Hawkeye Returns! (Sort of...)

I first fell in love with the character of Hawkeye (Marvel's version of DC's Green Arrow) when the limited series of the West Coast Avengers came out in 1984. He was brightly clad, led the new (and, in my opinion, much better) Avengers team, and had an interesting love-hate relationship with Mockingbird (Marvel's version of DC's Black Canary). I followed him through the years until I stopped reading comic books somewhere around 1993.

Rejoining the world of comics books a year ago, I was excited to find a mini-series titled New Avengers: the Reunion coming out devoted solely to Hawkeye and Mockingbird. Yea! Unfortunately, Hawkeye (Clint Barton) is now called Ronin, whom I last recalled as being a samurai character in the DC Universe created by Frank Miller. It was jarring to say the least, but I'll roll with it, hoping that he'll lose that persona and go back to his original by the end of the series. Still, at least it's the same two characters, and I'm enjoying their reunion, as rocky as it may be.

Now (in Spring 2009) comes a mini-series called Dark Reign: Hawkeye. Yea! Come to find out, it's not Clint Barton in the blue and purple costume. It's Bullseye masquerading as Hawkeye in an attempt to discredit the Avengers. For example, Hawkeye (aka Bullseye) saves a woman from getting raped (yea!). When she asks him for an autograph, he stabs her in the eye with the pen (ouch!). The first two issues have been pretty good, but this is not your 1980s Hawkeye series. It's darker. It's grittier. And it's obviously much more violent! Here's hoping Clint Barton makes an appearance in the final issue and wrestles the Hawkeye title from Bullseye.