All-New Hawkeye #4: Review

Jan 2016

Jeff Lemire, Ramon Perez

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Story Name:

Hawkeyes: part 1 of 3

Review & Comments

Rating:

All-New Hawkeye #4 Review by Rob Johnson (October 28, 2023)

Ian Herring shares the colouring with Ramon Perez for these last 3 issues. As in the previous series I believe Perez colours the flashbacks.

This flashback is Derek Bishop's 1st app. Kate has already been seen in an fb with her mother in #7 of the 2017 Hawkeye series starring herself.

This issue appears to have Kate Bishop only in the flashback. But next issue will reveal that the 2 'Hydra' Agents are really Kate and Clint's brother Barney Barton, who Clint contacted last issue before teaming back up with Kate. (The Hawkeyes had fallen out during #1-2 over letting SHIELD have the Project Communion kids.)

Maria Hill continued as SHIELD Director in the post-Secret Wars universe, dabbling in various things including the Starbrand & Nightmask mini-series and most recently the (2016) Black Widow series.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

All-New Hawkeye #4 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

For the remaining 3 issues of this series we return to the layout of previous series with present day action mixed with flashbacks. But this time the flashbacks are to Kate Bishop's childhood.

And we start with a flashback. Young teen Kate returns from St Jude's boarding school to New York for the summer. The other girls at school are OK but she finds them boring because she doesn't just want to grow up to marry some other rich kid to continue the cycle. She'd rather be like her businessman father than her socialite mother. She already wants to be called Kate not Katie.

When she gets home she finds that her mom is away in Tuscany and her dad is too busy to spend time with her. She tells him she'd like to learn more about the business but he brushes that aside and leaves her in the hands of his aide Mr Krip. Instead she goes to her room.

In the present Clint Barton/Hawkeye goes to see SHIELD boss Maria Hill to tell her that Kate Bishop/Hawkeye has hacked into SHIELD's database to find out where they're keeping the 3 Project Communion kids (who the Hawkeyes rescued from Hydra last series but reluctantly let SHIELD have them because they were too dangerous free). He thinks she's gone after them so they've got to stop her. Hill tells him that they *had* the trio in their Colorado facility but Hydra has just kidnapped them. She also tells him that the kids were Inhuman orphans triggered by the release of Terrigen Mist (in Infinity #3). Plus not to worry because they're satellite-tracking the Hydra group and preparing a counter-rescue. Barton persuades her to let him lead the team because he feels responsible for the situation.

In the past Kate's 2nd day home is spent in private ballet lessons, but her minds not on it until her dad shows up. Then she performs to impress him. But he's only there to tell her he's going to have to miss another meal with her because of business.

In the present Hawkeye tells the 2-man SHIELD team he'd rather go in solo but they say that Director Hill insisted they stuck with him. So he dives out of their plane, advising them to try to keep up. They follow him sky-diving. They have parachutes but Barton fires an arrow-line back to the plane and uses it to swing down and kick the lone Hydra driver out of the 2nd (smaller) of 2 trucks. He takes over the wheel as the 2 SHIELD Agents land on the back. He draws alongside the larger truck which also seems to have a lone (female) driver. Giving control to an Agent Hawkeye leaps from 1 truck to the other.

In the past Kate's in bed watching a film with someone doing the same stunt. She muses that mom *always* seems to be away, but at least dad's usually here. She hears a noise and goes downstairs. The remaining 3 pages of the issue are in split screen. Kate peeks through a door and sees her father beating up a bound man and demanding his money back.

And in the present Clint latches on to the speeding truck but the driver shoots him point-blank and he falls to the road.

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