It was during Fraction's. It was used or implied in two issues there: one drawn by Francavilla and another by Aja.
Lemire wrote about him in the carnival, iirc.
But I think the first mentions to an abusive parental caring was in the early 90s. Not his actual parents, but foster houses. I may be wrong, though.
Clint growing up in the circus with Barney and being trained by the Swordsman has got to be from early Avengers issues, probably the first appearances of both characters back in the 60s.
In Solo Avengers #2, in 1988, it was added that Harold Barton was an alcoholic, abusive, and that he and Edith died when he was driving drunk and got into an accident. There, Clint says that he and Barney lived in an orphanage until they ran away to the circus.
In Fraction and Aja's Hawkeye run (2012-2015), there was a new detail added, that Harold's abuse temporarily deafened Clint (and then apparently his hearing was healed until his mini with Mockingbird in 1983 when he used the sonic arrow to prevent Crossfire from mind controlling him through sound).
Their's a panel of him telling them to their faces their not real it was when he was all white and unemotional and shit but it exists, and after their ressurection he replaced them with Viv and Vin and is/was more invested in those 2 moreover, than he ever was with Tommy and Billy.
To be fair. Vision's original kids were "killed" by Pandemonium and got reincarnated as someone's else sons so it was outta his hands at that point.
Someone talked about that story in FF Appreciation thread. Some villain got one of Johnny's one-night stands pregnant with his kid. Then she realised a bunch of FF villains would come after the kid so she disappeared into the time stream with Reed's time machine.
Last edited by Triniking1234; 10-27-2020 at 05:47 AM.
"Cable was right!"
Norman Osborn and Brian Banner have been mentioned but I would also like to throw Winston Frost, father of Emma Frost, into the ring.
Winston is an abusive control freak who set extremely high standards for his children while giving them no positive reinforcement. When Emma expressed interest in becoming a teacher, Winston forbade it and threatened to leak a tape of Emma kissing her teacher to make her comply. When his son Christopher is revealed to be gay, Winston freezes his assets and locks him out of the house he bought to force him to come home. When Christian instead moves in with his boyfriend, Winston frames said boyfriend for drug possession resulting in him being deported. This causes Christian to fall into depression and attempt suicide for which Winston has no sympathy.
Most of the heroes have bad daddies but Victor "I'll launch your house into space" von Doom had a nice dad.
"Cable was right!"
From a hero standpoint, Matt Murdock may be of the few whose father, Jack Murdock, was a positive influence and a decent person. Not to say that he wasn't flawed; however, he genuinely wanted his son to be a better person and have a better life than him. Also, I choose to ignore the Miller retcon that Jack hit Matt (as have most writers since).
I love Jack Murdock very practical dad. In the current run i love the panels of him dropping off a young Matt at their parish and having the Pastor have a word with his son after Matt beat some kid for bullying other kids while he goes to fight for a living lol. He knew he had no leg to stand on telling his kid fighting is bad.
Funny enough, it seems parental dysfunction is extremely common in superhero and supervillain origins and backstories, assuming those same parents aren't long dead. At least Spider-Man had (Uncle) Ben Parker (R.I.P.) as a positive father figure.
The spider is always on the hunt.