I love how much experimentation we see in this Hawkeye series, and I'll admit that most of it connects. Unfortunately I do feel the story has suffered a bit with the two latest experimental issues being back-to-back.

Let's see, the story has pretty much been at a standstill since issue #9. Since then, it has been about a villain's backstory and a dog's perspective. We've seen relatively little movement in the overall plot at all. All this setup makes me think this new clown dude should play a significant role in this series. If Hawkeye simply beats him in a single issue, I'm going to feel shafted.

That being said, I also miss the brisk pace that this series used to have in the early issues. What happened to the 1-issue, 2-issue format that Fraction said he was going with? I do wonder where he plans on taking this. He mentioned in an interview that he originally didn't expect this series to last more than six issues. Makes me wonder what his "big picture" for this is.

Lastly, I really hope Kate isn't gone for good. She's one of the main reasons I like this book. And it's not like there's a lot of supporting characters here.

#12 will should give us some answers I guess. I will say that I prefer Francavilla over Pulido when it comes to backup art duties. So I'm glad we'll be seeing him again.

I dropped the series at 12

The book hasn't really been good from the beginning and i'm a Hawkeye fan.

@vance_astro: haha that's a laugh

@extremis said:

Don't get what's funny, but ok.

I feel like its been at a standstill since #10 but I still have been enjoying it

True dat.I dropped it at 11

This book is bad, but it's popular because it's unique.

I agree with the bad part lol

Its not bad. I just think matt fraction didn't expect it to go past 6 issues so now he is writing it on the fly without knowing were its going

I'm enjoying it and with #12, it's good to see some of the characters connected with Hawkeye show up. Nice (and sad) story.

As for Kate -- she'll be around. I can't imagine them dropping her but I do think it's going to focus on Clint more now which was likely since there were lots of people who complained it felt like the book was more about Kate than him.