Hawkeye (Vol. 4), Issue #1 – “Lucky: A Clint Barton / Hawkeye Adventure”

* Part 1 of 5 of the My Life as a Weapon storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Hawkeye (Vol. 4), Issue #1 – “Lucky: A Clint Barton / Hawkeye Adventure”!

My first encounter with Hawkeye was during my short-lived foray into Mark Waid’s shitty ‘90s Captain America and it sucked three butts. Hawkeye himself didn’t leave much of an impression on me, but I heard VERY good things about the Marvel NOW! Hawkeye series. So here I am.

Jeremy Renner, etc.

*yawn*

Hawkeye (Vol. 4), Issue #1 [October, 2012]
Written by: Matt Fraction
“Lucky: A Clint Barton / Hawkeye Adventure”

“Okay…” Hawkeye says, falling out of a 30-story window. “This looks bad.”

*yaaaaawwwnn*

Splash page! Hawkeye became the greatest sharpshooter known to man. He then joined the Avengers. This is what he does when he’s not being an Avenger. That’s all you need to know.

Me likey! Now we’re getting somewhere, because a) fuck the Avengers, and b) fuck the Avengers. I hate the Avengers. Every last one of them. What a bunch of losers with smelly, unwashed costumes.

Hawkeye plummets to his death; lands on a parked car. Other superheroes have magical powers and cool abilities. Clint Barton has a piece of wood with a string attached. Apparently, he was an orphan raised by carnies, and I’d rather read more of that than whatever the hell this is going to end up being.

“Got yourself pretty banged up there, Mr. Barton…” says a doctor later in the hospital, where Clint is in traction like you wouldn’t believe. All kinds of traction. “…shattered pelvis… three broken ribs… sprained your neck… cracked your fibia… left clavicle… right ulna… and your spleen nearly ruptured.”

Hey, thanks Doc! By the way, there’s no such bone in your body as the “fibia” you tremendous idiot. Where did you get your medical degree? Clown Circus Academy??

Six weeks later, Barton can get released from the hospital. Barely. He limps like a three-legged dinosaur (lol), but things are looking up up up up! “New York in August. S’just perfect. Underneath that baked summer scent of hot garbage, wet pennies, and pee, you can kinda smell some fresh air.” He hoists his big fat bulk out of the wheelchair in the middle of the road and walks away, leaving a bunch of cars and taxis honking at the empty wheelchair. What an asshole.

Hawkeye Comics: Where the Action Never Stops!

Later (much later, presumably, I don’t know) we see a beaten-up Barton flump his wet, dying dog on the front desk of a veterinary clinic. “Lady… Fix. This. Dog,” he orders. The secretary doesn’t know how to fix dogs at all, so she just stares at him silently.

When the vet asks what happened, well… we flash back again to the wheelchair in the middle of the road. The guy who wheeled Barton out of the hospital (who looks like Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force by the way) starts running over and swearing at him. “That’s a two-hunner dollah wheelchair y’just kicked inta traffic,” he hollers incomprehensibly. “@*&#$!” he continues. Hawkeye considers lying to get his ass out of trouble, but the dude saw him abandon the wheelchair in the middle of the road, so no go.

“&%#@!” the orderly yells again. Barton tells him to bill him for the chair and he hails a taxi. He feels stupid sitting in this car in the middle of traffic when all the other Avengers can fly or use webs to get around town or parkour off of very tall buildings. Hawkeye can hit a target with an arrow. He decides to get out of the taxi without paying the fare and walks away. The cabbie starts yelling fancy punctuation marks too.

“I’m living in on the top floor of a big old building out in Bedford-Stuyvesant these days,” Barton tells us boringly. The rent is cheap and nobody really recognizes him since he’s a J-list Avenger. He rounds the corner and sees his Russian landlord bullying a black family as a couple of cronies throw their possessions out on the curb. “Ivan.” Barton approaches the landlord. “You think you can maybe not threaten to kay-eye-ell-ell anybody around their kids?” Ivan tells Barton to back off. He shows him a lease that shows a 300% increase in the family’s rent. “Is in lease. She sign. So pay or goodbye.”

Life ain’t fair. Get the fuck out.

Barton grabs the lease and scans it. Ivan smiles at the airtight contract and warns Barton that he’ll be getting one next.

Flash forward to the vet. “Mr. Barton, we need to talk about your dog.” Is he dead? Is the dog dead? Dead dog? “He’s not my dog,” Barton responds. Dead someone-else’s-dog?

The dog has lost a lot of blood and is in shock and needs surgery like you wouldn’t believe. A buttload of surgery. Otherwise, euthanasia is a fantastic course of action! Dead dog! What do you think, Mr. Barton, sir?

“@#%*!! that. Dog’ll make it. Do what you gotta do. We clear?” Barton says, poking a finger at the vet’s chest.

“I will absolutely operate on the animal, but you need to ask yourself are we doing this for him… or for you.”

VERY POIGNANT QUESTION. Let’s see here. Let me check my pocket for the answer. *pulls out raised middle finger* And do the surgery. “Sorry I snapped at you,” Barton says forlornly.

Flashback to the evening of the hospital release. Most of the building is hanging out on the roof for an evening social. They do this every night if the weather is nice, which sounds horrible to me. Socializing with apartment neighbors? I’d rather kill myself with a garden rake.

Barton flicks a penny at a beer bottle. It bounces off without breaking it. “Earth’s mightiest hero all right,” he thinks to himself. No self-esteem, this guy. No self-worth. Reminds me of a young me!

His neighbors are discussing how pets are suddenly forbidden in most of the buildings around the block lately. Their building just got hit with this restriction too. A damn shame. Anyway…

I like pizza and I’m pretty bad myself, bro.

Flash forward. “Can I pet your dog?” Barton asks a random guy on the street while chowing down on a slice of pizza. The random guy may not be random. Sounds like one of Ivan’s guys. “He bite, bro. Not good idea, bro.”

Barton tries to feed the dog pizza, which gets the guy mad as the dickens. Barton then reveals a duffle bag full of money and demands to be shown the secret casino inside the building. It works! Time to start gambling like a real Avenger-type hero.

“I don’t really know from casinos. Everything I do know comes from James Bond movies. Don’t have a tux but hopefully they’ll be cool.”

Barton enters a room with a lot of shady folk sitting at private card tables. I think he was expecting an actual fucking casino, lmao. All the creeps start laughing when Barton says he doesn’t play cards! Doesn’t even play cards! What’s this guy’s angle?! Is he looking for a fight or something?

Barton spots Ivan. “Bro. You go now,” Ivan smiles. Barton do not go now. He throws the large duffle bag onto his table. “I’m here to pay the rent. For everybody in the building.” Ivan is left somewhat speechless. “Should cover the mark-up for everyone in the building. All cash. Tax-free. Bro.”

Ivan is suspicious; wonders if Barton should even be spending this particular bag of what appears to be rather dirty money. One of Ivan’s men starts pulling out a gun. “Maybe don’t want fairy godmother cash,” says Ivan. “Maybe want empty building, bro.”

So Ivan doesn’t accept. Barton says he wasn’t asking.

Out come some playing cards, which Barton starts flinging at people. Hitting throats and shit. Creating chaos. Having a good time!

FREE MONEY! HOOAH!

Flash forward slightly. Barton is asleep in the veterinary clinic’s waiting room, presumably because he has nowhere else to sleep for the night. This is before the dog situation. Ivan and two of his men enter the building and approach the snoozing little dipshit. “Bro. BRO!!” Then Barton gets tossed through the window. Second time in one issue! The guy can take a beating, I’ve learned that much at least.

The three men brandish guns and start chasing down the running Barton. One shoots him in the arm, then their dog jumps up and bites the guy’s gun arm. Then he throws the dog right into traffic. Barton stops running, turns around, and start punching the dudes for throwing a dog right into traffic. It’s raining. No one is paying attention. The dog’s gonna get hit by a car and–

Flash forward further. The dog is in surgery. Ivan and his two men enter the building and approach Barton… but then Barton flies off the handle and starts beating the shit out of all of them again. “WHO THROWS A DAMN DOG INTO TRAFFIC–” he yells while Ivan is like “bro bro bro bro bro bro bro bro” about it. The rest of the waiting room is like “brrt!”, but Barton assures everyone that they’re ok. Just this Ivan guy in his smelly tracksuit is not going to be ok. Not ok at all. “It’s okay. I’m an Avenger,” he says wanly.

Ivan pats his bloody nose with a tissue. “Bro. What kind of Avenger does this?” He enters a taxi and insists that he broke no laws. Landlords can raise the rent to $1,000,000 a month if they want. Like the fucking scavengers that they are. Hawkeye takes this opportunity to tell Ivan the best part about being an Avenger: Captain America! That’s guy’s the best. Why, just being around him is illuminating! Brings out the best in people! *puke*

You want to be good when he’s around. But guess what? Captain America ain’t around right now.

So here’s the deal, bro. Here’s the money for everyone’s rent, bro. And here’s the money for the building proper, bro. You’re going to take it and get lost, bro. Fuck you, bro. Barton tells the cabbie to take him to the JFK airport ASAP and he STD,B (slams the door, bro).

Back at the vet, the Traffic Dog has been diagnosed with all sorts of broken bones (like a FIBIA for god’s sake) and also he lost an eyeball! Pretty crazy stuff, eh? I lost an eyeball once but the vet fixed me up in a jiffy as well.

“What’s his name?” asks the vet.

“He’s not my dog. Anything on his collar?” responds Barton.

“Collar says it’s ‘Arrow’.”

“Ehn. I’ll come up with something better.”