Hawkeye was a good read but not a great one

Hawkeye is one of those comics that I could have started reading earlier as it had got good reviews from the start and was written by Matt Fraction whose writing I had liked in Iron Man (among others). But things do not always work the way that they should and I let it slip.

What got me into the book was a snap sale on ComiXology, as is often the case these days. which offered the first few issues at 79p each. I bought the first five issues as they were the ones included in the first collected edition and so I knew that the story would end at a logical point.

This version of Hawkeye was less of the superhero fighting super villains with the Avengers and more a skilled man fighting petty criminals on the street. With a dog.

It felt very much like Daredevil to me and lacked originality and purpose because of that. The place to find Daredevil stories should be in the Daredevil comic.

There are other Marvel characters who could have fitted well into that world, people like Moon Knight and the Punisher, and I did not see the point of taking Hawkeye out of the Avengers and putting him on the streets.

Leaving aside my problems with the basic premise of the book, the stories themselves were neat and tidy. This Hawkeye was very human and far from the usual all-conquering superhero, he got himself into lots of scrapes and was beaten-up more than once. "It looks bad" was his catchphrase.

The artwork by David Aja, new to me, fit the gritty style of the book exactly. A little research tells me that he previously worked on similar titles like Iron Fist and, er, Daredevil.

I enjoyed the first five issues but the lack of originality in the scenario meant that I left it there and I have not bought any more issues.