Written by Jonathan Hickman
Illustrated by Rafa SandovalClint Barton, the hero known as Hawkeye, is back and on a mission! Prepare for Hawkeye’s climactic return to the Ultimate Comics Universe in the beginning of this pulse-pounding series!
Hickman’s second new Ultimate book, telling the story of where Hawkeye was when the world came crashing down, has been released and delivered to our ready and waiting hands.
Let’s talk about it behind the cut.
Last week’s Ultimate Comics Ultimates #1 saw Hickman take a universe that had barely stabilized and lit it on fire – quite literally (the arc is called “The Republic Is Burning,” after all). However, since the arc itself is so big, I suppose it makes sense to give one character his own sidestory to flesh out one of the many new things going on in the Ultimate Universe, as well as giving new readers who came in from watching the movies a Renner-friendly place to find out what’s so cool about a bow and arrow, anyway. And hey, who better to get a long over-due solo mini in the Ultimate universe than Hawkeye, the man who killed a group of people with his finger nails?
So Ultimate Hawkeye picks up at the middle of Ultimates #1, with Nick and Clint talking about one of the many overseas situations that SHIELD has to deal with while under budget in the new post-Spidey Ultimate universe. Featuring dialogue we’ve already read, everything goes to heck with a bunch of new super powered characters before Hickman introduces one of the many new concepts that is sure to flood the Ultimate Marvel U over the coming months: other people are manufacturing “mutants”. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s up to Hawkeye alone to deal with the new mutants and single handedly topple an entire dictatorship. Mondays, am I right?
If there’s one thing I’ve always liked about Hickman, it’s that he isn’t too afraid to revamp what other people have done and just go nuts with it. He did it in Fantastic Four after picking up where Millar left off, and now he’s seemingly do it again with his Ultimates work. When Bendis and Loeb introduced the whole “mutants are created by the government thing”, it was admittedly one of the least exciting changes the Ultimate universe ever had from the regular 616 (at least, in my humble opinion). However, Hickman brings up a good point with this issue – if we can do it, why can’t someone else? Go big, or go home. It’s all a bit fast paced, though; before you really have time to acclimate to the entire idea, most of the new characters are dea dand there are a million explosions. It’s kind of a double-edged sword in that way. I love that Hickman is igniting fires all over the place, but it’s so compartmentalized and happens so fast that if you blink, you’re likely to miss it. Then again, that’s probably the most realistic aspect of it, so you can’t take too much credit away there I suppose.
Of course, the only major complaint I have about this issue is that it’s not really about Hawkeye. Not in any particularly way, that is. Hawkeye stars in it, sure, and Hawkeye does a bunch of cool things in it, but this is really an extension of Hickman’s Ultimate work more so than it is a mini-series in which the average reader can learn about how interesting of a character Clint Barton is. This isn’t to say that’s specifically bad or good; it’s a first issue, and obviously more is going to happen. However, if you compare this Hawkeye mini to, say, McCann’s collected Hawkeye work, you’ll notice a much more personal approach to McCann’s 616 Hawkeye story over Hickman’s Ultimate Hawkeye story. The hope I have is that as the book moves further along, we’ll have reason to actually care about the character outside of the inherent ones, but at least Hickman can write the hell out of some intense action sequences.
You can also slightly compare it to Ultimate Comics Thor that Hickman also wrote, which dealt with the origin of Thor in the Ultimate Marvel Universe. That was a short four-issue mini with intense action sequences, but it also peeled behind the surface to see what makes him tick. So far we have none of that with this first issue, but it is a first issue, so there’s still time.
Continued belowWhat is really quite nice about the issue is Rafa Sandoval’s art, however. I’m not entirely familiar with Sandoval, but I do recognize his name from the Ultimate Doom Trilogy Bendis wrote in which Reed turned evil in the first place. During it, Sandoval played it fast and loose with the art, making it solid but often slightly cartoonish (which is not a slight in anyway, of course – the art was great). With Hawkeye, though, Sandoval is playing the straight man much more closely. He’s able to get the big insanity of the villains and their mutant powers to the same extent he did the giant hulking purple monstrosities of Doom, but it’s much less cartoonish than it was before. The lines are sharper and have much greater edge to them, which honestly makes sense given the central character’s weapon of choice, which is all wonderfully complimented by Tarragona and Anderson’s inks and colors. This is still at the same scale that Ultimate Doom was at, it’s just much less playful in it’s visuals, and given that Ultimate Hawkeye – a man who kills people with his finger nails! – is not much of a joker, the art acts as very complimentary.
If you’re reading Ultimate Comics Ultimates #1, the issue works as a nice spin-off from the main storyline. While everyone else deals with evil Reed Richards, Clint fights evil mutants from Bangkok! What’s not to like? It’s like an event comic with a spin-off mini that tells a small portion of the story that, while it isn’t essential reading, is still enjoyable and adds a more three-dimensional aspect to the overall tale. It doesn’t peel behind the surface at what makes Clint tick at all, but I have nothing but faith in Hickman to get us there before this trip is over.
Final Verdict: 8.0 – Insert punny commentary about this hitting a bullseye
I could’ve done without the polybag, though.
