Back when Disney Plus was first launched to the public, Marvel Studios immediately saw this as an opportunity to create new stories for their classic characters in a format other than movies. The various Marvel mini-series have been releasing consistently since Wandavision way back in January 2021. I am not writing this article on Wandavision, however, so let’s fast forward to the end of that same year. To the holiday season to be exact when Marvel dropped a series that everyone forgets about no matter how truly fantastic it was. I’m talking about Hawkeye.
Hawkeye unfairly got drowned out in all the hype surrounding Spider-Man: No Way Home, which came out at the same time, and I am here to encourage you to give it a rewatch this year without any distractions because it deserves so much more attention than it got.
This series is a perfect way to celebrate Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton/Hawkeye as, even though this character was first introduced all the way back in 2011, he has yet to truly receive the same level of fan love as Thor or Captain America. Clint’s character is so fascinating and consistent in the comics and this tv iteration of his character does justice to the original source material in a very rewarding way. In the comics, part of the explanation behind Clint’s incredible eyesight and skill with a bow and arrow is the fact that he needs a hearing aid, a character fact that has never been written into the movies, but this show finally confirms this and really humanizes Clint and endears him to the audience as a character who clearly struggles more than he lets on.
Not to mention the hearing-impaired representation is furthered by the introduction of Maya Lopez, a minor antagonist of Hawkeye, who is both deaf and has a prosthetic right leg. Maya is a wildly talented martial artist and is fluent in ASL and offers the audience an impressive female character to watch as Maya defies all that underestimates her while pursuing vengeance for her father’s death. The way that these disabilities from the comic books seamlessly translated into TV is something I’m sure a lot of people are grateful for.
Sometimes when Marvel introduces a brand new character to their universe, they are met with a skeptical audience, but Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop skyrocketed to fan favorite status faster than she can fire an arrow.
Kate is a 22-year-old jack of all trades, as she has acquired dozens of accolades in martial arts, gymnastics, and archery throughout her life. She is a Clint Barton super-fan who has always dreamed of being recognized by her hero and those around her as, to put it in her words, the world’s greatest archer. Kate has all the charisma and charm that come with being young and ambitious albeit a tendency for getting herself into trouble. She is the perfect foil for the brooding, reluctant hero that is Clint and the perfect character to win over fans’ hearts everywhere.
While Clint perceives himself as nothing but a killer, Kate sees a hero with the potential to be a real role model for people like her if he would just give himself a little more credit for all the good he’s done for the world. Clint learns through Kate that, whether he realized it or not, he left a positive impact on people during his time as an Avenger and he doesn’t have to look back on his former life with nothing but grief and regret.
The holiday season works perfectly as a backdrop for this show because it puts Clint in a situation where he is forced to make a sacrifice. Clint was more than ready to hang up his bow for good and leave the Avenger life behind him for a quiet Christmas with his family. This is a character who has long earned the right to be selfish after everything he has been through, but not even during the holidays can Clint catch a break. Clint puts his family time on pause for the sake of sorting out some of his past mistakes that Kate accidentally brought to the surface because no matter how much he likes to disagree, he is a protector and a good person. This touching mentor-student relationship will always hit home with audiences. The spunky wide-eyed aspiring superhero infecting their grouchy, beaten-down-by-the-world idol with their energy and encouraging them to open up is a timeless and beloved trope.
This relationship playing out against a nostalgic Christmas background could not have been a more perfect combination for fans during the holiday season. The songs, the lights and the colors created a brilliant marketing method to allow the audience to see Hawkeye as a character in a fresh, exciting way when he had never really been the center of attention before. The action of the show of course delivers in a classic, jaw-dropping Marvel fashion, but jolly Christmas music playing over the background of a fight scene takes every action sequence to an entirely new level of clever and entertaining. The car chase scene from episode three that plays A Mad Russian’s Christmas by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra is still one of my favorite Marvel scenes ever.
Speaking of mad Russians, this show also brought back another fan-favorite character who, with only one other Marvel project appearance, generated massive amounts of excitement with her return to this series. I am, of course, talking about Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, Natasha Romanoff’s little sister who is on a quest to kill Clint and avenge Natasha’s death. Yelena’s relentless insistence that Clint is to blame for her sister’s demise combined with the central conflict Clint and Kate are already occupied with add yet another layer of challenge for our heroes as they try to wrap up, see what I did there, their mission by Christmas Day. Seeing that a widow is involved in their situation sends Clint spiraling in a way he wasn’t expecting and it also adds an entirely new emotional conflict for him as he is forced to remember the moment he lost his best friend.
This leads to the most beautiful TV finale I’ve ever seen. After a brutal, personal fight sequence where Yelena keeps insisting that Clint killed Natasha, he forces her to confront the fact that Natasha is gone because she has made a sound choice for the good of humanity and nobody forced her hand. Yelena eventually is pulled out of her denial and realizes she’ll have to find a way to accept that, even though she’s dead, Natasha loved her and made her sacrifice with the hope that her sister would get to live. She helps Clint off the ground as they realize that their shared grief should make them allies, not enemies and they part ways amicably.
This series is truly everything people love about the classic 2012 Avengers but on a smaller scale and with better music. It has all the heart and action and humor that people look for in a Marvel project complete with an engaging, fast-paced story tied up in a red and green ribbon. The red herring clues and high stakes that only ramp up as the show goes on will never leave you bored because even the slower moments are filled with heartwarming holiday scenes and sweet bonding moments between our new favorite duo. Even if Marvel projects aren’t really your thing, give it a try just to look at Kate’s beloved golden retriever, Lucky the Pizza Dog, the most perfect dog I have ever seen. I adored all six episodes of Hawkeye and I am so excited to go home and give it another binge this year because the holidays are truly in full swing and, as the tagline for the series tells us, “This Holiday Season The Best Gifts Come With A Bow.”