Clint Barton: Hawkeye Appreciation 2020

[Matternativ]

Sorry, double post. Wow! This is a pretty good analysis. I agree with how you see it. He feels like that, to me, yeah. I actually think that's the reason he keeps having "something" with Nat sometimes: because he's still in love with her. It's probably the same for every woman he's been with, to certain degree, and the reason he still cares a lot.

I think in one of these Bendis Interview things Clint said something like: "If you'd tell me that I'd fall in love with Natasha tomorrow all over again I would believe you."
So that checks out too.

[Frontier]

I think in one of these Bendis Interview things Clint said something like: "If you'd tell me that I'd fall in love with Natasha tomorrow all over again I would believe you."
So that checks out too.

See, that's kind of why I don't see him entering into a Friends with Benefits relationship with her because I think he values his relationship with her too much to make it purely physical.

[Sneakronicity]

Even if I agree that giving him an already established new relationship is a bit forcing the matter into the story, I have to say... For me, the thing that "ruined" Clint in the MCU, or at least, that worked against him, is that they stripped him of all his charm, his personality (until Civil War, where he started to be like what I expected him to be). That worked a lot more against him than having a family with a loving wife d kids, in my opinion.

I think this ship with Night Nurse has a purpose storywise and that's why he's already in a relationship with her, but we will see how it all develops (I hope I'm right :/).

Why I say that it's the family that ruined Clint is because it basically wrote him out of the films. He was barely in Civil War, had no opinion on the accords, and when he did finally show up for his five minutes of screen time near the end, he seemed to only do so because Cap asked and he was bored. There wasn't reason enough there for why he would join the fight and go up against his best friend. Then there's Infinity War where they didn't even bother to include him at all, the only Avengers team film where one of the originals was missing entirely. It really felt like the writers didn't know what to do with him because why would he keep leaving his family to fight or hang with this team of people he barely knew?

That in itself is a huge disservice to Clint, because the Avengers should be his family. Instead Natasha remains the only one who he had any sort of relationship with, and it existed before the team formed. Yes, his personality was lacking, but he really didn't stand a chance after he was saddled with that anchor. I won't even get into my feelings on Endgame because they are beyond not good lol.

And I hope you're right about Night Nurse too and it has a purpose, 'cause it was just so abrupt to me. Half the fun for me is the build up and there was none, but maybe that was done for a reason.

[Sneakronicity]

See, that's kind of why I don't see him entering into a Friends with Benefits relationship with her because I think he values his relationship with her too much to make it purely physical.

I agree completely with this, I don't think they could ever just be Friends with Benefits, there are too many feelings there. Not only has he referred to her as his best friend, but he clearly still very much loves her. The quote about her from Kelly Thompson's Hawkeye run, when Nat was dead, always hits me in the feels. "I lost... I lost someone I loved too. Someone who was a compass in my life for so long I can't remember what my life was before her. The world without her is... it's just so much less in every way."

[OOTCS]

See, that's kind of why I don't see him entering into a Friends with Benefits relationship with her because I think he values his relationship with her too much to make it purely physical.

I don't think it was friends with benefits, but it also wasn't a fling (like with Janet) or a full-on relationship, either. It was never defined, which ramped up the drama when they argued in issue #2, when she left, and when she died. I doubt either of them thought it would be a long-term thing, but that doesn't mean that it was casual, either. It was what it was when it was.

Back to Night Nurse, one of the themes of this series is supposed to be Clint's obsession with the Hood messing up his life and his relationship. But I didn't think her advice of "just let it go" was necessarily sound, either. The Hood is an supervillain, and it's Clint's job to get him off the streets, right? Maybe he just needs a better strategy.

[Snoop Dogg]

Spencer brought the correct ship back to prominence because Clint needed emotional support during wartime but now we're back to fighting the Buckynat stans with our sticks and stones. SMH...

[Zaresh]

Why I say that it's the family that ruined Clint is because it basically wrote him out of the films. He was barely in Civil War, had no opinion on the accords, and when he did finally show up for his five minutes of screen time near the end, he seemed to only do so because Cap asked and he was bored. There wasn't reason enough there for why he would join the fight and go up against his best friend. Then there's Infinity War where they didn't even bother to include him at all, the only Avengers team film where one of the originals was missing entirely. It really felt like the writers didn't know what to do with him because why would he keep leaving his family to fight or hang with this team of people he barely knew?

That in itself is a huge disservice to Clint, because the Avengers should be his family. Instead Natasha remains the only one who he had any sort of relationship with, and it existed before the team formed. Yes, his personality was lacking, but he really didn't stand a chance after he was saddled with that anchor. I won't even get into my feelings on Endgame because they are beyond not good lol.

And I hope you're right about Night Nurse too and it has a purpose, 'cause it was just so abrupt to me. Half the fun for me is the build up and there was none, but maybe that was done for a reason.

Oh, you're right: he was written out because he had a family. Well, in-universe at least. I guess he was written out because they needed screemtime for all the other characters that people were apparently more invested with (unfortunately. Because he wasn't much of a character, and the little he was there, well...).

On the other hand, him having a family (that he would lost) is what, in my opinion, made the opening scene of Endgame so strong. Then they proceeded to "murder a bit more" his character; but still, that was a pretty dramatic and intense opening to make the audience relate with and understand the impact that losing half the humanity meant in just one scene. For me, half the movie were Scott and Clint's roles in the story (even if it was very angsty AND abdolutely depressive Clint that's really not my taste. Ah, Hell). At the very least, he had that, he was somewhat relevant, even if he didn't have a main role.

And we're having a TV series, which is pretty good. I wonder if they're going to get him divorced for the show.

[Frontier]

Spencer brought the correct ship back to prominence because Clint needed emotional support during wartime but now we're back to fighting the Buckynat stans with our sticks and stones. SMH...

I'm totally not irked that Bobbi is never the one he goes to for emotional support...

[OOTCS]

Spencer brought the correct ship back to prominence because Clint needed emotional support during wartime but now we're back to fighting the Buckynat stans with our sticks and stones. SMH...

C'mon, man...we all have our preferences, but I'd prefer not to get into a ship war on this forum.

I'm totally not irked that Bobbi is never the one he goes to for emotional support...

Well, she was when the Hulk attacked. And at Natasha's funeral. But not much since then.

I guess the real reason she couldn't be in this series is because she would have oxme up with a plan to take care of the Hood in five minutes and then the story would be over

[hawkeyefan]

I had a thought about that line of internal monologue where Clint goes, "My girlfriend thinks she's better than me because she's the Night Nurse and she helps people, while I run around shooting them with arrows. In her defense, she is better than me, but that's not the point."

Compare it to the speech Bobbi gave Dominic Fortune after their breakup: "Clint's too good a man for what we have to do in this kind of life."

Both of them are superheroes who chose that life and all that it entails in order to keep the world safe (and, okay, also because they wanted adventure), but they still think that their significant others (or ex-significant others) are better than they are because they engage in less violence.

I wonder how this fighting vs. healing tension will play out in his new relationship. Clint has always dated women who were at least a little bit more ruthless than he is. What will it be like for him with the shoe on the other foot?

I like the dynamic that they seem to be setting up between Clint and Night Nurse. It seems to have some story potential, and also seems like a nice change of pace compared to the super spy chick type characters he's usually paired up with. Could it even be a bit of growth? Like he's learned his lesson? I've known people who always had a type...they dated people that fit their type. And it never worked. And then they found someone who was a bit different than their type, and it was the best thing for them.

The more I think about it, the more I like it.

I don't think it was friends with benefits, but it also wasn't a fling (like with Janet) or a full-on relationship, either. It was never defined, which ramped up the drama when they argued in issue #2, when she left, and when she died. I doubt either of them thought it would be a long-term thing, but that doesn't mean that it was casual, either. It was what it was when it was.

Back to Night Nurse, one of the themes of this series is supposed to be Clint's obsession with the Hood messing up his life and his relationship. But I didn't think her advice of "just let it go" was necessarily sound, either. The Hood is an supervillain, and it's Clint's job to get him off the streets, right? Maybe he just needs a better strategy.

Yeah, but Clint's notorious for letting his emotions get the better of him. Hence, all his troubles with women over the years. He can be at his worst when his emotions take over.

Unfortunately, it also seems to be when he's at his best.

I think it depends on the nature of the emotions in question. He should want to stop the Hood because that will help people, not because he feels insulted. I took her advice to be along the lines of "don't let it be personal".

[Matternativ]

See, that's kind of why I don't see him entering into a Friends with Benefits relationship with her because I think he values his relationship with her too much to make it purely physical.

But that predates "I'm scared of a serious relationship" Clint. My head canon wasn't born till that happened

[OOTCS]

I like the dynamic that they seem to be setting up between Clint and Night Nurse. It seems to have some story potential, and also seems like a nice change of pace compared to the super spy chick type characters he's usually paired up with. Could it even be a bit of growth? Like he's learned his lesson? I've known people who always had a type...they dated people that fit their type. And it never worked. And then they found someone who was a bit different than their type, and it was the best thing for them.

See, I don't think Clint's mistake was dating spies at all. If you review his relationships/flings/crushes, that's not even the strongest pattern that emerges:

• Jess was raised by Hydra and has worked for SHIELD, yes, but I don't think they ever got to the level of closeness where their respective value systems came up, and their breakup definitely wasn't about that.
• His relationship with Natasha was kind of all over the place because first she was a villain, then a hero, then she tried to retire and become a civilian, then she went undercover as a spy, and then she walked away to figure out who she really wanted to be. You can't really make out a pattern from that because she was going through so much change at the time, but people who think they would make a good couple in the present usually point to her growth since then.
• Karla wasn't a spy, although she was a supervillain in the process of reforming, and maybe it's true that this sort of kinship is part of what made her attractive to him, but I don't think she's in the same category as most of his other serious relationships, because she actually went back to being a bad guy (or an antiheroine at best), whereas the others didn't do that.
• Sheila Danning was technically a spy, but she was playing a part when she dated him, and he was attracted to the role she was playing, not to her true personality.
• Echo, Janet, and Wanda were straight-up white hats, and Maryanne the librarian was a civilian who happened to be resourceful, intelligent, and had a cool head.

In fact, I'd argue that Clint's type is hypercompetent women moreso than morally grey ones, and that Linda does fit this archetype.

• So then we come to Bobbi, Clint's longest, most involved relationship, and the one we can learn the most from. Sure, Bobbi has the SHIELD background and her code of ethics is slightly different from his, but no two people in the world have the exact same code of ethics. She's never been presented as the typical "ends-justify-the-means" SHIELD figure, the way that Fury, Hill, Quake, etc. have been. She never fit in 100% at SHIELD and has quit at least 3 times that we know of (just like Clint with the Avengers!), and has spent much of her career jumping around from organization to organization, team to team, trying to find a place where she can do the most good according to her own conscience. This was actually a point brought up in Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda a few issues ago. Until the Phantom Rider thing happened, her background was never presented as a problem. You never know how someone is going to come out at the end of a traumatic experience, and even someone who's completely gentle and would never hurt a fly might have changed after the experiences she had.
  
  But their breakup was a combination of two factors: 1) Clint didn't know how to deal with Bobbi's mental state after the Skrull abduction and he was afraid he was making things worse for her, and 2) Clint freaked out after ripping out Crossfire's cybernetic eye and thought that it was her influence on him that caused him to do that.
  
  However, as we've seen in the years since, Clint is perfectly capable of inflicting violence all on his own, what with some of the gruesome scenes we saw with the Tracksuit Mafia and of course the deal he made and carried out with Banner.

Over the years, Clint's biggest flaws have been his quick temper and his stubbornness. That's what's gotten him into trouble in his relationships and friendships, not his taste in women.

Clint isn't perfect. His initial reason for wanting to be a superhero was to get the kind of respect Iron Man had, which was why he was so easily manipulated by Natasha back when she was still doing that sort of thing, and he's done plenty of things over the years that he's not proud of. So to say that he shouldn't date anyone who's been a spy because their morals won't stand up to his is somewhat of a double standard. If anything, he should learn to be more humble and less judgmental when it comes to his friends and partners. If he wants to be a good partner, he needs to work on his own flaws. Otherwise, eventually one day Linda will do something that doesn't live up to his standards, and then what? He'll just dump her and look for someone even more saintly? It's not a sustainable way to handle relationships.

[hawkeyefan]

See, I don't think Clint's mistake was dating spies at all. If you review his relationships/flings/crushes, that's not even the strongest pattern that emerges:

• Jess was raised by Hydra and has worked for SHIELD, yes, but I don't think they ever got to the level of closeness where their respective value systems came up, and their breakup definitely wasn't about that.
• His relationship with Natasha was kind of all over the place because first she was a villain, then a hero, then she tried to retire and become a civilian, then she went undercover as a spy, and then she walked away to figure out who she really wanted to be. You can't really make out a pattern from that because she was going through so much change at the time, but people who think they would make a good couple in the present usually point to her growth since then.
• Karla wasn't a spy, although she was a supervillain in the process of reforming, and maybe it's true that this sort of kinship is part of what made her attractive to him, but I don't think she's in the same category as most of his other serious relationships, because she actually went back to being a bad guy (or an antiheroine at best), whereas the others didn't do that.
• Sheila Danning was technically a spy, but she was playing a part when she dated him, and he was attracted to the role she was playing, not to her true personality.
• Echo, Janet, and Wanda were straight-up white hats, and Maryanne the librarian was a civilian who happened to be resourceful, intelligent, and had a cool head.

In fact, I'd argue that Clint's type is hypercompetent women moreso than morally grey ones, and that Linda does fit this archetype.

• So then we come to Bobbi, Clint's longest, most involved relationship, and the one we can learn the most from. Sure, Bobbi has the SHIELD background and her code of ethics is slightly different from his, but no two people in the world have the exact same code of ethics. She's never been presented as the typical "ends-justify-the-means" SHIELD figure, the way that Fury, Hill, Quake, etc. have been. She never fit in 100% at SHIELD and has quit at least 3 times that we know of (just like Clint with the Avengers!), and has spent much of her career jumping around from organization to organization, team to team, trying to find a place where she can do the most good according to her own conscience. This was actually a point brought up in Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda a few issues ago. Until the Phantom Rider thing happened, her background was never presented as a problem. You never know how someone is going to come out at the end of a traumatic experience, and even someone who's completely gentle and would never hurt a fly might have changed after the experiences she had.
  
  But their breakup was a combination of two factors: 1) Clint didn't know how to deal with Bobbi's mental state after the Skrull abduction and he was afraid he was making things worse for her, and 2) Clint freaked out after ripping out Crossfire's cybernetic eye and thought that it was her influence on him that caused him to do that.
  
  However, as we've seen in the years since, Clint is perfectly capable of inflicting violence all on his own, what with some of the gruesome scenes we saw with the Tracksuit Mafia and of course the deal he made and carried out with Banner.

Over the years, Clint's biggest flaws have been his quick temper and his stubbornness. That's what's gotten him into trouble in his relationships and friendships, not his taste in women.

Clint isn't perfect. His initial reason for wanting to be a superhero was to get the kind of respect Iron Man had, which was why he was so easily manipulated by Natasha back when she was still doing that sort of thing, and he's done plenty of things over the years that he's not proud of. So to say that he shouldn't date anyone who's been a spy because their morals won't stand up to his is somewhat of a double standard. If anything, he should learn to be more humble and less judgmental when it comes to his friends and partners. If he wants to be a good partner, he needs to work on his own flaws. Otherwise, eventually one day Linda will do something that doesn't live up to his standards, and then what? He'll just dump her and look for someone even more saintly? It's not a sustainable way to handle relationships.

That's a great analysis, and I don't disagree. I wasn't commenting on the morals of the characters, so much that they were super spies/heroes, and it's likely a good idea to change that up. Being with someone else who is "on the job" seems to have not worked out for him. Both from an in-universe reason for Clint, and also from a writer's point of view, the change seems to be a good idea. I like the idea of him being with someone who gets it, but who isn't out there doing the same job.

I didn't mean to imply anything about the morals. I actually prefer for Clint to have a little more flexibility in his morals than is sometimes portrayed. I don't want him to be Ultimate Hawkeye or anything, but I found his days in the WCA trying so hard to be Captain America to be rough. Interesting maybe in the sense of someone trying so hard to be something they think is the standard rather than doing things their own way, but I don't know if anyone ever really went that route with it.

I agree that it's his emotions that have gotten him in trouble. I didn't think I said it was his taste in women. So I don't think we disagree there.

[OOTCS]

That's a great analysis, and I don't disagree. I wasn't commenting on the morals of the characters, so much that they were super spies/heroes, and it's likely a good idea to change that up. Being with someone else who is "on the job" seems to have not worked out for him. Both from an in-universe reason for Clint, and also from a writer's point of view, the change seems to be a good idea. I like the idea of him being with someone who gets it, but who isn't out there doing the same job.

I didn't mean to imply anything about the morals. I actually prefer for Clint to have a little more flexibility in his morals than is sometimes portrayed. I don't want him to be Ultimate Hawkeye or anything, but I found his days in the WCA trying so hard to be Captain America to be rough. Interesting maybe in the sense of someone trying so hard to be something they think is the standard rather than doing things their own way, but I don't know if anyone ever really went that route with it.

I agree that it's his emotions that have gotten him in trouble. I didn't think I said it was his taste in women. So I don't think we disagree there.

Thanks for the clarification. I also think that Clint should decide for himself exactly who he wants to be instead of trying to live up to an Avengers ideal. I think that would be a great arc for some long-term character growth. And I wouldn't object if he decided that for him, killing was a red line he never wanted to cross, but I'd like it if they explored the reasons behind that more, and I want him to come to peace with the fact that not everyone has the same code as him and that it doesn't need to be a deal-breaker.

I agree with you that having Clint date a semi-civilian who's still part of the superhero world sets up new opportunities for storytelling, and I'm interested in seeing how that's handled.

[Matternativ]

Thanks for the clarification. I also think that Clint should decide for himself exactly who he wants to be instead of trying to live up to an Avengers ideal. I think that would be a great arc for some long-term character growth. And I wouldn't object if he decided that for him, killing was a red line he never wanted to cross, but I'd like it if they explored the reasons behind that more, and I want him to come to peace with the fact that not everyone has the same code as him and that it doesn't need to be a deal-breaker.

I agree with you that having Clint date a semi-civilian who's still part of the superhero world sets up new opportunities for storytelling, and I'm interested in seeing how that's handled.

I think in the lead up to his first stint with A Secret Avengers team him seeking approval from Cap rather than from himself has been brought up but they deal with it within that single issue.