Hawkeye - Super Powered Fiction

Cosplay Everyday: Hawkeye

By Nicholas Ahlhelm | November 21, 2012 - 3:25 pm | Comics, Coolness

A female version of the Clint Barton Hawkeye. Source. Character owned by Marvel.

Film: Iron Man Rise of Technovore (anime)

By Nicholas Ahlhelm | October 9, 2012 - 9:50 am | Film

A new Iron Man anime is in the works from Marvel. While the first 13 episode series starred Adrian Pasdar and took inspiration from the original film, this new movie seems firmly entrenched in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The teaser poster features several guest stars: Hawkeye, Black Widow, War Machine & Punisher.

Clues point towards the first art by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larocca as the inspiration for the original movie, but with a variety of changes to fit animation. Madhouse again handles the animation, while the new film is written by Brandon Aunum of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes fame.

A release date has yet to be announced, but expect news about it from New York Comic Con later this week.

Weekend Viewing: Bourne Legacy

By Nick Ahlhelm | August 10, 2012 - 7:30 am | Film

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I think this time Hawkeye will wear his Ronin costume, but I’m not sure.

Thor’s Day 24.2: Movie Edition

By Nick Ahlhelm | July 5, 2012 - 11:30 am | Film

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So to anyone wondering, I did see the Thor film a few weeks back, but I have held off on my thoughts on it until now. For the most part, I thought it was a solid film, though a few bits proved disconcerting for me. All in all though it continued the legacy set by the first two Iron Man films quite nicely.

My wife's favorite scene in the film.

Chris Hemsworth as Thor was absolutely perfect casting. I have never seen the man before outside his five minutes at the beginning of Star Trek but he proved himself to be a great thunder god in this film. Equally great in their role was Idris Elba, who received some flack ahead of time for portraying the Norse “White God”. The only shame that I could say about the film was that Elba’s role was so small, as he brought more character in his presentation than Heimdall ever saw in Marvel’s titles.

I wouldn't mess with this man.

Natalie Portman as Dr. Jane Foster (no longer a nurse, or even a medical doctor) failed to wow me though. Unlike Gwyneth Paltrow in Iron Man, she feels less like a wholly formed character and more like a needed love-interest. The relationship is nowhere near as flat as her work in the Star Wars prequels, but it still doesn’t really win me over.

That being said, the romance plays second fiddle to the awesome in the film. The frost giants are gorgeously constructed as is the entire magi-tech world of Asgard. Several Marvel artifacts get a cameo in Asgard’s vault, which is guarded by the utterly awesome Destroyer, perfectly brought to life for the film.

Perhaps surprising considering its name, but the Destroyer manages to destroy a lot of things over the course of the film.

The cameo added after the fact of another Avengers cast member also brought a smile to my face, though his insertion, much like the bonus scene at the end of the film, fall flat for most of the crowd. Both features will need a bit of explaining if Marvel expects people to understand them by the Avengers film.

Thor proved to be a solid action hero movie, far and away better than the lackluster previews ever would have made me believe. I could add more about Stellan Skarsgård and Clark Gregg, but I think I have probably said enough.

Oh, as to the “part the first” up there? It seems Marvel isn’t the only one to give us a superhero Thor this summer….

Super-Powered Comics: Widowmaker

By Nick Ahlhelm | June 16, 2011 - 11:40 am | Comics

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I really wanted to like Widowmaker. As a fan of Hawkeye in general and Jim McCann’s work on Hawkeye & Mockingbird in particular, I hoped the crossover story with Black Widow would make for a good tale. Alas, that was not the case.

I skipped picking up the original story for simple economic reasons. With neither of the series starring the three characters selling well, Marvel decided to turn the crossover in to a standalone mini-series at their higher $3.99 price point. I was not willing to pay that amount for the book, so I skipped it until my local library added a copy. In hindsight, I am glad that I didn’t buy it.

First, the overall plot for the story seems very weak. It revolves around a new Ronin (an identity that Hawkeye once possessed) killing various spies from both sides of the former Iron Curtain. Black Widow, Hawkeye, Mockinbird, and Dominic Fortune all get pulled in to the ongoing hunt for the new killer, but even as they do, we never really good a good feel for why Ronin does what he does or how many deaths he really has caused. From the first chapter onward, the threat seems so manufactured to almost be negligent, and nowhere over the course of the four issues does that change.

The characters stay relatively close to their voices, though the constant change from narrator to narrator as creative teams shift, not to mention the vast differences in the art styles of David Lopez and Manuel Garcia, do not make the story feel like a cohesive whole.

Even the conclusion and the reveal of the new Ronin’s identity falls flat. It just leaves the reader feeling like he wasted the last forty minutes of his life.

The one bright spot in the collected edition is a back-up Solo Avangers strip from the late 80s, teaming Hawkeye and Black Widow up against the threat of AIM. Tom DeFalco and Al Milgrom produced a fun quick tale that introduced that era’s answer to the then deceased MODOK. Nothing earth-shattering there, but it is an entertaining thirty page tale that did a good job of taking me back to my childhood reading habits.

Despite the fun back-up, Widowmaker remains not recommended.