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Why Hawkeye is an Avenger

There have been interesting debates on the roots of Hawkeye. Some have traced him back to Robin Hood, or William Tell (names he has been called by the Avengers more than once). Others have drawn upon his similarities with Old American Natty Bumpo, Clint's original namesake. I have previously drawn attention to Hawkeye's showmanship, the mixture of Wild Bill Hickock and Phineas Taylor Barnum. But this whole thing came together for me in some comments made today on the Baron Zemo's Lair board by Kirk (CrazySugarFreakBoy!) Boxleitner about group dynamics.

Every group has certain roles that need to be filled. Management handbooks, group psychology texts, military leadership manuals all have different models for describing them, but there are certain "types" in any group - a classroom, a platoon, a sales team, or just a bunch of friends - which reoccur again and again and again. There's the leader, who is also the referee, the statesman, the opinion-former. There's the princess (or prince), the courted one, the one who's specially favoured. There's the intellectual, the nerd, the brains wizard. There's the clown. And there's the rebel.

That last one? That's Hawkeye. Runs away from the orphanage with his big brother and joins the carny. Hooks up with the big-time act Swordsman but won't become a crook just to live on Easy Street. Gets trained by Trick-Shot but won't play that old man's power games either. In his first outing as a hero he gets taken for a crook. He doesn't stay and explain to the cops, he takes it on the lam. He falls for the most dangerous woman on the planet, and follows her into felony and treason. Mixes it up with Iron Man and Spidey because that's the way he is. Rebel without a cause? That's Hawkeye.

Of course, being Hawkeye there's more than just rebellion. There's a fierce devotion to being the very best in his fields of endeavour, a willpower to train and to improve and to win. He has the mindset that only champions have, and it's what makes them champions. There's a strong personal moral code which doesn't baulk at doing anything - fighting Iron Man, the whole USSR, or Mephisto himself - for the woman he loves, but which stops him absolutely from taking a life or betraying a friend. There's the tough orphan who battled his way through the state custodial system and the rough-and-tumble world of the carnival and came out bloody but unbowed. There are old wounds, of a betraying brother, of two mentors who had feet of clay, or a lover who was taken from him (Natasha Romanoff, whom Hawk once thought dead). And there's the showman, always seeking the spotlight, always wanting to be the centre of attention. Rebelling will do that every time, and the compulsion of the spotlight makes sure that the rebelling is always spectacular.

Then Clint Barton becomes an Avenger. Almost as if driven into the main ring, as if drawn by the challenge of making his mark in a bigger arena, Clint walks through Avengers security, ties up Jarvis, and demands his place at the big A table.

The Avengers had never had a rebel before (or, to a lesser extent, a clown).

Hawkeye's early days in the team can be characterised as fighting Cap's authority, clashing with Quicksilver in a sort of jostling for position, and a mild attraction to Wanda. But behind that there is so much more. Hawkeye had never had a mentor who had not proven false. Why then should he take "Methuselah" at face value? He had never had a real friend who had not left him. Why should he easily take to the fiery Pietro, especially when Quicksilver was so swift to protect his sister against the unsuitable archer? Hawkeye rebelled because that was what he had always done, because he couldn't believe that Cap was really and truly that good, and because it gave him something to do, a role to play, within the first team, or set of friends, he'd ever had.

But Hawkeye's progress was just beginning. Eventually he accepted that Captain America really is... Cap. And in that moment Hawkeye gave his allegiance wholly and forever to "winghead", even though they continue to have brushes and disagreements to this day. Clint had also embraced the team, investing his loyalty in it and taking a massive pride in the tradition and institution of the Avengers. Hawkeye tends to offer his loyalty to whatever team he is on (he once sided with the Defenders against the Avengers, for example, and is currently bonding with the Thunderbolts) but first and foremost he is an Avenger.

As one of two non-super-powered mainstays of the team (and the other is Cap, who's a hard act for even the powerhouses to measure up to sometimes) Hawkeye has had his share of difficulties. He abandoned his Hawkeye identity to become Goliath on two occasions, the first when he doubted the value of his archery skills to the team and the second when he doubted his own self-worth in the wake of his separation with Mockingbird. He left the team on several occasions, walking off like a child wanting his friends to call after him "Don't go! Play out for a bit longer." And he was occasionally overlooked by outsiders, most notably in the government-picked Gyrich team (where he was supplanted by the Falcon to ensure minority representation, much to his chagrin). But "Br'er Hawkeye" keeps coming back, even when he's disenchanted with Tony Stark, even when he's shattered by his wife Bobbi's death.

I'm deliberately omitting Clint's time as leader of the Wackos. "Why Hawkeye became Leader of the West Coast Avengers" is entirely another essay.

Hawkeye in the Avengers became the rebel with the cause. His own moral standards evolved alongside the Avengers'. He challenged and quarrelled with the easy tongue of a family member (in my view Hank had more to put up with than Cap in the first hundred issues, and that's saying something). But he stood by his friends, he held his own alongside gods and synthezoids and mutants, and he had fun in the spotlight along the way.