Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Generations: Hawkeye and Hawkeye #1 Synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Near the end of Secret Empire #10 Kobik the Cosmic Cube sent various people temporarily and independently via the Vanishing Point through time to meet their older counterparts much earlier in their careers. Hawkeye (Kate Bishop) was 1 of them.
She has no idea what actually happened, just that she's in some jungle island in the middle of an ocean. She's already noted and avoided many famous super-marksmen. And now she runs into a young Clint Barton/Hawkeye in his original Avengers outfit. So now she knows she's in the past even as she gasps his name "Clint!". He of course wants to know who she is and how she knows his secret id. But *she* knows she's got to avoid messing up the timeline so she can't tell him she's from the future where they're both crime-fighting Hawkeyes. So with quick thinking she invents the awful super-id Hawkess, but he can call her Kate.
Meanwhile they're stood there aiming arrows at each other. She's noticed that he's wearing a belt with a target on the front. He asks her why she doesn't have 1 like everyone else. She extemporises that she took it off and he's surprised that it didn't explode, so she has to claim that it must have been broken. He's now very suspicious, but she says she knows the hero's not going to shoot her so why doesn't he lower his weapon. He objects to her calling him by his civilian name again because he wears a mask to keep that name secret, and asks her again how she knows his name. She lowers *her* bow to show she trusts him. And he fires an arrow at her ...
... which hits the target on the belt of an unidentified costumed man behind her who has an array of knives. His target crackles with energy and he fades away.
Later our duo are toasting marshmallows(!) on an open fire. Kate accidentally introduces Clint to the future word 'asshat'. But she's more careful when she explains to him how she knows so much about him - she says she's friends with Black Widow (Clint's girlfriend at the time). They banter about their costumes, and Kate persuades Clint to take his mask off so she can try it on. Clint sees holes in her story but somehow he trusts her.
Another mystery villain, this 1 with a machete, pops up to attack them - pointing out that their fire and loud talking makes them easy to spot. It turns out that's the plan as Clint uses a mini-crossbow to get rid of this guy and Kate hit's the target on Boomerang's belt. Clint doesn't recognise Boomer's future costume, and also draws a blank when Kate mentions she's seen future baddie Bullseye (so she doesn't mention Crossfire and Taskmaster).
Kate tries to find out what's going on. Clint says he entered a contest to find the best marksman in the universe, to win a lot of money. But he doesn't know how he got to this island. However somewhere along the line he *was* told about the belt target teleport system. Also however all the rest seem to be villains and some of them are opting for killing rather tagging, so superhero Clint has decided to teleport them all before they kill each other. Kate says she doesn't know how *she* got here but it wasn't Clint's way, so he posits that she's a spanner in the works that maybe they can make use of.
Clint leads Kate to some Angkor Wat-y buildings where he suspects the mastermind behind all this is holed up. Clint suggests Kate go in to find the control room and shut it down while he holds off anyone else with the same idea. But at that point Clint's former mentor Swordsman (with a target belt) joins them. Both heroes suspect he's the man behind the curtain so they refuse his help when he claims to be in the same situation as them. However Clint relents and says they can both stay here to keep others off Kate's back.
The Hawkeyes have another chat before Kate goes inside. 1st off she tries to stop him calling her Katie (we know that's not going to work). Then she gives him some trick arrows, like the boomerang arrow, that he hasn't invented yet. Then she tells him about Roman Emperor Domitian who could fire 4 arrows at once.
After that Kate wanders among the ruins thinking how Clint had a bad father-figure in Swordsman like her own criminal father, but now he's been a good (but messed-up) father-figure to her. Then she figures that the control room is likely to be in the top of the tallest ruin. Meanwhile Clint is caught between despatching Swordsman now or trusting him a *little* bit. But then they get separated and he is attacked by another guy he doesn't recognise, this 1 announcing himself as Taskmaster and boasting of his photographic reflexes. So Clint doesn't try anything clever but just yanks on the villain's cloak and jabs an arrow on the teleport target.
Meanotherwhile Kate is spying on a blue-haired female with bow and arrows in the control room. She also spots someone about to shoot the woman so she fires a magnesium flash arrow which dazzles the shooter so he only nicks her. Then she fires a line arrow and slides down to kick the recovering villain who she recognises as Clint's sometimes foe Crossfire who doesn't recognise *her*. She notes that he doesn't have a target belt and guesses that he used his tech knowhow to get it off. So she just punches him unconscious and ties him up.
Kate holds the woman at arrowpoint but then Swordsman walks in. He confirms that he's working with the female who he calls his protege Eden. She holds both of them off waiting for Clint to arrive. But instead she gets nicked by a thrown card and realises Bullseye is here. The 3 duck behind an overturned table as a hail of weapons embed themselves in it. Eden can't understand why the players are cheating, but bound Crossfire confirms that the villains don't like being manipulated. Swordsman explains that Eden pulled the best marksmen through time and space. The weapons are starting to break though the table when Kate hears Clint shout "Domitian" from above. She fires 4 arrows simultaneously in that direction, some of which wound Bullseye who's fighting Clint and winning. Clint manages to kick him away and Kate's next shot hits his teleporter.
It turns out that this was all Swordsman's way of getting Clint to meet Eden and agree that the 3 of them would make an unstoppable team. It also turns out that Eden thought Clint knew the plan. She realises that Swordy will never get over his obsession with his 'creation' Clint, so she uses her machine to send him away - and Crossfire and all the other villains too. She gives Clint a device that will send him home too and then teleports herself away.
Clint comments that Eden was pretty cute and they had something in common - both manipulated by Swordsman. Kate is embarrassed for him. She also asks rhetorically why his shirt always gets ripped (as happens a lot in her time). As they wait for whatever brought Kate here to take her back he tries to hit on her which she of course finds gross. As Clint lies back and relaxes she decides that the timeline is probabny already messed up anyway so she might as well tell him the truth about their relationship in the future and how they're both Hawkeye and how he's a good mentor and friend. Then she realises he's fallen asleep and missed it all. And then Kobik takes her back to the future.