind.

The season ends with "A Day Unlike Any Other", where the Avengers regroup and try to defeat the now all-powerful Loki, who has taken control over the Odin Force for himself and is apparently unstoppable now. Since it's a team effort, every hero gets at least one cool moment during the fight, with special focus on Thor, Iron Man (wearing a new armor made out of Uru metal) and Ant-Man (who manages to reverse the flow of Yggdrassil the Tree of Life, thus returning the Odin Force to its rightful owner, Odin). In the end the Nine Realms are saved and the Avengers earn the respect of Odin and all other Asgardians. All in all it's a pretty awesome conclusion to an amazing first season, filled with lots of fun stuff. The season does end with a cliff-hanger though, regarding Captain America which leads into the great Skrull Secret Invasion story-arc, which takes place in the first half of the next season.

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All in all, Hawkeye was amazing during this season. I liked pretty much everything about him: his design, voice actor, dialogue and story-lines. This is probably the best animated Hawkeye so far (and by the look of things I doubt this is going to change anytime soon). He was lots of fun, and mixed incredibly well with all the other heroes; his interactions with pretty much any other character he shared some screen-time with were very entertaining. The same goes for just about every other character as well, as I thought everyone here was portrayed very well, and as a whole the first season is pretty much perfect. The stories, introductions and character interactions all played out great and there's rarely if ever a dull moment. Hawkeye would continue to be pretty amazing during the second season of this show as well, though the latter half of the episodes are somewhat disappointing and not really as great as they could have been - still, Clint for the most part would continue to be his charming self, as the next part of this retrospective will hopefully prove.

Next time: Hawkeye on the second season of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes!

 

[King_of_doom]

Don't blame you RoyalRubble, it's too long to review Hawkeye since he appeared most of the 1st Season and it was worth the wait. Of all the Hawkeyes they shown up this is the best one yet. They really got it right with his personality and the way he interacts with the rest of team and really....really glad they keep his costume even if they added a few changes(as you mention Royal, looks cool) and didn't go with the lame Ultimate version look.

I like his introduction when he's fighting the Hulk along with Natasha and show that there's a conspiracy behind it and sadly Clint falls into by taking the blame of being a traitor. I think he's best moment was at teaming up with the Hulk to stop the Leader also like that Clint didn't want the Hulk but Banner which shows that Hawkeye that brute force isn't everything and need a plan to stop one of the most intelligent person on earth. Aside of him having a friendship with the Hulk, i also like how he's starting a friendship with Black Panther and later with Captain America(especially on Widow's Sting where their friendship shows up even more). I like how Hawkeye interacts with the villains where he does make a few jokes but unlike Spider-Man he does take it serious sometimes when it comes to villains like Kang and Ultron.

I think Hawkeye has one of the best moments like the rest of the Avengers(Wasp and Black Panther come along) where he does show that even he doesn't have powers as some he's a value member of the team where he had saved them more then once and even the odds when they are in a situation that seems lost but come thru in the end. Once again nice Review on "EMH Hawkeye" Royal and can't wait for the review from the 2nd season which it's not bad but as you point out there are a few things that could have been better, especially when it comes to the return of previous villains like Loki and Kang.