The last time Hawkeye will see some action...note
Claire Temple: You're going blind. That's something I can't fix.
Hawkeye: How long do I have? Claire, how long?
Claire Temple: I don't know for sure. Months. Maybe weeks. My advise? There's something you want to see, something you want to do... do it now.
Old Man Hawkeye is a 2018 comic book by Ethan Sacks and Marco Checchetto. It is a prequel to the miniseries Old Man Logan.
Hawkeye is one of the few superheroes still alive in the Wastelands. Back in the day of the villain uprising, he was the leader of the Thunderbolts, who switched sides and aided the supervillains. Now, with little else to fight for, he is seeking and executing all the former members of the Thunderbolts. Especially their leader, Baron Zemo. But it's not an easy quest. Besides the Thunderbolts themselves, he must overcome the dangers of the Wastelands, the agent Bullseye sent by the government to kill him, and his glaucoma that is turning him blind.
Tropes
- The Atoner: Songbird has spent the ensuing decades since the massacre trying to make up for what she's done by working as a nun.
- Bad Boss: Hammer hired Clint to take him somewhere. Clint points that the rocks in the area are unstable, but Hammer did not hire him for his opinions or his conversation. There are criminals in that area, that they may elude with a small detour, but Mr. impatient can't be late. And yes, they are attacked... because of Hammer's cargo, that he won't mention.
- Bittersweet Ending: Clint manages to hunt down and kill Zemo and the turncoat Thunderbolts, also kills Bullseye, and begins training under Stick (a still-living Matt Murdock) to learn how to fight without the use of his eyes. However, Kate abandons him after realizing that he's not gonna stop until he gets himself killed, and readers of the original Old Man Logan know that his plan to use the Super Serum to stop the Red Skull will ultimately result in his own death.
- Black Dude Dies First: War Machine was the first Avenger to fall during Zemo's ambush.
- Body Horror: The once-gorgeous Moonstone suffers from this. Her moonstone (the source of her powers) is breaking down her body, and by the time Clint and Kate find her, she resembles a walking corpse.
- Call-Forward: A particularly bleak one. In the final issue, Kate says that if Clint doesn't abandon his current path, he's gonna wind up with a bullet in his head, which is exactly what happens in Old Man Logan.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: It turns out after helping the Thunderbolts turn on the Avengers, Moonstone then tried to go after Baron Zemo for not giving her a promised reward.Clint: Wow, you just had a taste for betrayal, huh?
- Dark Lord on Life Support: An elderly Baron Zemo, decades after leading the Thunderbolts in their betrayal and massacre of the Avengers, is now confined to a wheelchair and breathing through a tube.
- The Dragon: Avalanche serves as one for Baron Zemo.
- Dying as Yourself: Being fatally wounded by Bullseye allows Bucky to regain control of his own mind after years of having served as the Red Skull's brainwashed enforcer. He lives just long enough to thank the assassin for finally putting him out of his misery.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: Songbird’s final fate at the end of her redemption - she dies in Clint’s arms after Bullseye throws his sai into her back. A flashback reveals Black Widow also died in Hawkeye’s arms after Citizen V/Baron Zemo impaled her with a sword.
- Empowered Badass Normal: Bullseye, who has lethal accuracy but nothing else, is now a cyborg!
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones / Love Makes You Evil: Beetle reveals that he betrayed the Avengers out of his love for Songbird, who would've been killed alongside the rest of the Thunderbolts had they refused to go along with Zemo's plan. After his death, Clint finds a note Beetle had written for Songbird, saying that he never stopped loving her, even at the end of his life.
- Evil Cripple: A series of strokes have left Zemo in a wheelchair and in need of an oxygen tube.
- Evil Old Folks: Just like in the original Old Man Logan to which this is a prequel, the Heroic Age supervillains still around, such as Bullseye (now a cyborg with Deathlok technology and still as deadly and psychotic as ever), the Thunderbolts (who betrayed the Avengers in the Uprising, with Songbird becoming The Atoner), Taskmaster, Avalanche, Baron Zemo (who has suffered from a series of strokes that rendered him an Evil Cripple), and of course President Red Skull, have become this.
- Foregone Conclusion: Being a prequel to Old Man Logan, it's clear that all pieces will land there.
- Logan is not taking part in fights anymore. If he appears, it will be just a cameo.
- Hawkeye will get blind. There's no escaping that. So, instead of making a big "twist" of it at one point, it is announced at the very beginning of the story.
- And of course, no matter what happens... Hawkeye will survive this story.
- Foreshadowing:
- Zemo being confined to a wheelchair is subtly hinted at throughout the story, as he's always seen sitting down with the rest of his body obscured from view. The only time he's shown standing up turns out to be a hologram.
- In a fight, Bullseye mentions how he stabbed Daredevil who then fell off a cliff before Bullseye could cut off his head. This sets up the final scene of the story revealing Matt Murdock is now the sensei Stick.
- Genre Savvy: At the end of the story, Taskmaster chooses to let Clint and Kate get away after they kill Bullseye, saying "I didn't get this far chasing someone else's stupid vendetta."
- Go Out with a Smile: Bullseye dies with a smile on his face, content at having gotten one last showdown with a real superhero.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: When the villains attacked, Clint was part of an Avengers unit that included former enemies the Thunderbolts. Clint assured Black Widow they could trust them. Instead, in the battle, the T-Bolts turned on the heroes and helped wipe the Avengers out.
- Kill and Replace: In the flashbacks, it's revealed that Zemo infiltrated Clint and Natasha's Avengers squad by killing the John Watkins version of Citizen V and stealing his costume. Ironically, that costume had previously belonged to Zemo back when he was first leading the Thunderbolts.
- Offing the Offspring: Magneto proves himself by killing the Scarlet Witch and letting Quicksilver be crushed by Atlas.
- Not Quite Dead: The original Old Man Logan showed that the Red Skull had killed Bucky after destroying the nation's capital. Here, it's revealed that he actually spared Bucky's life in order to turn him back into a mind-controlled assassin as a final insult.
- Redemption Equals Death: Songbird has spent years praying for redemption after betraying the Avengers, and helps protect Hawkeye from Bullseye. Unfortunately, Bullseye ends up killing her for that.
- Retcon: Several over the Old Man Logan ongoing series as opposed to the original storyline, though the majority can be explained as the original storyline taking place in Earth-807128, as opposed to the ongoing being on the similar, but different one of Earth-21923 that came out of the 2015 Secret Wars.
- A flashback in the first issue of the Old Man Logan ongoing series showed that Sam Wilson was Captain America when he died, and that his death took place alongside those of Iron Man, Miles Morales and Kamala Khan in a battle with the Red Skull (and a few other villains like Spiral, Whirlwind and Baron Blood). Here, Sam was still in his original Falcon identity at the time of the superhero purge, and his death occurred when the small team of Avengers that Hawkeye and Black Widow were leading got ambushed by Baron Zemo's group in Las Vegas. Iron Man, Miles and Kamala weren't at that fight (presumably having been attacked offscreen in other cities), nor were Red Skull or any of the other villains seen in the previous flashback. Also, Bucky's Captain America costume is shown as part of the Red Skull's trophy collection, reaffirming the flashback in the original series showing that he was the holder of the Cap mantle when the uprising happened.
- Bullseye claims he killed Daredevil, when the Enchantress was actually the one who killed him (by making his head burst, no less) in the Old Man Logan ongoing. And then the ending of Old Man Hawkeye has Matt still being alive.
- Minor example, but, as mentioned above, the original storyline implied the supervillain uprising took place in-universe around the same time the story was actually published, which was 2008. As such, when the corpse of Carol Danvers was seen on the cover of one if the issues, it was still clad in her black Ms. Marvel costume. The flashback in Old Man Hawkeye (as well as the previously-mentioned cameo from Kamala Khan in the Old Man Logan ongoing) instead indicates Carol had already taken on her Captain Marvel identity by the time of her death. This is the main adjustment that cannot be explained via it being a similar, but different universe.
- Properly Paranoid: In the flashbacks, Black Widow raises concerns about trusting the Thunderbolts in a battle against a villain army. She's right.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The point of Clint's crusade as he wants payback on the Thunderbolts before he goes blind.
- Shout-Out: Just before destroying a Sentinel with an arrow to the eye, Kate says "Smile, you son of a bitch..."
- Taking You with Me: After Avalanche is fatally stabbed through the mouth with one of Hawkeye's arrows, he tries to destroy the entire Weapon X facility so that nobody gets out alive.
- Tears of Remorse: Magneto is shown crying after he's forced to kill Scarlet Witch.
- Temporary Blindness: Throughly averted, as Clint’s glaucoma in both this and the original Old Man Logan is anything but temporary.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Magneto justifies his involvement in the villain uprising by saying once all the heroes are dead, he'll use his territory to create the mutant sanctuary he's always dreamed of.
- Wham Line: The final scene: Now blind, Clint goes to meet the mysterious "Stick", begging him to teach him how to fight as a blind man and seek justice. Stick's reply: "No need to stand on ceremony, Clint. Just call me Matt."
