The bros are back in town.
Three issues in on the new Hawkeye series and I can official state that it is one of Marvel's best books. Fraction as a writer is very hit and miss, but his precision has reached Clint Barton levels with this series. This issue focuses on a not so innocent damsel in distress who Hawkeye falls in with. He and Kate Bishop protect this mysterious redhead by taking to a gang of bro-saying, track suit wearing, mini-cooper driving thugs from the same seedy circle as issue one's Ivan the Landlord.
The confrontation itself is nothing special, and the bros are more goofy than threatening (unlike the Circus of Crime last issue), but the focus of this third chapter is all about the arrows, and that's where this issue excels. Even the best Hawkeye or Green Arrow writers tend to ignore the mechanics of what an archer does and how he does it. They create special trick arrows that are convenient for their story, and then forget about them. Where do all those special arrows come from, how does he know which is which, these are the issues that Faction actually puts a magnifying glass to.
Aja's art is always great, but the experimental inks in the series were really throwing me off at first. Now that I am getting used to them, I can really appreciate their use. On top of that Aja's art only gets better and better as he grows more comfortable with the cast of scoundrels that Fraction has created. The most controversial part of the art is certainly the colors, I hated them in issue one, but they too is growing on me. The way Hollingsworth has used monochromatic purple base colors wherever he can is very rewarding, and this issue introduces the idea of different characters having their own unique base color. I can't wait to see what comes next with the lady in red!
This is not a book about Hawkeye the ladies man, this is not a book about a non-powered hero in the seedy underbelly of New York City. These elements are present, but when it's all said and done this book is about one thing, Hawkeye the archer. That's how it should be. This issue is not the instant classic Clint Barton story that the second issue was, and I was somewhat disappointed to see the return of the bros over seeing the ramifications to Hawkeye's actions last month, but it is clear that Fraction has no plans to drop any of the plot lines he has been developing and I get the feeling that all these one-and-done stories are going to end up colliding into each other in one huge overarching conflict very soon. Despite minor gripes and flaws, Hawkeye is a book continues to hit its mark every month.
