Vol. 1: My Life as a Weapon (Marvel NOW!), Hawkeye

One of my all-time favorite Avengers finally gets stories worthy of his abilities. This collection hits the bullseye constantly. A worthy and recommended read for all fans of the Avengers, New Avengers, Young Avengers and all marvel comics.
However the character portrayed in these comics are nothing like Hawkeye seen on screen. Hawkeye is a hero, living in a world where most of the heroes have super powers or mutated abilities. Hawkeye is human, figuratively and literally.
So if you are a fan of the big screen Hawkeye, you may cringe at this collection. If you are a fan of Hawkeye in the comics, this is your book.

Thor: God of Thunder, Deadpool (Version5), and now this. I'm not sure which came first, but Marvel's take on the "let's pull a DC comics and revamp," I have to say there are a few that actually pulled this off quite well. Matt Fraction's take on Hawkeye, (aka Marvel's bow and arrow guy, also aka an Avenger that usually nobody cared about) is dealt justice here. The humorous story arc with little outside references is actually well done for anybody new to Avengers or the Marvel Universe. My wife, who only knew about Hawkeye from the Avengers movie, (and now like I) love this comic. The majority of this volume's artwork may not be the typical over the top variety that most comic book readers are used to. But I fould it enjoyable and pleasing on the eyes. Plus it really fits Matt Fraction's story and dialogue style.
My only complaint about this volume, besides being very small, is the final issue inserted in this volume. They wanted to add in a quick explanation of how Clint and Kate know each other, but I thought it was pretty unnecessary. In fact if they left that out and just inserted the next issue of Hawkeye, I would have rated this 5 stars.

DISNEY/MARVEL.....THIS is the Hawkeye/Widow script you're looking for....

Replace Kate (who is amazing in this arc, by the way) with Black Widow, and you've got your Phase 2 action/adventure/comedy smash on a platter.

This is ALSO the collection that you comic readers will want to turn your friends on to...you know, those folks that haven't read a comic in years but love the Marvel movies.

My Life As A Weapon is, simply put, the best series Marvel is producing right now.

More hyperbole will only blunt my point. (See what I did there? Archery joke!)

If you're perusing these reviews, you're already interested, so just buy this already!

The pop influenced art is totally cool (check out the cover!) and combined with the intelligent plot makes this a must buy. From the character development to the color concept, this book is one of the best thought out graphic novels I have ever read from Marvel. I can't wait to get my hands on volume 2.

Normally, I don't enjoy comics that feature a character made newly famous by a movie (Black Widow, Loki, ect.), but this is not only the exception, it is one of the best comics that i have read. the artwork is amazing, and the story is deep. I actually laughed out loud, for the first time when reading this book. 6/5 stars, most defiantly worth the ten bucks.

Loving this graphic novel that opens up the world of Hawkeye after the Avengers movie. Since he's just an ordinary guy compared to the other Avengers, this book casts a very human light on him and allows (most) readers to connect.

As someone who just recently started getting into comics -- superhero comics, specifically -- I have to say that this was a perfect starting point. It's accessible without being condescending, hand-holdy or weightless, and the writing and artwork are stylish and funny. Even after having caught up on a ton of other superhero comics in the past few months, Matt Fraction's take on Hawkeye is still my favorite.

A wonderful superhero book about the man on the street meets the crazy super ninja spy. You know the kind. The minimalist art resonates and gives depth to solid stories. One of the best modern comics today.

Fraction, man. He just kills it on this. Completely kills it. But as good as his writing is the art is truly the stand-out in this series. David Aja blows your mind apart and then fits this pieces back together in ways that you didn't think your brain could fit.

If you don't have it. Get it. NOW!

I never gave Hawkeye much attention. I'd seen him here and there, but never bothered to really read up anything on him. I am glad I did not miss this one. I don't know where this falls in with other Hawkeye books, but damn, this was just good. Fast paced, action packed, funny, just really well written. The drop in art is a little bit of a letdown, but this is far too well written for that to make you put it down.

so much about comics anymore is about big time world ended peril. and you can get jaded to that. this run by fraction gets back to street level heroics as Hawkeye is found looking to help the neighbors in his building instead of saving the planet from some crazy aliens. its funny, it's clever, his young protoge' is a great inclusion. the simpler artwork absolutely leads to the charm of these issues.

Why include a backup issue of lesser quality hawk guy in the back? It does make fractions stuff look better by comparison, and it shows hawk guy as ronin... not even about hawk guy though... I guess they just needed padding.

I received the TPB in great condition in safe packaging. I started the story last night and really enjoyed it. The artwork is simplistic, but fits. The story is also pretty great. I really enjoy it and recommend purchasing from these guys.

This new hawkeye is great. An awesome story and beautiful art. It is part of the Marvel NOW! launch. Very funny story with some serious points in it. The only downside it leaves off at a point where I was not motivated to buy the next ones. It wraps up fairly nicely so I'm probably going to wait until the next trade comes out.

Truthfully, after decades of comics, I'd gotten a little jaded with straight-up superhero tales, with sky-high stakes and failure not being an option.

Then, I came across "Hawkeye." Like a lot of people, it took the recent Marvel movies (specifically "Thor") to make me take a second look at the third-string Marvel hero. I'd read comics of his in the past, and they were more of the same, albeit with a terrible costume (and a wife with an even worse one).

Not Matt Fraction's "Hawkeye."

Here's a book with stakes that shrink from the cosmic down to a single apartment building in an outer borough of New York City, where Hawkeye's costume is the work uniform doffed when Clint gets home and where the stakes are having a good relationship with his neighbors or being able to set up his DVR.

The book is light, breezy, fits well into actual save-the-world Avengers continuity but requires no knowledge or caring about such things (the tagline is that this book is what Clint Barton does when he's not off being an Avenger), and gorgeous to look at.

The best superhero comic book in years seems almost parachuted in from some other, better-written, more engaging future.

Whether you bleed in four colors, or don't know your Earth 616 from your Earth-2, "Hawkeye" is a must-read for every sort of superhero fans.

I was very impressed with this series. Top-notch writing and wonderful art. The "extra" story of Young Avengers Presents #6 at the end of this book wasn't the same quality as the rest. It gives some back-story and is relevant, but it doesn't stand up to the rest, of course.

Read. This. Comic.

No really, buy this right now and read it. It's great.

You want to go to Disney World, put that on hold. This comic is better than that. (Disclaimer, this may or may not actually be better than Disney World, but, boy, is it great either way!)

This comic has Hawkeye. No, wait, this comic has TWO Hawkeyes, both of whom are equally amazing.

First off, this compilation is nice, quality is good, its bound nicely, and it contains issues 1-5 plus Young Avengers Presents #6. So that is nice.

Now, the art. It is simply gorgeous. It is smooth, the characters look realistic, both artists show some of the best expressions, the panel layout is amazing (there is one page with 22 small face shots and 2 larger shots of the characters), the coloring is a beautiful muted pallet with lots of purple, and the whole art just flows together.
Next up would be the writing. Every character is perfect. All of the characters we know and love are in character and plenty of side characters feel real.

Some of my personal favorite things. Kate Bishop. She is a strong female character who spends more time saving Clint than he spends helping her as Clint put is "Did I ever tell you why I love Kate Bishop? I mean, look at her. She's perfect." And she really is. This comic does a great job at showing how Clint is just a great guy, sure he may help save the whole world, but he's just as willing to put his life on the line for a couple of guy's reputation. He just a guy who can't help, but help people. He is a standout character of his own even if he's on the same team as Captain America and Thor.

If you are on the fence about this comic read the reviews- they don't lie. This comic just keeps getting better and better. I have been reading this as it comes out and already have the next volume on preorder, this comic is that good. Enjoy reading the preview over and over again until it arrives at your house. This comic is a great ride!

I bought this book because of the great reviews, but i'm pretty disappointed. There is minimal character development, the book is really a few different comics drawn by 3 different teams. That could all work, except that the story is forgettable. It's light and entertaining, but I'd recommend you spend your money somewhere else.

My Life as a Weapon collects the first five issues of Hawkeye by Matt Fraction and David Aja, the creative team behind The Immortal Iron Fist. It also includes an issue of Young Avengers Presents which provides additional information and backstory behind Kate Bishop, one of the primary characters in the Hawkeye series.

The premise of the book is -- this is what Clint Barton (aka Hawkeye) does when he's not being an Avenger. It begins with a story of Barton dealing with both his landlord (who has raised prices on his apartment building, thus forcing out some of his long-time neighbors) and some local thugs who back up the landlord. It continues with a tale in which Barton and his ally Kate Bishop face off with carnival bad guys, then moves to a storyline featuring the return of the thugs from the first chapter, and concludes with a story set in the fictional south Asian country of Madripoor.

Honestly, I'm fairly surprised by the primarily positive reactions to the book as I found it something of a mess. The first three chapters are loosely connected standalone stories that are fairly repetitive and mildly entertaining at best. The last two chapters containing the Madripoor story were not good -- the setup wasn't much of a hook, the action was relatively boring, and the "turn" at the end wasn't that shocking or interesting.

David Aja is an interesting artist with a fairly unique style. His work won't appeal to everyone, but it can work quite well (such as the case in his Iron Fist work). Here, it was fairly bland. He's mostly drawing mundane scenes with dialog and in many cases, Fraction's script crams in way too many panels. There's a page with literally 24 panels in it, making it fairly impossible to appreciate the art. Also, Aja's style is more rough and dark, which worked well in Iron Fist, but doesn't work as well on pages focused primarily on inter-character dialog. I assume the goal in pairing the two together is that Fraction seemed to be attempting a hardboiled/crime noir style to the book which could have fit with Aja's art; but it just didn't work with the panel layouts here. The final two chapters are illustrated by Javier Pulido, and I honestly found his style a bit too cartoonish for this particular book (particularly considering the tone that Fraction was attempting to set with the work).

Overall, this may be attractive to a reader that's a huge fan of Hawkeye; but if you're looking for a good graphic novel/comic collection to dive into, there are better options available.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

Matt Fraction’s “Hawkeye, Vol. 1: My Life as a Weapon” is a collection of five first issues of “Hawkeye” comic book series plus the sixth issue of the “Young Avengers Presents.” Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye, is one of the Avengers, Earth’s mightiest heroes who fight “the foes no single superhero can withstand.” However, unlike his teammates, Hawkeye has no superpowers or fancy armor; he is just an ordinary guy who happens to be VERY good with bow and arrows. And this is what Hawkeye is up to when he is not an Avenger.

MY THOUGHTS:

1) My newly found love for superheroes.
I’ve never considered myself a fan of superheroes and I’ve never even heard about Hawkeye before. To be honest, “Hawkeye, Vol.1” is the first superhero comic book I’ve ever read. However, I absolutely loved this book and I am already looking forward to reading the second volume. In fact, I loved “Hawkeye, Vol. 1” so much that it inspired me to read/watch/learn more about the other superheroes as well. Seriously, it’s pretty awesome!

2) Surprisingly realistic (for a superhero).
Hawkeye is excellent at shooting and can fight pretty good as well but he is by no means invincible; he gets banged up, he gets shot, he gets robbed, he gets kidnapped. No flying, no tights (not all the time, at least). He is just like us, no?

3) Stimulating entertainment.
Each of the six stories is fast-paced, action-packed, well-thought-out, entertaining and absorbing. I especially love the opening scenes of chapters 2, 3 and 5 where the author reveals the climax of the story (accompanied by Hawkeye’s comment, “Okay, this looks bad.”) and then rewinds back to tell how the characters got to this point. However, in chapter 1 such a retrospective approach is slightly overdone, as the present and past scenes are switched so often that it is quite a puzzle to figure out the actual sequence of the events.

4) Great artwork but not all by the same artist.
Generally, I enjoyed the illustrations as much as I liked the story itself. It still blows my mind every time I try to imagine how much time, effort, talent and teamwork takes to draw each panel. However, I can’t help but mention that different chapters are illustrated by different artists (chapters 1-3 by David Aja, chapters 4-5 by Javier Pulido, and chapter 6 by Alan Davis). Since each artist has his own style, the same characters appear slightly different with subtle changes in their personalities. My favorite illustrations are probably by Aja (I swear, from certain angles Hawkeye looks like Brad Pitt!). Also, reading the last chapter made me want to workout more; everyone looks so DAMN hot!

VERDICT: 4.5 out of 5

“Hawkeye, Vol 1: My Life as a Weapon” is so surprisingly good that I urge you to give it a try. I absolutely loved these entertaining action-packed adventures of a self-made superhero. However, I would prefer all the chapters drawn by the same artist.

The comic begins with a strong enough introduction - we all know Hawkeye is a sharpshooter and that he's a member of the Avengers. But of course, this isn't about him being in the big superhero team. This comic is all about what he does outside of all that. Thus we are introduced to where he lives and what he does in his spare time and a lot of him not wearing his costume.

So yes, you're going to get a lot of street-level crime stories and things of a more personal nature. And you get a whole lot of Clint Barton more than his big superhero alter ego Hawkeye. And that is what makes this comic pretty amazing. What you learn from the very first issue is that Clint is a really hardy guy. He's not super strong and he may not even be super fast, but at the very least he can take quite a beating. And we're not talking about superhuman healing or anything. He's just a guy who won't stay down for as long as he can manage things.

Matt Fraction is an interesting storyteller who has a flair for character-driven plots and a good dose of humor as well. And I like the balance that he brings to stories. This is not all fun and games and naturally there are some serious consequences to some of the events that happen. But still you don't feel like it's an overly heavy comic or one that is a struggle to read.

And they also manage to assemble an interesting cast of characters to support him. There's Kate Bishop, who is also Hawkeye and a skilled archer in her own right. You have Arrow the dog, who is better known as Pizza Dog to fans of the comic. And there are the various residents of Hawkeye's apartment building, who occasionally play their own roles in the story.

The art for this comic is pretty amazing, and I'm surprised that there have actually been several artists involved in the title and yet the overall look and feel remains consistent. There's a strong slant towards better visual storytelling and thus you have panels that almost feel like infographics and really great depictions of what's going on that have you see the action instead of read a narration of it. And I'm not just talking about a single splash page with him in some hero pose. I'm talking about way move involved multi-panel layouts that use repeating imagery to really tell a story.

The comic is definitely a great one and it amazes me just how much fun I had with the title even though we don't really see a big "known" villain until the final arc of the book. It's title that manages to sell Clint Barton more than Hawkeye if you get my drift, and this is quite the achievement in comic book storytelling.

Hawkeye Vol. 1 - My Life as a Weapon is a great book and a solid introduction to this iteration of Hawkeye. He's a great character to follow and Fraction really knows how to handle him and we're all the better for it.

really great marvel now comic very funny but the bro stuff got a little old The breakout star of this summer's blockbuster Avengers film, Clint Barton - aka the self-made hero Hawkeye - fights for justice! With ex-Young Avenger Kate Bishop by his side, he's out to prove himself as one of Earth's Mightiest Heroes! SHIELD recruits Clint to intercept a packet of incriminating evidence - before he becomes the most wanted man in the world. You won't believe what is on The Tape! What is the Vagabond Code? Matt Fraction pens a Hawkeye thriller that spans the globe...and the darkest parts of Hawkeye's mind. Barton and Bishop mean double the Hawkeye and double the trouble...and stealing from the rich never looked so good.

COLLECTING: Hawkeye 1-5, Young Avengers Presents 6

A fun and refreshing trade. The art, while minimalistic and initially off-putting in its simplicity and reduced color palette, grows on you and proves to be unique and creative. From a writing perspective, this book is much more about a regular guy than a faultless, invincible superhero. As such you will be more impressed by Clint Barton's self-sacrifice and endearing realness of character versus his muscles and epic feats. It still has those "wow" moments where Hawkeye shows why he is an avenger, but realistically balanced with him getting his tail kicked. A lot. Which makes sense, right? He's no Thor or Hulk. Fraction recognizes Hawkeye's physical disparity between him and the superhuman heroes, yet he goes on to make it part of the magic of why Hawkeye is awesome. Between feeling like this Hawkeye is a real guy, enjoying ongoing inside jokes ("bro", "ok, this looks bad"), and savoring the creativity of the art, this is a great trade to own as an older reader that is looking for more than flashy fight scenes featuring perfectly sculpted superheroes.

I really enjoyed this volume of Marvel Now's Hawkeye. Over the years I've been easing myself into the world of Marvel and DC Comics as the sheer amount can be staggering. Some of these characters have been written for over forty years, or more.

In the case of Hawkeye, I had no familiarity with the character until he started showing up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, where he was portrayed by Jeremy Renner. The character was well played in the film, so I was excited to see what Matt Fraction did with the character. While this comic IS NOT part of the MCU, this iteration of Hawkeye felt like he would fit right in amongst the cast of the film.

In terms of story, there's a few plot threads that carry between issues, but aside from a distinct two parter, each story is more or less its own. The collection wraps up with an issue of Young Avengers Presents that tells a story between Kate Bishop and Clint Barton that fit in nicely with the collection.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this volume's art and writing and can't wait to dive into volumes 2, 3, and 4.