Hawkeye #8 Review
New issue of Hawkeye out today, bro. Check it out, bro. Actually, if this was your first issue of Hawkeye to pick up, you might be somewhat disappointed. This was the first issue that I found to be somewhat confusing. Fraction has a certain style of storytelling he has been doing with this book and up until now I’ve had little problem following it. I’m still scratching my head after reading this issue.
Let’s try to work through some of the confusion. Penny is back and is able to just walk into the Avengers mansion (security?). The relationship between Clint and Jessica Drew must be out the window because Clint has almost no problem jumping into bed with Penny (he does admit he’s nervous about things with Jessica, but still). Penny wants to commit a crime and Clint has little to no problem with it. Penny wants Clint to cause a big distraction so she can slip in unnoticed, yet she wears a slinky little harem girl outfit (about the least conspicuous you can possibly get). The meeting with the bad guys (I don’t want to spoil the revelation of the big baddy behind all of Clint’s woes) is simply incomprehensible. I know they want to kill Clint but the objections (were they objections?) and the number crunching (the Russian sure didn’t argue the numbers he was given if they are what I understand them to be although they were much lower than his numbers he gave) were not exactly clear. I’m not sure who the guy was that Typhoid Mary hushed. The scene was good for letting the reader know who was behind everything and that they want Clint dead, but otherwise it was some of the weakest dialogue I’ve seen from Fraction on this series.
Now for the good. Aja is back and his art is beautiful. His art is not what you’d expect to find in a superhero book, but this book isn’t exactly a superhero book so it works. The people look more realistic (not overly curvaceous or brawny), although his depictions of Black Widow, Mockingbird, and Spider-Woman seem extremely dated. The scene stealer here though is Annie Wu. Her covers she creates for the old comics are fantastic. The style reminds me somewhat of Guillem March and harken back to those terrible romance comic covers. Along with her art comes the great idea Fraction has for their importance to the story and why they are even in this issue.
