Spoilers for all works set prior to the end of Avengers: Endgame are unmarked.
Agent Clint Barton / Hawkeye / Rōnin
"I see better from a distance."
Birth Name: Clinton Francis Barton
Known Aliases: Hawkeye, Rōnin
Species: Human
Citizenship: American
Affiliation(s): S.H.I.E.L.D., STRIKE, Avengers, New York City Live Action Role Players (formerly)
Portrayed By: Jeremy Renner, Diesel La Torraca (young)Foreign voice actors
Appearances: Thor | Captain America: The First Avengernote | The Avengers | Avengers: Age of Ultron | Captain America: Civil War | Avengers: Endgame | Spider-Man: Far From Home note | Loki note | Black Widow note | Hawkeye | Echonote
"The city's flying! Okay, look, the city is flying, we're fighting an army of robots... and I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes sense. But I'm going back out there because it's my job."
An agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the greatest marksman in the world. He recruited Natasha Romanoff into S.H.I.E.L.D. instead of killing her like he was ordered, creating a bond between the two of them. He is assigned by Nick Fury to keep an eye on dangerous operations, like the Tesseract project. And unlike any of the other Avengers, until Tony Stark in Endgame, he is married with children.
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- 10-Minute Retirement: After Age of Ultron, he makes an honest attempt to retire... which lasts until Zemo's plot leaves Steve and Sam in need of allies. Clint and Tony both crack jokes about this.Clint: I retire for, what, like five minutes, and it all goes to shit.
- Abled in the Adaptation: Zig-zagged. In the MCU, when Hawkeye is first introduced, there's nothing wrong with his hearing, just like how, in the comics released at the same time (and most of the comics up until that point), Hawkeye has normal hearing and does not use a hearing aid. From his 2012 series and onwards, comic book Hawkeye is partially deaf, so he wears a hearing aid and can use American Sign Language, and the same is true in Hawkeye, where Clint's participation in the Avengers' work has finally started to affect his hearing and he starts learning American Sign Language, as evident in the series' second episode.
- The Ace: He's considered the best marksman in the world, with good reason. The fact that Clint was put on the Avengers Initiative despite having no enhancements or superpowers to speak of is the living embodiment of this trope. He's just a man with a bow and arrow, yet he's still one of Earth's mightiest heroes. Rogers! The Musical makes sure everyone knows it.Hawkeye hit the bull's eye! There's no better shot than you!
- Action Dad: He has two — later three — kids; Laura worries about the danger he's in during missions because of how it'll affect them.
- Adaptational Dumbass: Though he's portrayed as being more professional and properly educated, the films excise his tactical and leadership skills, with him never shown following orders. The films also make it clear he owes all his gear to S.H.I.E.L.D. and Stark, but in the comics he makes his own arrowheads and gadgetry himself, being a surprisingly capable self-taught weapon designer/engineer. It isn't until Hawkeye's finale where it's shown that he can construct a wide variety of his own trick arrowheads in addition to using those marked Stark Industries and PymTech.
- Adaptational Heroism: Downplayed. Hawkeye has long been known as one of Marvel's premier Badass Normal superheroes, but originally he was introduced as a villain (albeit a reluctant one) in the comics, before becoming an Avenger and never going back. However, the fact that he's a "criminal-turned-Avenger" is a big part of his lore. Here, he has no such criminal history to begin with and was always on the side of good (barring the brief episode of him being brainwashed by Loki in The Avengers)—and his turn as the vigilante Ronin.
- Adaptational Intelligence: In the comics, he's got a demonstrated goofiness to him and is very poorly educated as a result of dropping out of school before he was a teenager (if he even went to school at all), and it's noted he's just barely literate. In the films, he's shown being a far more functioning adult and takes his job seriously. The finale of his series shows that he makes almost all of his trick arrows (presumably Pym helped with the pym-particle arrow).
- Adaptational Nice Guy:
- The Hawkeye in the comics was quick to butt heads with his teammates, especially Captain America, due to his arrogance and hot-headedness when he first joined the Avengers. Here, he's on friendly terms with all of them.
- He's a lot nicer compared to Ultimate Hawkeye after both of them have lost their family. While Clint here becomes a brutal vigilante, he's still amiable if not somewhat withdrawn to his allies and friends, whereas his Ultimate counterpart became far more abrasive and rude to his teammates.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Clint's hair is blond in the comics, brown here.
- Adaptation Personality Change: Clint Barton is pretty firmly against authority in the comics, while he's first introduced in the films working for S.H.I.E.L.D. (the same as Black Widow). Comic Clint was also much more solitary, being broken up with his wife Mockingbird and generally failing to maintain any long-lasting relationships, while MCU Clint actually has a family that he deeply treasures. On the other hand, comic Hawkeye has excellent leadership skills garnered from Captain America, while in the movies Clint mostly just provides cover support. While the Hawkeye miniseries does start to touch on a bit of Clint's leadership traits, they are still not as pronounced as his comic version.
- Adaptational Wimp: This version of Hawkeye is still a dangerous assassin and a high-ranking member of S.H.I.E.L.D. with Improbable Aiming Skills, yet due to being Out of Focus and his skills not being as emphasized in the MCU, he comes across as being lesser than his comic counterpart. In the comics, Hawkeye is a master martial artist, acrobat, knows how to use multiple weapons as effectively as his bow, has numerous gadgets including trick arrows, his own Flying Car that helps him traverse the battlefield (the Sky-Cycle), and is a very skilled leader and tactician, having led multiple teams throughout the comics (including the Thunderbolts, West Coast Avengers and the actual Avengers). In fact, him being a Badass Normal fighting alongside superhumans put pressure on him to fight as good as a superhuman, despite not being one. Here, he rarely uses any trick arrows that aren't explosive, doesn't have the Sky-Cycle or his numerous gadgets, and he doesn't take charge of leading at any point. While the Avengers often grill each other, Barton in particular is a favored target, which makes him come across as such in-universe. This may finally have been excised as of Endgame, where Clint as Rōnin is The Dreaded and a deadly fighter who can hold his own in every scenario with just his trusty bow and sword. He's also finally shown fighting with more impressive acrobatics and a diverse range of trick arrows in his own series.
- Adapted Out: Civil War actually inverts this. In the comics, Clint was one of the few notable heroes who was not part of the event because he was presumed dead at the time (and in Europe looking for the Scarlet Witch while the event was happening), and the Hawkeye that participated in the war was actually his successor Kate Bishop. Since he was alive by the time of the MCU equivalent, he was part of the conflict.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In the comics, Hawkeye is Heterosexual Life-Partners with Captain America, due to Cap giving him a second chance as an Avenger, though they do give each other a hard time every now and then. He's often not keen on taking direct orders, and the only one he'll follow without question is Cap himself. In the movies, this is greatly lessened. While Hawkeye does have a respect for Cap, enough that he sided with him in the Civil War, they aren't portrayed as being close friends like they are in the source material.
- Advertised Extra: Rōnin in Endgame. While Clint himself is prominent, Rōnin is only shown in a single scene. He keeps the sword, but the other trappings of the Rōnin identity are only seen in the scene from the trailer. That said, the Hawkeye series shows impact of his stint as Rōnin, with flashbacks to Rōnin's actions during the five-year gap between Infinity War and Endgame.
- Age Lift: Jeremy Renner was 42 during Avengers, but in the comics, Clint was 20 when he joined the Avengers, and in fact him being so young was a key part of many of his early character dynamics.
- Alternate Self: There are five variants of Clint Barton and most of them are dead.
- Animal-Themed Superbeing: Hawkeye.
- Anti-Hero: In Endgame, Clint becomes Rōnin and copes with the Decimation and the loss of his entire family by turning his rage onto the criminals around Earth. He is noted to all kill them in cold blood and execute even the helpless ones.
- Ascended Extra: In the original The Infinity Gauntlet story, Hawkeye was erased by Thanos near the story's beginning. Here, while he sits out Infinity War, Endgame has him become one of the main heroes involved in saving the universe.
- The Atoner:
- Briefly becomes this in The Avengers after being freed of Loki's Mind Control. He resolves it with a very satisfying explosive arrow in Loki's face.
- Implied to be the case for why he's so protective of Wanda in Civil War. Due to Pietro Maximoff performing a Heroic Sacrifice to save him in Age of Ultron, he does everything in his power to make sure she can live as free as possible.
- In Endgame, when he and Natasha are fighting over who gets to sacrifice themselves to acquire the Soul Stone, he offers to do it himself in part to atone for his actions as Rōnin.
- In Hawkeye, Clint isn't proud of Rōnin's legacy, and so decides to do everything he can to make up for it.
- Badass Boast: He gets a brag off under the Rōnin persona, while explaining his justification for killing thousands of gangsters to his last victim:Rōnin: You survived... Half of the planet didn't. They got Thanos... You get me.
- Badass Driver: in Hawkeye, Clint and Kate are involved in a car chase evading the Tracksuit Mafia. He's able to avoid traffic while digging through his quiver and barely looking ahead, and later, he navigates in reverse on the road and then through a Christmas tree lot with ease, all while unable to hear.
- Badass Longcoat: He sports one in both Sokovia battles in Avengers: Age of Ultron, presumably due to the cold.
- Badass Normal: When it comes down to it, he's not superhuman at all. His combat and especially archery skills are just that good. This is why he can take down legions of high tech aliens. He points this out in Age of Ultron:Hawkeye: The city is flying, we're fighting an army of robots... and I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes sense.
- Bash Brothers: With his best friend Natasha Romanoff and the rest of the Avengers. He also becomes one with Kate Bishop.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: Like Fury, Barton had no problem breathing at the altitude the wounded Helicarrier was flying at.
- Beyond Redemption: After spending five years slaughtering criminals as Ronin, Clint believes he is nothing more than an irredeemable monster who is unworthy of ever being reunited with his family again. Natasha sacrifices herself on Vormir because she knows this is not true.
- Big Brother Mentor: Forms a sort of mentor/big brother relationship to Scarlet Witch, oddly enough, after the events of Age of Ultron. He regularly serves as the voice of reason and guidance in her times of distress and doubt, and even develops a subtle big-brother-like protectiveness towards her by the time Civil War rolls out, particularly during the duel with Vision and the airport fight. The fact that her actual brother died saving his life kind of explains it.
- Birds of a Feather: With Natasha Romanoff; both assassin/spies and the only members of the original lineup without super-powers.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Loki zaps him with the Chitauri scepter early on so he is under Loki's control for the first half of The Avengers. No one messes with his mind after that.
- Boring, but Practical: His archery skills aren't as flashy compared to the abilities of his teammates, but it's clear that their effectiveness make him one of the biggest contributors to the team's success. A flashback to the Battle of New York in Hawkeye shows that Kate Bishop would've been a sitting duck for the Chitauri if it weren't for Clint being able to shoot down the stragglers from a long distance and there's no doubt she wasn't the only civilian he saved.
- Bow and Sword in Accord: After becoming Rōnin he wields his signature bow and a katana with deadly skill, switching between the two for different combat situations.
- The Cameo:
- In Thor, where he served as backup for S.H.I.E.L.D. when the then-unworthy God of Thunder tried breaking into their headquarters.
- In Black Widow, he has a voice-only cameo in a flashback scene to his and Natasha's mission in Budapest.
- Canon Immigrant: While Hawkeye is a long-established Marvel character, the version of him in the MCU is based on his vastly-different characterization in The Ultimates: Being an agent of SHIELD, having no connection with Jack Duquesne (the Swordsman, his mentor in the regular comics), being purely platonic friends with the Black Widow, having a civilian family, and when they're killed, going on a semi-suicidal killing spree against the criminal underworld (though his family gets better in the MCU).
- Catch and Return: When the Tracksuit Mafia attempted to burn down Kate Bishop's apartment with Molotov cocktails, Clint managed to catch one of the bottles before throwing it back at them.
- Celebrity Superhero: He becomes this in his solo series, where New Yorkers frequently recognize him and treat him with utmost respect due to his part in restoring the universe and defeating Thanos.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Tony calls him out in Civil War, saying that Clint had everything he needed in his life back on that farm but instead he chose to ally with people who were knowingly going to violate the law. Clint simply throws a bitter "The Reason You Suck" Speech back at him, implying he's fine with it because some things just can't be overlooked.
- Code Name: Hawkeye, as Romanoff calls him in the Battle of Manhattan. Early on in The Avengers, Erik Selvig refers to him in passing as "the hawk", apparently alluding to his excellent eyesight that befits a marksman.
- Combat Pragmatist: Hawkeye is a very talented archer, but he also has no problem with using weapons like handguns and knives, fighting women, or pulling hair if it means he'll win.
- Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Downplayed. While Clint is referred to as Hawkeye on many occasions, nobody ever refers to him as Rōnin when he takes up the mantle in Endgame. Hawkeye suggests the label of Rōnin was something imposed on him by those who know/heard of his activities or encountered him, and he didn't bother to correct anybody (after all, it's a useful Secret Identity to separate himself from the heroic Avenger Hawkeye).
- Composite Character:
- He is primarily based on his Ultimate incarnation, being an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. with a secret family.
- In Endgame, he ends up taking the role of Rōnin that his main Marvel universe counterpart took on.
- Going further, Rōnin becomes the closest thing the movies have to The Punisher. He's a vengeful vigilante who lost his whole family, and wages a one-man war on crime across the world just to get some kind of justice out of it all. He's also The Dreaded and for very good reason.
- Cool Old Guy: Many jokes and quips have been made about his growing age and grumpiness, especially as the movies go on. Doesn't stop him from being one of the best marksmen on the planet.
- Cool Sword: As Ronin, he has a wields a retractable katana that can slice Outriders in half.
- Crazy-Prepared: Hawkeye has exploding arrowheads, hacking arrowheads, super-heating arrowheads, shrapnel arrowheads, grappling hook arrowheads, exploding arrowheads disguising to look like normal arrowheads so on the off chance the target has the Super-Reflexes to catch the arrow they won't recognize it as an exploding arrowhead... Taken even further in his own series.
- Crusading Widower: In Endgame, Clint loses his entire family including his wife, Laura. He thus takes a cue after the Punisher and decides to kill criminals and gangsters around the world as retribution for surviving when good people were ripped from the mortal plane.
- Cynical Mentor: In his TV series, circumstances force Clint to look after Kate Bishop and he is clearly not in the mood, especially since it means he will miss Christmas with his family. Reluctantly becoming her mentor, he has to put up a lot with Kate's inexperience. It doesn't help that Clint is still recovering from the events of Endgame at the time.
- Cynicism Catalyst: The reason he becomes Rōnin in Endgame? He got a front-row seat to the death of his entire family. Or rather, he just misses their deaths, but figures out what happened, and how he was helpless to stop it. When he learns that various mobsters around the world were spared, he snaps and goes on an international killing spree to rid the post-Decimation world of organized crime.
- Darker and Edgier: He zigzags this, as he's a family man with a pretty neutral personality, but he also has no rule against killing, his first full film appearance had him spend much of it as a brainwashed pawn who killed many, and thanks to Black Widow (2021) it's confirmed he took an active part in assassination missions that involved collateral damage. Avengers: Endgame took this a step further when it adapted his tenure as Ronin; while in the comics this only lasted three years in real-time (in Comic-Book Time, less than a year) and the only people he killed were Skrulls during an active war, in the MCU he spent five years brutally hunting, murdering, and mutilating the bodies of members of various criminal organizations. Conversely, even despite that, he was portrayed as a somber and depressed hero rather than the raging jerkass he was during that time in the comics.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Clint Barton is one of the good guys despite temporarily becoming a violent, black-clad, crusading vigilante after his entire family got temporarily dusted.
- Deadpan Snarker: Once again, we have a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who loves pithy one-liners.Hawkeye: [to Coulson regarding Thor breaking into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s facility] Do you want me to slow him down, sir, or are you sending in more guys for him to beat up?
- Decomposite Character:
- In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., aspects of Hawkeye's character were given to Lance Hunter, primarily his relationship with Bobbi of being exes with a tendency to bicker and snark but still care a deep amount for each other and be a serious Battle Couple when in a fight. Hunter is also similarly a Jerk with a Heart of Gold Deadpan Snarker Badass Normal, making him fairly similar to Clint's comic counterpart.
- During Hawkeye, many of Clint's character traits from Matt Fraction's run, including his rescue of Lucky the Pizza Dog, his "This is bad" one-liner, and his frequent screwups, are transferred to Kate Bishop.
- Defusing the Tyke-Bomb: Managed to get Black Widow, who started out as a Child Soldier, to turn from her amorality and join S.H.I.E.L.D.
- Dented Iron: By Hawkeye, his history with S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers have started to take their toll on him physically and his hearing is failing after being exposed to explosions and other loud noises. In episode 4, after rampaging through the Tracksuit Mafia in the previous episode, Clint collapses on the sofa at the end of the day with multiple improvised ice packs taped to him.
- Despair Event Horizon: Losing his family to Thanos's Snap breaks Clint's spirit; five years later, he's coping by butchering criminals who survived Thanos's actions. When Natasha tracks him down to recruit him, Clint tearfully begs for a moment not to be given hope, although he quickly comes around and manages to recover when all is said and done.
- Destination Defenestration: In his first scene as Ronin, he throws a gyangu through a window and later does it again to another gyangu.
- The Dreaded:
- As the Rōnin, he becomes widely feared by criminals around the world as someone who will hunt and kill any evildoer whom he views as undeserving of life following the Decimation. It's to the point where even Rhodey is afraid of what could happen if they were to find Clint (although he's thankfully non-violent and returns to the team later on).
- During the events of Hawkeye, while he is clearly afraid of the Kingpin's involvement, the Kingpin himself isn't very comfortable with an Avenger involved either, even if it's just Hawkeye.
- Due to the Dead: He refuses to leave Pietro's body behind on Sokovia after Pietro sacrifices himself to save him and a kid, instead carrying it into the S.H.I.E.L.D lifeboat. He also gives his newest child the middle name "Pietro" in honor of him.
- Ear Ache: His own series reveals that all of the years of superheroing has made him deaf due to exposure to loud sounds like broken glass, energy blasts, and explosions. As a result, he now wears hearing aids to hear properly.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Makes his first appearance in Thor where he sets up a sniping position to take down Thor, but ultimately is called off after Thor finds he can't lift the hammer and gives himself up. He doesn't play a more direct role until The Avengers.
- Earn Your Happy Ending:
- In Endgame, he gets his family back and receives forgiveness from his allies for going down a dark path as Rōnin. He even gets another shot at retirement up until the events of his Disney+ show.
- He also ends his show on a positive note. Having successfully taken down the Tracksuits and made amends with Yelena, Clint gets to go home and spend Christmas with his family and Kate. He also gets rid of his Rōnin suit, finally putting that dark chapter of his life behind him.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: When we see Clint as Rōnin in Endgame, he's cut his hair down to a near buzzcut of sorts, possibly some kind of fauxhawk. It signifies his darker personality after the Decimation.
- Fallen Hero: How he views himself in the wake of the Decimation, becoming Judge, Jury, and Executioner towards those he deemed undeserving to survive the Decimation, even though it betrays the hero's way. It's his argument for why he should die in Black Widow's place, despite having something to return to if the mission succeeds.
- Family Man: Clint cares about Laura and his kids above all else and is content to retire from "Avengering" to spend time with them. Losing them to the Snap breaks him and turns him into the bloodthirsty Ronin.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: Justified Trope, and more pragmatic than fashionable. Hawkeye wears an armguard on only his right arm (to protect from the bowstring) and a finger-guard on his left hand (again, to protect from the bowstring).
- Fighting from the Inside: Nick Fury suggests, in a deleted scene, that resistance to mind control is the reason why Hawkeye shot him in the chest (right in Nick's flak vest's metal insert), rather than the head.
- Foil: Clint serves as one to Scott Lang. Both of them are Action Dads who care greatly for their families, but are complete opposite otherwise. Scott's size changing abilities granted by the Pym Particle technology make him Unskilled, but Strong, while Clint is a Badass Normal whose marksman skills make him Weak, but Skilled. Scott enjoys the attention and adoration he gets for being an Avenger, while Clint is a Humble Hero who tries to avoid the spotlight. Scott struggles to keep his family and loved ones separate from his heroics, while Clint does everything in his power to keep his family safe from his enemies.
- Friendly Sniper: A consummate professional, but entirely approachable when off the job; even on the job, he'll toss off a dry wisecrack every so often.
- Gangsta Style: Insofar as it's possible with a bow. Hawkeye wears two armguards and both on the right arm because his form is for shit
. - Genocide Survivor: He survived the Snap, which weighs heavily on him because his family died in while most of the criminal underworld did not.
- Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: The key reason he goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against criminals in Endgame. His family were among the many good people killed in the Decimation while dozens of mob bosses and gangsters survived. Thanos allowed so many evil people to live, but Clint won't.
- Good Is Not Soft: Clint's a good guy who's pretty friendly on his own time, but he's also a trained killer. As Endgame shows, he's more than capable of mercilessly butchering people when he's been pushed far enough. Hawkeye also has him threatening to kill Maya Lopez and the entire Tracksuit Mafia if they decide to target his family.
- Good Parents: He's tied with Scott Lang for the best father shown in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He does everything to keep his children safe given his line of work and is implied to be a doting father when not on the clock. Part of why he retires is to spend more time with them.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: An inversion. Clint is a great martial artist, but an even better marksman. Nat, by contrast, is primarily a melee fighter.
H-R
- Handicapped Badass: His series reveals that all the years of super-heroing has severely damaged his hearing due to all the explosions and loud noises he had to go through. He's still one of the best in the job, though.
- Happily Married: Age Of Ultron shows he has a wife and two kids, all of whom clearly love him dearly. His wife, Laura, is supportive of his Avenging despite the risks it poses and even gives him a pep talk once he starts doubting himself.
- He Who Fights Monsters: His justification for his attempted Heroic Sacrifice in Black Widow's place on Vormir. He is disgusted with how far over the line he went as Rōnin, and believes his "ledger" is now more red than Black Widow's will ever be, although Black Widow disagrees and sacrifices her life instead.
- The Heart: In Age of Ultron, Natasha quips that the team is unified in pretending to need Clint, and it gains more substance over the course of the film. As the only Avenger without any super powers or a Dark and Troubled Past, as well as a family, Clint emotionally grounds and provides a safe haven for them when they need to work through emotional trauma. He also convinces Scarlet Witch to bravely fight Ultron.
- Heartbroken Badass: He gets to just miss his entire family turning to dust, and hoo boy, does it tear him up inside. Then it gets worse when Natasha sacrifices her life in Endgame, despite Clint's best efforts. He at least finds some peace when his family is resurrected, and Wanda comforts him after the battle is won when she also mourns the death of Vision.
- The Hero's Idol: Clint is the inspiration for Kate Bishop becoming a hero, to the point where she mastered archery like him. This admiration was born from Kate seeing him in action during the Battle of New York, all the way back in the first Avengers. Clint at first is reluctant to let her tag along with him on his adventure, but he grows fond of her through the course of the series, eventually passing on the mantle of Hawkeye to her.
- Heroes Love Dogs: Clint starts to dote on Lucky after their first meeting, to the point that the latter's safety is prioritized over the Rōnin suit and that Kate should be the one to give him a name.
- Heroic BSoD: As a result of the Decimation, Clint becomes a bloodthirsty vigilante known as Rōnin.
- Heroic Fatigue: Implied to have this in Hawkeye. He's shown being somewhat aloof to other people outside his family, and appears uncomfortable and reluctant to accept praise from others for his accomplishments. When Clint has to rescue Kate Bishop after she decided to get herself involved with the Tracksuit Mafia, he's nothing but exhausted with what's happening, wanting little more than to get home to his family.
- Hidden Depths:
- In Age of Ultron, the Avengers discover that he's not only a good secret agent, but also a family man and loving father and husband.
- In Endgame, he's shown having conversational skill in Japanese.
- Hope Is Scary: In Endgame, when Natasha comes to him and tells him there's a chance to return everyone, Clint initially refuses and tells her to not give him hope.
- Hourglass Plot: His entire relationship with Black Widow in the Avengers movies in the Infinity Saga. In the beginning, he saves her (an assassin) instead of killing her because he believes in her, and tells her that she's not beyond redemption in spite of her past crimes. By Endgame, he's committed several crimes of his own as a vigilante, but she sacrifices her life for him because she believes that he's got enough time to make up for it, as he believed in her all those years ago.
- Humble Hero: While Clint isn't as widely popular with the public as some of his Avengers teammates, he doesn't mind it as he prefers being a parent to being a celebrity. The occasions where he does get recognized, such as when people ask him for selfies or a restaurant comps his family's dinner as thanks for his heroics, tend to embarrass him.
- Hyper-Awareness:
- Clint's specialty. The source of his Improbable Aiming Skills, and how he always hits his targets — with no visual enhancements, sometimes without even looking. When he isn't taking the fight to the opponent personally, he tends to find a vantage point to direct the movements of the Team, greatly increasing their effectiveness.
- Something of a running theme in the movies is that Clint is almost impossible to sneak up on. In Avengers he gets a shot off on Natasha before she can attack him from behind, in Age of Ultron he's the only Avenger that Scarlet Witch fails to enchant from behind, and in Endgame he not only hears Nat walking toward him from behind in the rain, but even recognizes who it is without turning around.
- In The Avengers, he is the first to realize that the Tesseract has the potential to serve as a gateway — meaning that he can't even be snuck up on inter-dimensionally.
- In Avengers: Age of Ultron, he was the only Avenger to get the best of both of the Maximoff twins: hitting Wanda with a taser arrow when she tries to sneak up on him, and showing that Pietro's speed and reflexes are meaningless if he has nothing to stand on.
- There's a subtle but clever one that carries over well from the comic books; despite his vast array of trick arrows, all of which serve a specific purpose, he always knows exactly which arrow is in his hand without even needing to check his quiver. Being able to switch between them as casually as he does only amplifies this trait.
- Immaturity Insult: In his own series, he frequently makes sarcastic remarks towards Kate's tendency to act like a teenager instead of a grown woman.
- Improbable Aiming Skills:
- He can hit a Chitauri flier without looking. It even extends to other weapons — Age of Ultron has him nailing Ultron, a man-size target, with the Quinjet minigun in mid flight (which is hard enough to do if the minigun was bolted down), and before that he can fling darts past Tony's ear to hit the board. Even when he tries to miss, he can't seem to turn it off, which makes golf kind of pointless. He seems to miss an attack on Tony in Civil War, but that was just a distraction attack. When Kate questions his ability to knock out a person with a quarter, he casually ricochets a Christmas ornament to turn off the TV.
- Even Clint's verbal shots are accurate. In Civil War, his remarks on The Raft perfectly target Tony's arrogance and egotism, and say Team Cap is only on the Raft because of Tony. All Tony can do is ask Clint why he didn't think of the consequences for the rest of the Bartons, then immediately leave. Angered, Clint basically says Tony is responsible for Rhodey's broken back, so he hurts even the folks on his side. Tony is visibly disturbed.
- Improvised Weapon: Clint claims to Kate that he can knock a man out with a coin (as long as it's not too small). He backs it up by flicking a coin-like Christmas tree ornament at a tv's switch hard enough to turn it off.
- In the Hood: Dons a brown hood while going under his Rōnin alias in Avengers: Endgame.
- I Owe You My Life: He owes a debt to Scarlet Witch in Civil War, and says so himself, as her brother sacrificed himself to save his life in Age of Ultron. This is his motivation to serve as a Big Brother Mentor towards her.
- It Only Works Once: Being brainwashed in the first Avengers film, made him extremely savvy to signs of it happening again by the time of the second film.
- It's Personal: Promptly tells the others to "Get in line" about killing Loki after he was freed from his brainwashing.
- Katanas Are Just Better: As Rōnin, he wields a large katana. After rejoining the Avengers, he adds it to his usual arsenal.
- Knight in Sour Armor:
- What ultimately sways him to work with the Avengers again after the five-year Time Skip in Endgame. While he didn't want to be found and felt he had no right to face genuine heroes after turning into a gangster-butchering Vigilante Man, in the end he decides he can still find it in himself to press on to a noble goal. However, this mentality also gives him a reason to want to end his own life if it means Natasha's mission can succeed on Vormir, even though he only joined up because of the hope of reviving his family.
- Made much more evident in Hawkeye, where Clint is very distant and aloof to pretty much everyone who isn't his family during the holiday season. Given he's still grieving the death of one of his closest friends, on top of having to deal with Kate Bishop's shenanigans, he's got a few good reasons for being this.
- Knight Templar: In Endgame, he explicitly declares himself a "Thanos" against all Asshole Victims who unfairly survived the same Decimation that killed innocents such as his family. Unfortunately, because he applied that to all surviving criminal organizations, that led to him killing people whose only real crime was working for them in order to provide for their families. He ends up facing the consequences for this in Hawkeye after Maya goes after Ronin for killing her father.
- Laser Sight: On his collapsible bow; not that he needs the help with aiming.
- Long-Range Fighter: He's a masterful bowman who's demonstrably deadly at a distance, but his close-quarters game is mostly mediocre to slightly above-average. This is especially apparent in The Avengers, when he runs out of arrows and ends up using his last arrow to get away from the Chitauri, and Civil War, where he is taken down by Black Panther after failing to defeat him with his arrows. Later subverted in Endgame, which demonstrates after the Time Skip that he has massively upped his game in close-quarters combat by becoming a Master Swordsman, and after getting his bow and arrows back he starts using them in unison.
- Loved I Not Honor More: He wants to be a committed family man, but his work in S.H.I.E.L.D. and with the Avengers keeps him away from home a lot. For what it's worth, Laura is extremely supportive of his heroic endeavors. In Civil War, he ends up disappointing his kids, whom he was supposed to take on holiday, after Cap asks for his help searching for Zemo and the Winter Soldiers.
- Master Archer: He is the world's greatest archer, able to keep up with his superpowered peers by performing impressive feats with a bow and arrow.
- Master Swordsman: In Endgame as Rōnin, he demonstrates greatly-skilled swordsmanship using his katana to kill many Yakuza with ease and their leader in a Sword Fight, as well as fend off countless Outriders.
- Meaningful Rename: Returns in Endgame, but under the codename of Rōnin. The word "Rōnin" is used to describe a wandering samurai who had no master in feudal Japan (and is usually seen as a possible cause of crime and conflict in a gentrified age), which Clint embodies by going on rampages against the criminal underworld.
- Mentor in Sour Armor: In his mini-series, Clint is not too happy that he is missing Christmas with his family to face his past actions as Rōnin and is even more pissed that the person wearing his old outfit happens to be a young woman who idolised him. Being forced as a reluctant mentor to her, Clint has to put up with Kate's immaturity and inexperience on the field and even tries to tell Kate to go home after the stakes are higher than he thought. Eventually, he comes to respect her ingenuity and skills as someone worthy of taking up his mantle as Hawkeye.
- Metaphorically True: His claim that Natasha killed Ronin. While obviously false to the audience and clearly an attempt to throw suspicion off himself being Ronin, Natasha is the one who talked him off that precipice and back into being Hawkeye the Avenger, thus "killing" Ronin.
- Mind-Control Eyes: In The Avengers, when he is mind controlled with Loki's Scepter (that contains an Infinity Stone), his eyes first become pitch black, and then both his irises and pupils turn an unnaturally bright blue.
- Mix-and-Match Weapon: As of Civil War, he wields a new bow that can transform into a combat staff.
- Momma's Boy: Implied. The Red Skull usually refers to the seekers of the Soul Stone as the children of their respective fathers, but in Endgame calls Hawkeye the son of his mother, Edith. In the comics at least, Harold Barton was abusive and an alcoholic. The Deleted Scenes of his series confirm that Clint is one, being very close to Edith due to his father being absent in his life and Edith being a Struggling Single Mother who steals for a living with Clint helping her.
- Mook Horror Show: Maya Lopez got a good look at him carving his way through her father's men, and she saw just how dangerous and brutal he was as Ronin - no one could lay a hand on him while he effortlessly slaughtered them one by one.
- Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Instead of his purple costume and mask, his main suit is based on his ultimate incarnation's suit, which is a more practical-looking black leather outfit. His bow, however, is darker than it usually is; Hawkeye primarily used a bright yellow longbow in the comics, until he gave it to Kate Bishop, after which he started using different coloured bows of many different designs. In the films, he uses a compound bow in Thor, and a collapsible recurve in The Avengers, both of which are coloured black. And speaking of Kate, it takes her entering Clint's life for him to go back to the origins and wear a purple costume.
- Mundane Utility: His killer accuracy makes other sports look like child's play. He casually scores a triple bullseye in darts from across the room (throwing the three darts at the same time to boot) while chatting with Fury; this scares the crap out of Tony, who was standing directly next to the dartboard. Even golf is a piece of cake, apparently, scoring 18 hole-in-ones in a row:Clint: Well, I played 18, shot 18. Just can't seem to miss.
- My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: Invoked when he first meets Echo. She tells him that forgoing a hearing aid might help him adapt to his deafness, he signs "I want more cookie, please" to show her that his sign-language skills are rudimentary and that they're going to have trouble communicating with one another.
- Mysterious Past: Next to Bruce, Clint is the founding Avenger with the least amount of details on his past, only a few very vague hints.
- Never My Fault: He blames Tony for being incarcerated. Tony points out while they don't deserve the prison they are being held in, they did break the law and that he didn't write it. But then again, Tony was the one who decided to arrest the other heroes himself, rather than let the government send agents that the Anti-Reg side could have easily beaten.
- Nice Guy:
- We haven't seen much of him outside of work, but he seems like a decent, friendly guy when he's off the clock. Even in combat, he briefly stops engaging Black Panther just to introduce himself.Clint: We haven't met yet. I'm Clint.
T'Challa: I don't care.- This particular interaction was the only one Clint and T'Challa were ever shown to have prior to Endgame, yet it proved enough for T'Challa to remember his name in Endgame's climactic battle. Being nice pays off!
- Even in Endgame, unquestionably Clint's lowest point, he's more withdrawn than rude or angry, and reuniting with his fellow Avengers brings some life back into him; he's not quite his old self, but he's definitely better off than he was before.
- Once again showcased in his own series, where he, amusingly, goes through a Live-Action Roleplay in Central Park to retrieve his old Rōnin suit. More than that, despite the obvious, Clint is still willing to let Grills get one over him if it meant getting the suit back.
- We haven't seen much of him outside of work, but he seems like a decent, friendly guy when he's off the clock. Even in combat, he briefly stops engaging Black Panther just to introduce himself.
- No "Arc" in "Archery": Usually, but averted when he fires one arrow at an angle that causes it to fly a curved route.
- No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: In Civil War, Clint says he briefly took up golf during his first 10-Minute Retirement, but eventually got bored of shooting eighteen holes-in-one in a row.
- Noodle Incident: His mission in Budapest with Black Widow that involved Dreykov and his daughter Antonia, as well as the Hungarian Special Forces. Each of them remember it very differently.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Clint's skills and combat ability get shown off in a more flattering context in Hawkeye. In the films Clint is just the Badass Normal facing aliens and robots; but in the miniseries, he's a near-unstoppable force mowing through gangsters.
- Not as You Know Them: Adaptational-example. While Out of Focus in Avengers, Age of Ultron casts Clint as the normal, well-adjusted Nice Guy and Team Dad of the team, who makes some jokes but remains professional, in contrast to the rest of the team who are self-destructive and riddled with personality flaws, unable to maintain lives outside their heroic career. In the comics, Clint is the self-destructive one riddled with personality flaws (being a hot-headed Sad Clown who butts heads with authority), compared to the other Avengers who seem more well-adjusted in comparison, and it's through them Clint grew out of some of his flaws. It seems to make the Avengers more of a mess, they made Clint more well-adjusted to contrast.
- Not So Above It All: In Hawkeye he is positively mortified at the idea of spending an entire afternoon LARPing just to get the Ronin suit back. At the end of the campaign however, he does begrudgingly admit to Grills he had fun and is much less dismissive of his party afterwards, even directly having them help him deal with Fisk and the Tracksuits. This is in sharp contrast with Kate Bishop, who was giddy about the idea from start to finish. Likewise, in Endgame when he says "Bingo." after Scott says "Look we go back, we get the stones before Thanos gets them, Thanos doesn't have the stones. Problem solved!" and says "Well, that's what I heard." after Nebula says "That's not how it works"
- Offhand Backhand: He has a habit of doing this with arrow shots, often with explosive arrows.
- Oh, Crap!: His reaction once he realizes his unknown assailant is a Black Widow - shit just got very real, this is a far bigger deal than he ever anticipated, and Kate is in mortal danger just by being associated with him, which leads him to immediately sever his partnership with her. He also has a much more subdued one, but still notable enough, when he finds out out Kate's mom is in business with Wilson Fisk. As he put it, that was the guy he was worried the most about this whole time, Black Widows be damned.
- Omniglot: Clint is fluent in English, German, Japanese, Morse code, and ASL.
- One-Man Army: Endgame cements his status as a one-man army when he kills an entire Yakuza gang by himself. And it's established that he's been doing this to organized criminals around the world for five years.
- Out of Focus: He's one of the original six Avengers and very much earns the Sixth Ranger title. Barton is the only one of the original six whose only appearance prior to The Avengers was a cameo (in Thor), and in the film itself, spends most of the story offscreen on Loki's side, only joining the team for the final battle. He's also the only one who makes no appearance whatsoever between The Avengers and Age of Ultron; in comparison, Black Widow had large roles in Iron Man 2 and The Winter Soldier (Clint's planned brief appearance in the latter was cut). He's the second-to-last superhero to join in during Civil War, beating out only Ant-Man; and along with Ant-Man, one of only two heroes in the entire MCU to sit out Infinity War. To compensate, he's given very strong character focus in Age of Ultron and Endgame, both of which feature his secret family whose existence justifies his absences elsewhere. Finally, with the release of Black Widow, he's the last of the founding members to headline his own title, and Hawkeye is a series rather than a film.
- Outliving One's Offspring: All three of his children, along with Laura, were among those that got killed by Thanos's Snap. Fortunately, they are resurrected.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: A major part of the reason he has developed a negative reputation among mainstream audiences. He was the only Avenger not to have their own solo movie or a significant supporting role in another movie prior to The Avengers, which meant his big film debut was mostly overshadowed by the spectacle of seeing Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and the Hulk teaming up. Exacerbating this situation was that his subsequent two appearances were in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War, where he was now sharing screentime with other impressive superheroes like Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Black Panther, and Spider-Man. Tellingly, his increased role in Age of Ultron largely focused on his family life and his status as The Heart of the team, rather than his usefulness in battle. Not helping matters, the film version suffers horribly from Movie Superheroes Wear Black, resulting in a pretty forgettable costume next to the brightly coloured and distinctive Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man, and his Trick Arrow arsenal is pretty much reduced to Boring, but Practical (exploding arrows, etc), and his role as the "funny guy" is already covered by Iron Man, there's little for him to do that makes him nearly as memorable.
- Papa Wolf:
- Nothing is more important to him than his wife and children. He was willing to sacrifice himself for the Soul Stone to resurrect them, only for Natasha to take his place. Later on, when he discovers that Maya Lopez and the Tracksuit Mafia are planning to target his family, he beats the crap out of them before giving out the death threat if they dare to cross that line.
- He also becomes a father figure to Wanda Maximoff, in part due to feeling awful about her brother Pietro's death at Ultron's hands.
- Upon meeting Kate Bishop, Clint starts to become concerned for her safety.
- Parental Substitute: He becomes this to Wanda Maximoff and Kate Bishop, both of whom lost their biological fathers to violent deaths at a young age.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: In Endgame, Barton, having lost his family, copes with his grief by rampaging across the globe, slaughtering criminals who survived Thanos's Snap. In his mind, it's simply not right that his innocent wife and children turned to dust while the dregs of humanity live to go on spreading pain and misery. The film mentions a massacre of Mexican cartel members (Rhodey is light on the details, but whatever Barton did to them, it was clearly brutal), and he's re-introduced wiping out a group of Yazuka gangsters. It winds up being deconstructed in Hawkeye with the reveal that at least some of the gangsters he's killed had families they loved and provided for, with one of said loved ones now hunting Ronin in revenge.
- Platonic Life-Partners:
- With Black Widow. She trusts him because he was responsible for deprogramming her. The strength of his (platonic) love for Natasha is shown in Endgame. When they find out they have to lose something you love dearly to get the soul stone, they both try to jump off the cliff to spare the other. He nearly sacrifices himself but Natasha catches him when he falls and puts her grappling line on him, leaving him incapable of saving her. After she manages to wriggle out of his grip and fall, he awakens on a beach with the stone in his hand. If not the fact that he was willing to die for her, the fact that she was accepted as his sacrifice proves how much her friendship meant to him.
- In Civil War, it's shown that also one has this sort of relationship with Wanda Maximoff, whom he treats very caring and fatherly. It's implied that part of this comes from the feeling that he owes her departed brother Pietro for saving his life.
- Purple Is Powerful: His Civil War costume has purple accents in it, in contrast to the maroon used in his previous outfits. And the new outfit in the Disney+ show reveals he accepted Kate's suggestions to wear purple.
- Put on a Bus: Hawkeye sits out Infinity War due to the whole house arrest thing. He has a substantial role in Endgame to make up for this.
- The Redeemer: Clint really is the best at this.
- The most popular one is obviously Natasha Romanoff. When sent to kill her, Clint made a different call and recruited her into SHIELD instead. This led to her becoming one of the founding members of The Avengers.
- He later encourages Wanda to be an Avenger by taking a stand against Ultron. She does.
- He later redeems Yelena Belova, Natasha's younger sister, and gives her closure with Natasha's death.
- Refreshingly Normal Life-Choice:
- In Age of Ultron, Clint Barton/Hawkeye is revealed to have a secret family off the grid in Iowa (since his wife Laura was a former agent who fully retired and needed a new identity). While at first he balances Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D., and home duties, after the events of Civil War, he retires completely from S.H.I.E.L.D. However, he was pulled out of retirement twice.
- In Endgame, Clint's entire family was taken by The Snap, causing him to become the violent vigilante Ronin for five years, until Natasha recruits him to join the Avengers' Time Heist. While Clint loses Natasha, he reunites with his family after Bruce snaps them back into existence and gives up being Ronin.
- In Hawkeye, Clint must come out of retirement again when the Ronin suit resurfaces in New York, stolen from an underground auction by Kate Bishop, which makes her a target of all of his old enemies. He saves her and works with her to get the target off her back before Christmas, so he can be with his family as promised. Clint not only succeeds just in time, but brings Kate, his new mentee, back with him, finding a happy medium.
- The Reliable One: In Age of Ultron, he's the only one of the Avengers who isn't an emotional wreck, a walking time bomb, and/or antagonistic to the other members. It's implied that being Happily Married and possessing a family gives him a grounding the rest of the team lacks.
- Required Secondary Powers: Without his Hyper-Awareness he wouldn't be as good at archery.
- The Resenter: After the Snap, he becomes a brutal vigilante out of anger and bitterness that so many scummy criminals lived when his family died.
- Retirony: Subverted. Age of Ultron does everything it can to set him up for this by revealing his family life and having him declare he's going on "one last mission". Then Pietro dies Taking the Bullet for him. Didn't see that coming, did you?
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After Infinity War results in his entire family being dusted, the only way he can cope with his grief is to channel it into blind murderous rage and spend five years butchering any criminals unlucky enough to cross him.
- Rōnin: He returns in Endgame as Rōnin. A befitting moniker, given that he's effectively a masterless samurai who roams the earth and is considered dangerous, Clint has become a Vigilante Man no longer affiliated with the Avengers. He mass murders gangsters, taking out his anger over the death of his family against criminals who he believes did not deserve to survive the Decimation. To look the part, he wields a katana and wears a darker hooded costume with plated gauntlets.
S-Y
- Secret Identity: Hawkeye reveals that outside of the Avengers themselves, pretty much nobody knows who the identity of Rōnin really was. This is invoked by Clint, as he knows how dangerous it would be if people found out who he used to be.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: As of the series, he's showing signs of this, particularly with respect to Natasha's death.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: He switches to a darker costume with a hood after becoming Rōnin. The darker colors represent his new merciless persona, coping with his family's death in the Decimation by coldly killing gangsters.
- Sixth Ranger: He's the last to join the Avengers team due to being mind-controlled by Loki for the first half of the movie. Appropriately, he's snarky, justifiably confident in his abilities, and has a history with one of the other five.
- Sixth Ranger Traitor: An archer and the sixth member of the Avengers, he is mind-controlled by Loki and fights for him until the third act of The Avengers.
- Sleeves Are for Wimps: Which fits with his archery skills; sleeves could get in the way of loosed arrows.
- Smarter Than You Look: Turns out Hawkeye makes all of his own trick arrows. Or almost all. Pym probably took care of the pymtech embiggening arrow.
- Sparing the Aces: Hawkeye was once assigned to kill Natasha Romanoff, but chose to spare her and let her join S.H.I.E.L.D.
- Steel Eardrums: Averted as of Hawkeye where Clint's hearing is starting to fail after long-term exposure to explosions and loud sounds. He's started wearing hearing aids and is learning American Sign Language.
- The Stoic: When he starts firing at Chitauri gliders and Loki's on his own, he's all business. Otherwise he's rather emotive, even friendly when not upset.
- The Straight and Arrow Path: He prefers to fight from a distance, seen in his image quote and his role in the climax of The Avengers.
- Suddenly Shouting: He starts out soft, but pretty much ends up chewing Thor out during the mourning of Natasha's Heroic Sacrifice for the Soul Stone as Thor was oblivious of it and insisting that they could use the stones to revive her. Clint has a point - and Banner proved it.
- Super Wrist-Gadget: Like the comics he keeps the shafts and the heads of his arrow separate and his wrist guard helps control the distribution.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Clint as Rōnin is the closest thing the movies have to The Punisher. He's a dreaded vengeance-seeking vigilante who hunts down criminals across the world because he deems them undeserving of life following the Decimation, and all of it was due to his own family dying by said event.
- Tattoo as Character Type: After becoming Rōnin in Endgame, Clint has a green tattoo sleeve on his left arm.
- Team Dad: He's effectively become one by the time of Age of Ultron, being the most emotionally stable of the Avengers. He even reflects on — and is afraid of — the fact that a team made up of so many superhumans needs someone like him to keep them grounded. When he first appears in Civil War his remark that he "retired for five minutes and it all goes to shit" is akin to a dad returning to his house to find that his kids made a mess of it.
- That Man Is Dead: When Maya Lopez demands to know where Rōnin is Clint tells her that Rōnin is dead, having been killed by Black Widow. This is Metaphorically True given that Natasha was the one that got Clint to abandon the identity, effectively "killing" the vigilante.
- Took a Level in Cynic: Losing his family to the Snap has made him very jaded and pessimistic, to the point where he dejectedly tells Natasha to not give him hope when she tells him they found a way to bring back everyone lost by the Snap, including his family. Being reunited with his old teammates and meeting new ones brings some life back into him and being reunited with his family finally brings him back to his old self.
- Trap Master: He manages to fight enemies many tiers above him in power, even taking on Vision in Civil War, by setting traps that will hinder him and thus give him the advantage.
- Trick Arrow: Many varieties, from electrocution to explosive to Grappling-Hook Gun to superheating. There's even a Hollywood Hacking arrow.
- Tyke-Bomb: A deleted flashback of Hawkeye reveals that Clint used to help his mother Edith in stealing from others.
- Unwitting Pawn: During his five-year vigilante stint as the Ronin, Clint found himself manipulated and tricked by Wilson Fisk into killing William Lopez, all so he could have total control of the Tracksuit Mafia. Following the timeskip, Clint is aware - and ashamed - of the deception as he is quite worried over the prospect of a confrontation with the Kingpin.
- Vigilante Man: After the death of his family during the Snap, Clint goes rogue and spends his days single-handedly butchering criminal syndicates; he's mentioned as having carved up a cartel in Mexico off-screen, and we get to see him in action as he mows down a bunch of Yakuza in Japan.
- Weak, but Skilled: He is completely human and has no superpowers whatsoever, but he's such a damn great marksman and fighter that he can hold his own against superpowered beings.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: His absence between The Avengers and Age of Ultron left Fandom wondering just where the heck he was. Age of Ultron implies that he was with Laura and the kids at the time.note
- Willfully Weak: Could be zigzagged. In Thor, he's first introduced reaching for a sniper rifle before grabbing a bow, and in The Avengers (2012) he uses handguns, although he misses most of his shots (it's implied Loki's mind control is messing with his aim). One could infer that Clint either aims better with a bow, wants to give himself a better challenge, or the bow allows him more versatility than firearms.
- Worf Had the Flu: Brainwashed or not, he's noticeably less effective with a handgun, which is why Nick Fury survives being shot at by Hawkeye. This is lampshaded in a deleted scene.
- Written-In Absence: He sits out Avengers: Infinity War, with a single line explaining that he's under house arrest alongside Scott Lang. We later see what he and his family are doing during the climax of that film in the opening sequence of Endgame.
- You Don't Look Like You: Clint in the comics is young, blond, tall (billed at 6'3; for reference, this is an inch taller than Captain America), and has a flare for outrageous and campy fashion, particularly the colours purple, pink, and blue, and for most of his history wore some form of mask (only stopping right when the film came out to tie in).
Variants
Captain Carter's Clint Barton
Agent Clint Barton / Hawkeye
"Sir, that's Captain Carter."
Species: Human
Citizenship: American
Affiliations: S.H.I.E.L.D., Avengers
Voiced By: Jeremy Renner
Appearances: What If…?
The Clint Barton of Earth-82111, who greets Captain Carter along with Nick Fury upon her arrival in the present.
- The Cameo: He appears in the end of the first episode alongside Nick Fury where they manage to transport Captain Carter into the present day. He makes another one in "What If… Captain Carter Fought The HYDRA Stomper?" as one of the Avengers in the Battle of New York.
- Hero-Worshipper: Implied. Clint very quickly recognizes Peggy when she comes out of the portal, and enthusiastically points it out to Nick Fury.
- Hidden Depths: He's a fan of John Mellencamp and introduced Peggy to "dad rock".
King Loki's Clint Barton
Agent Clint Barton / Hawkeye
"One shot, one kill, sir. Just say the word."
Species: Human
Citizenship: American
Affiliations: S.H.I.E.L.D.
Voiced By: Jeremy Renner
Appearances: What If…?
On Earth-51825, Clint Barton accidentally kills Thor in New Mexico before dying himself.
- Cassandra Truth: He tells Fury that he didn't shoot Thor and protests his point. He really didn't because Hank Pym caused him to misfire. He's posthumously exonerated when Hank reveals what really happened to Fury, who was actually Loki in disguise.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Hawkeye is killed by Hank Pym hopping inside of his ear and causing an internal hemorrhage.
- Dead Alternate Counterpart: Hank Pym murders him by entering his head and giving him an internal hemorrhage.
- Death by Adaptation: He is killed after Yellowjacket caused him to get an internal hemorrhage.
- Dies Wide Open: When Nick Fury goes into Clint's cell to talk to him, it's revealed that he was killed without anyone knowing when his corpse further slumps and hits the ground, showing his lifeless eyes looking at nothing.
- Frame-Up: Yellowjacket causes him to release his arrow aimed at Thor, leading to his arrest for the murder.
- Heroic BSoD: He simply can't wrap his mind around the fact that he, of all people, somehow slipped and accidentally killed Thor. He repeatedly eats himself up over this, right up until Hank kills him as well, never learning the truth.
Zombie Apocalypse Clint Barton
Clint Barton / Hawkeye
Species: Human (formerly), Zombified human
Citizenship: American
Affiliations: S.H.I.E.L.D. (formerly), Avengers (formerly)
Voiced By: N/A
Appearances: What If…? | Marvel Zombies
On Earth-89521, Clint Barton was infected with a zombie virus.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: He is turned by a zombie horde.
- Dead Alternate Counterpart: He's one of the many heroes turned into a zombie in this universe.
- Death by Adaptation: Clint is one of the many characters who are devoured/infected by zombies this episode whose Sacred Timeline versions are still alive.
- Devoured by the Horde: Went down while fighting a massive horde of zombies, with the rest of the Avengers.
- Face–Monster Turn: All traces of Clint's humanity are gone after becoming zombified, with his first action being to shoot and infect Happy Hogan upon finding the surviving Avengers at the train station in New York.
- Fallen Hero: Once one of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, now an undead monster who craves human flesh.
- Hero Killer: Infects his universe’s version of Happy Hogan, and later attempts to shoot Sharon Carter.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Being zombified seems to have severely hampered Clint's shooting skills, as he noticeably has difficulty hitting Sharon Carter a second time after briefly incapacitating her.
- It Can Think: He still has the mental faculties to ambush the survivors at the train station and use a bow.
- The Noseless: Like the majority of the zombies, Hawkeye doesn't a nose because it decayed.
- Slasher Smile: Briefly sports one while readying an arrow during the train station attack — It's noticeable thanks to Hawkeye being one of the few Avenger zombies to still have lips.
- The Undead: He's a flesh-eating zombie.
- The Voiceless: He never speaks a word before he becomes a zombie and loses the ability to do so.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: After infecting Happy and attacking the rest of the survivors, Clint disappears after the group escapes by train. Promotional material for the animated Marvel Zombies series shows he's still around, and will be a threat the surviving heroes have to face.
- You Will Not Evade Me: Spears Happy Hogan with his grappling hook arrow, using it to reel him away into the darkness to be devoured.
- Zombie Infectee: Implied by his design, which features what looks like a hastily-bandaged bite wound.
Infinity Ultron's Clint Barton
Clint Barton / Hawkeye
"Come on. Don't try to make this fun, Nat. My will-to-live meter is flatlining, okay?"
Species: Human (cybernetically enhanced)
Citizenship: American
Affiliations: S.H.I.E.L.D., Avengers
Voiced By: Jeremy Renner
Appearances: What If…?
On Earth-29929, Clint Barton is trying to survive the aftermath of Ultron's victory.
- Alternate Company Equivalent: While the hooded outfit coupled with his original Age of Ultron outfit seems to prefigure what would have been his Ronin look, this version of Hawkeye actually shares a lot of design cues with Earth-16 Oliver Queen as seen in Legends of Tomorrow, down to the missing arm (albeit flipped).
- Artificial Limb: His right arm is a cybernetic prosthetic.
- Cyborg: He has a mechanical right arm.
- Dead Alternate Counterpart: He sacrifices himself so that Natasha and Zola can escape the bunker and take out all of the Ultron Sentries that are after them.
- Death by Adaptation: His Sacred Timeline version is still alive. This one dies in a Heroic Sacrifice to make sure the Ultron Sentries do not get close to Natasha and Zola.
- Disabled in the Adaptation: Unlike his other counterparts, he's missing his right arm and has to replace it with a cybernetic one.
- Death Seeker: When the opportunity presents itself, Clint wastes no time providing a Heroic Sacrifice for Natasha and Zola, so as to give them a fighting chance to stop Infinity Ultron.
- Despair Event Horizon: Implied to be the case where he tells Natasha that he's tired of living and that his will to live is about to flatline.
- Gave Up Too Soon: He grabs the box containing Zola's file, but gives up before searching through it because of the apparent impossibility of finding something relevant in the massive hard-copy archives, much to The Watcher's dismay. Luckily for him and Uatu, Natasha not only talks him out of giving up, but also searches the box and finds Zola's file herself. She even lampshades how he quit too soon.Clint: You found it?! That was my box.
- Genocide Survivor: He and Natasha are the only two people to survive Ultron's omnicidal campaign which wiped out all life in the universe.
- Handicapped Badass: He might have lost his arm, having it replaced with a cybernetic prosthetic, but his aim is as good as it ever was.
- Heroic BSoD: The deaths of Laura and his children have taken an emotional toll on him.
- Heroic Fatigue: Having lost his entire family and failed to save the world from Ultron, Clint makes zero effort to hide the fact that he is utterly exhausted with trying to soldier on as a hero. Part of the reason he invokes a Heroic Sacrifice is because he's so tired of fighting, believes there's nothing worth saving, and just wants to join his family.
- Heroic Sacrifice: He willingly let go of Natasha's hand and detonated a Trick Arrow that would cause a huge explosion to take down the Ultron sentries to give both Zola and her time to escape, knowing the explosion would kill him.
- In the Hood: Clint wears a hood with a flowing cape as he and Natasha work to survive on what remains of Earth. It also allows him to turn invisible.
- Invisibility Cloak: Clint's new cape and cloak appearance allows him to turn invisible, which he utilizes to fool some of Infinity Ultron's drones.
- Noodle Incident: Clint's newfound Invisibility Cloak and cybernetic arm isn't expanded upon, nor discussed in his episode.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After searching through countless KGB intelligence boxes for a way to stop Infinity Ultron, Clint nearly breaks down in tears, clearly depressed, frustrated and exhausted at trying to find a solution to what seems to be an unfixable problem.Natasha: We're gonna find it. It just takes time.Clint: What are we going to avenge when we're ninety?!
- Outliving One's Offspring: Due to being on the Quinjet when Ultron nuked the planet, Clint ends up outliving all of his children, thus bringing him to the Despair Event Horizon.
- The Remnant: He and Natasha are the only Avengers who survived the nuclear holocaust of Earth, as well as being the only living beings left alive period.
The Freak's Clint Barton
Clint Barton / Hawkeye
"The wife says, "Bring home this toy or don't come home at all."
Species: Human
Citizenship: American
Affiliations: S.H.I.E.L.D., Avengers
Voiced By: Jeremy Renner
Appearances: What If…?
A variant of Clint Barton who was in an argument with Bruce Banner over an Iron Man action figure when Justin Hammer took over Avengers Tower.
- Chekhov's Gun: Happy finds a confetti arrow that belongs to him in the armory and later uses it against Justin Hammer.
- Demand Overload: In-universe example. He gets the last Iron Man action figure and refuses to give it to any of the clawing parents and kids at the toy store because Laura told him that he can't come home if he doesn't manage to get one.
- Funny Background Event: While he and Bruce are arguing over the last Iron Man toy in stock he's holding, there's a shelf filled with toys of him and none of them have been sold.
"Let's give 'em hell."
