Bendis' Love Letter to Hawkeye ( Pulse #10 Spoilers )

[Saint Jimmy]

Wow, I just got done reading Pulse #10, and cannot say enough good things about it! While I am LOVING House of M so far, this has to be my favorite tie in so far. ( Followed VERY closely by the Hulk tie ins. ) Now, I never really had a freak out moment when I read Avengers #502. I didn't ban Bendis, and for that matter, thought it was a fine little comic. My reaction to Hawkeye's demise was not rage, anger, death threats, or even curses on Bendis' soul or whatever. I was just... confused. I knew why he did what he did, but it just didn't seem like a fitting end to one of the ballsiest Avengers in the history of the book. Little did I know... Hawkeye would feel the exact same way! I loved his reactions to his death in this issue. I loved his threats to Wanda. I loved the scene with the newspaper articles reading differently to the uneducated civilians of the House of M reality. And I LOOOOOOVE that this appears to be the beginning of some HUGE events for our favorite archer in comics. (Sorry Ollie, it's true...) This is a great read that I hope isn't passed over as being another "pointless" tie in. I wish this was called House of M #4 1/2 instead of Pulse #10. I have a feeling this will play greatly into the ending of the series. Thank you, Bendis! I knew you had a plan. What did you guys think of this issue? Ha, I hope I'm not over-reacting!

[TIP]

It was a very good issue, indeed. Might be the best one thus far (of The Pulse).

T

[BriRedfern]

I don't get it. I thought he came off as a regular, garden variety, depressed ass hole in this story. Is THIS the character everyone has been harping on about?

[BriRedfern]

Oh, I enjoyed the issue, I was just expecting to see some sort of greatness out of this character the way people have been talking about him.

[Balthazar]

So do you think it was Bendis' plan all along to kill Hawkeye and then bring him back? Or did he do it just becasue of all the bitching and moaning over Hawkeye being killed in the first place?

[Saint Jimmy]

I don't get it. I thought he came off as a regular, garden variety, depressed ass hole in this story. Is THIS the character everyone has been harping on about?

Yup, that's the one! I understand where you're coming from, but he did just find out he was dead. I know that would bum me out pretty bad. But yeah, it was pretty ridiculous how angry people got about his death, eh?

[TIP]

So do you think it was Bendis' plan all along to kill Hawkeye and then bring him back? Or did he do it just becasue of all the bitching and moaning over Hawkeye being killed in the first place?

I seem to recall reading somewhere that initially he was dead with no plans to bring him back but that it changed somewhere along the lines.

T

[BriRedfern]

Yup, that's the one! I understand where you're coming from, but he did just find out he was dead. I know that would bum me out pretty bad. But yeah, it was pretty ridiculous how angry people got about his death, eh?


Oh yeah, I think the part wqas played well by Bendis. I would be pissed, but people have been talking about this issue, and what a great job Bendis did with HAwkeye, and how this issue proved how he really got the character, and there was no real characterization there for me beyond the guy being pissy and shooting arrows at some poor reporter in the archives.

[Saint Jimmy]

I have a very hard time believing that Avengers #502 was Bendis' last thoughts on the character. It's possible, but it just doesn't feel right

[Ray G.]

I knew that Avengers #502 made no sense. There was no way you kill off a character by having his body disappear into a spaceship that never existed. It was the most inconclusive death since Sirius Black's.

[Dermie]

Although I really enjoyed the issue, and thought that Bendis did a great job with Hawkeye dealing with this unusual situation he is in, there WERE a few glitches that were inconsistent with Hawkeye's history.

For example, the bit about him never reading anything but the sports page :no: ...we've seen Hawkeye on-panel before reading newspaper articles about politics and discussing them.
My attempt to explain away that one is that Clint has his memories of his lives in both the regular and HoM realities--so maybe he only reads the sport pages in the HoM world, and got mixed up.

Hawkeye and Wanda "haven't always gotten along"; this statement applies basically to the first 100 or so issues of Avengers...but for the next 400 or so issues Clint and Wanda were very good, close friends. They were probably one of the closest male/female friendships in comics that never turned romantic or sexual.
I've got a theory to try and justify this glitch though...with dementia and other forms of mental illness, your perceptions are often altered or distorted. When Wanda went insane, it is possible her perception of her relationship with Clint was distorted. Her mind may have blocked out the many years of friendship, and instead brought old conflicts from years ago into her mind again, making them seem fresh and new.

And lastly there is Hawkeye announcing that he plans to go kill Wanda and Magneto...even though Hawkeye has always been one of the strictest Avengers when it came to the no-killing rule.
But that is normal Hawkeye, in normal circumstances. This is "just found out he was killed by a friend, and who believes his current life is nothing more than an illusion, and therefore his sanity is hanging by a thread" Hawkeye--the normal rules may not apply right now.

Anyway, there's my attempt to No-Prize through the little glitches in Bendis' Hawkeye portrayal.

Glitches aside, this was a great issue, and I very much appreciated Bendis giving Hawkeye this spotlight (even at the expense of Jessica Jones, who didn't appear in the issue at all). I was also glad to see Kat Farrell getting a chance to shine, since she hasn't had a whole lot to do in this series thus far.