Characters / Marvel Comics: Clint Barton

Hawkeye I

^{Click here to see him as Ronin} 

Alter Ego: Clinton Francis Barton

Notable Aliases: Goliath, Golden Archer, Ronin, Hawkguy

Team Affiliations: The Avengers, Avengers Academy, The Defenders, Great Lakes Avengers, Avengers Idea Mechanics, Secret Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D., Thunderbolts, West Coast Avengers, Justice League of America, Wild Pack, World Counter-terrorism Agency

First Appearance: Tales of Suspense #57 (September, 1964)

"If I miss, it means I'm just another dude with a bow. It means I've been fooling myself this whole time. And that's why I never miss."

Raised in a broken home, Clinton "Clint" Barton and his older brother Barney had a difficult life. After his parents died in a drunk driving accident, Clint and Barney were sent to an orphanage for 6 years. Hungry for a better life, Clint and Barney ran away until desperation forced the brothers to join up with the Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders. Years passed, during which Clint caught the attention of the Swordsman and Trick Shot, two talented circus performers. Under their tutelage, Clint gained the sharpshooting skills that would allow him to become a hero.

As Swordman's assistant, Clint was happy until the day he found out that his mentor was embezzling from the carnival. About to turn in the Swordsman, Clint was brutally beaten by his mentor until Barney and Trick Shot intervened. Trick Shot became Clint's new mentor while Barney grew tired of carnival life. Having condemned Clint for his perceived disloyalty to the Swordsman, Barney prepared to enlist in the Army. Asking Clint to join him, believing the two needed a fresh start, Barney was disappointed when his younger brother declined.

Jealous of the fame the then-new hero Iron Man was getting, Clint decided to use his skills to become a superhero as well, The Hawkeye. Unfortunately, his weakness for pretty women got him involved with Black Widow, who at the time was a spy working for the Russians against Iron Man, and she tricked him into attacking the hero. He soon realized he'd been duped, however. Given a chance to redeem himself, Hawkeye joined the Avengers and has been affiliated with the team ever since, even leading its spin-off, the West Coast Avengers. Ironically, the Widow would later end up doing a Heel–Face Turn herself and becoming a superhero, and even joined the Avengers, having made her peace with Clint.

Years later, Clint fell in love and married Mockingbird, though they had troubles after she killed a man who had raped her. She appeared to have been killed by the Demon Lord Mephisto for a long time, until it was revealed that it was actually a Skrull spy in her place during Secret Invasion. The real Mockingbird and Hawkeye have since reunited.

Clint was one of the casualties during the rampage of Scarlet Witch in Avengers Dissasembled. Due to the events of House of M, he came Back from the Dead, took up the mantle of Ronin with permission of the original Ronin (Maya Lopez), as the name Hawkeye at the time was being used by Young Avenger Kate Bishop, and eventually joined the New Avengers, leading to the events of Secret Invasion (and also reunited with the real Mockingbird in the aftermath). During the Dark Reign, he was appointed as the leader of the New Avengers and was doing a fair job (aside of one Leeroy Jenkins moment), until the return of Captain America. After Dark Reign, Clint became a mainstream Avengers member, once again donning the Hawkeye alter ego. However, shortly after this he and Mockingbird got divorced.

He had his own title in 2012 under the Marvel NOW! line, which can best be described as an indie comic set in the Marvel Universe, and focused on Clint as well as the other two Hawkeyes, Kate Bishop and Clint's brother Barney, to varying degrees. After he assisted Kate Bishop in Los Angeles, Kate realized that there were more supervillains than she could handle alone and enlisted Clint in the new reformed West Coast Avengers.

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Clint Barton provides examples of:

A-H

• Abusive Parents: Hawkeye's father was an alcoholic and his mother did nothing to intervene.
• Accidental Adultery: When he thought Mockingbird was dead, he had a few relationships and one-night stands. She doesn't blame him, and the trope is subverted, since she thought they were separated the entire time (she had been replaced by a Skrull, who reconciled with him and then died a few issues later).
• The Ace: Hawkeye was this during the early run of West Coast Avengers. In a scene in which he's fighting to keep the Quinjet he's piloting from crashing, the narrator comments that many Avengers get praise for doing one thing well, but not Hawkeye—because he does MANY things well.
• Actually a Doombot: In an issue of The Avengers written by Brian Michael Bendis, Hawkeye goes to Transia in search of the Scarlet Witch, finds that she has Identity Amnesia, has sex with her and goes home. In Avengers: The Children's Crusade, Hawkeye learns that this woman was actually a robot Doctor Doom created to throw people off Wanda's trail. (Though it's not 100% clear. A more plausible reading was that Clint met up with the real Wanda in Transia before Doom replaced her with the Doombot, but either way the humor works, since Clint isn't sure if he slept with the real Wanda or the Doombot.)
• Affectionate Nickname: Mockingbird often calls him by the name "Sport" when the two are currently together, which originally started off as a general term of endearment for any guy she was working with. Clint, meanwhile, calls her "Birdie", as a shortened form of her name.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: To DC's Green Arrow.
• Always Someone Better:
  • Hawkeye is this to Green Arrow in an alternate universe where the Justice League and Avengers co-exist. Leaving the Marvel Universe to join the Justice League, Hawkeye completely overshadows Ollie, landing an impossible trick shot to defeat Doctor Doom at the Source Wall. Clint was even dating Black Canary, Ollie's girl.
  • Also, occasionally, to Kate Bishop. As far as Clint is concerned, Kate is the best archer he's ever met. However, while she's skilled enough to be on the Young Avengers, he's just that much better that, occasionally, she expresses slight jealousy over it.
  • As the comics have shown, Clint can casually land the Robin Hood shot (piercing an arrow with another arrow from behind) which Kate can't do at first, but she can tell Emperor Domitian to suck it by loosing five arrows at once (and have them all be non-lethal). However, Clint can fire three arrows and hit his targets before you can say "That's cool", making it a case of Technician vs. Performer, and Kate eventually managed to land the Robin Hood shot in Hawkeye #10, published 5 years later (in real-world time) after her first attempt in Young Avengers Presents #6.
  • Mockingbird is this to him. She was a far better fighter and effortlessly beat him in a fight when they first met, and the only reason he won a fight when she was being forced to kill him was because she was brainwashed to fight without thinking and he was able to use that and his strength against her.
  • For Clint, the one man whom he'll forever (begrudgingly) consider to be better than him is Captain America.
• Amazon Chaser: Clint tends to have a taste for women who can handle themselves in a fight. Case in point: When he first met Mockingbird, she kicked his ass. They married nine days later.
• Ambiguously Bi: Though he is unambiguously into women (being that he was married and all, and is still in love with his ex-wife), Clint's made a near-constant habit of playfully hitting on other men, lampshading Homoerotic Subtext between himself and others, and gets very jealous of anyone who threatens his place as Steve's "best friend" (and this is without getting into the way his history with Steve comes off as a romantic arc). He also notably spent years wearing a costume that corresponded to the colours of the Bisexual Pride flag, and when he didn't wear that, his other costume choices (such as the miniskirt suit) were quite campy.
• American Accents: Sometimes, Clint is written with a midwestern Phonetic Accent. Regardless, it's apparently noticeable he sounds like a carnie from Iowa.
• Amicable Exes:
  • With Bobbi. Clint is ready to rip the city apart when he finds out she's been shot, and she beats up some goons when they're watching Clint's apartment building in Hawkeye. The last one is followed by her taking a shower at his place and, smilingly, handing him their finalized divorce papers (...that were already finalized before she was abducted by Skrulls).
  • Also Natasha. They didn't date long, but they're still so close that the two have been jokingly referred to as each other's "Work Wife/Husband".
  • And again with Jessica Drew, to some extent at least. So much so that he was invited on a "Girl's Night Out" with her and her superheroine friends.

• Arch-Enemy: Probably Trickshot or Crossfire, depending on who you ask. Once Barney inherited the Trickshot mantle, he and Clint had a Cain and Abel dynamic. Hawkeye and Crossfire have the competition one would expect from rival marksmen (with different weapons), but Crossfire has kicked a lot of dogs in an attempt to break Hawkeye's spirit.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: He's got the trash talk and the skills to back it up. Except where Kate is concerned.
• Arrows on Fire: He has unsurprisingly used these over his long history, along with so many other Trick Arrow variations.
• As Lethal as It Needs to Be: His arrows and his way of using them. Though traditionally Hawkeye abhors killing, in later years he has become a victim of the "darker and edgier" trend of superheroes (particularly notable when he unhesitatingly killed Bruce Banner during Civil War II). In his most recent appearances, however, Hawkeye tries to avoid killing people, but doesn't flinch at leaving his enemies paralyzed, perhaps for life.
  Hawkeye: He'll live. Not well but he'll live.
• Back from the Dead: Hawkeye died during the events of Avengers Disassembled, only to still be alive after reality is shifted to the House of M. Following a Heroic BSoD after his memories of his original life are restored and he learns that he's supposed to be dead, Clint is then killed a second time and resurrected for real when reality is returned to normal.
• Badass Biker: Has a custom-built motorcycle nicknamed "Lightning." He also has his trademark flying motorcycle, the "sky-cycle", allowing him to take this to the next level.
• Badass Normal: Clint is a skilled marksman, a highly skilled martial artist (He's considered Captain America's top student in the martial arts, displaying such a level of skill he actually impressed and won praise from none other than Iron Fist, A.K.A, the best martial artist in the Marvel Universe), an expert swordsman (trained by none other than Swordsman himself) and all around Weapon Master, using weapons like nunchakus and the staff with great skill, and aside from his archery, he can throw objects with such skill and precision that he rivals Bullseye, meaning that, in Clint's hands, anything can be a lethal weapon. He's also an expert technician, tactician, trainer, pilot, and leader, which gives him a lot more utility than most of the other Avengers.
  • In a list of the most dangerous 'normal human beings' in the Marvel Universe, Clint could easily be in the top five. It's important to note that his closest contenders are likely Black Widow and Bucky Barnes a.k.a. the Winter Soldier, both of whom have had enhancements to their abilities, while Clint has zero such advantages. He is a baseline normal human being fighting on par with Thor and The Hulk.
  • When Tony Stark tries to find a replacement for the recently deceased Steve Rogers, he is the only one able to throw & catch Cap's shield.
  • Deconstructed in Avenging Spider-Man #4, as Clint confides in Spider-Man that there is an enormous amount of pressure on him as a Badass Normal on the same team as Captain America, Thor, Iron Man & the Hulk, and subsequently he has to train constantly in order to make sure his accuracy is superhuman, in effect meaning he cannot miss.
• Battle Couple: Originally with Black Widow, later with Mockingbird. He later became this with the third Hawkeye, Kate Bishop, in a non-romantic sense.
• Berserk Button: Doesn't matter if Hawkeye's relationship with her is going strong or not: hurt Mockingbird, and there will be hell to pay. This works both ways as well, so in short, don't fuck with them. Deconstructed in that Clint is well aware of how he gets a murderous rage on when Bobbi is threatened, and this terrifies him. As he's against the idea that heroes should kill, the fact he becomes willing to when she's endangered has lead to many My God, What Have I Done? moments.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Sometimes with lethal results, as when he shot Egghead in his pistol, which then backlogged and exploded.
• Book Dumb: Clint has average intelligence, but due to his troubled upbringing he didn’t even get to finish high school. Comparatively, several of his fellow teammates (Mockingbird, Black Widow, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Daredevil, She-Hulk) are college-educated.
• Bow and Sword in Accord: Clint trained under both a master archer and a master swordsman. He tends to favor his bow, but when he had to give up his identity, he used his fallback weapon to become "Ronin".
• Broken Pedestal: Hawkeye thought of the Swordsman as a father figure until he learned of his mentor's criminal activities. Something similar with Trick Shot too. One of the many proposed reasons for Clint's tendency to play The Lancer is that, until he met Captain America, he lacked a real father figure he could trust who didn't, ultimately, become an enemy.
• Cain and Abel: Barney Barton was always jealous of the attention given to Clint during their time with the circus. After taking up the mantle of Trickshot, Barney and Clint became bitter enemies.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Putting aside the sheer implausibility of some of his shots, he can loose a quiver full of arrows with speeds comparable to machine gun fire, and each one hits his target. Then there's his acrobatic feats, which are genuinely superhuman but things he gained through circus training alone.
• The Chew Toy: He was killed off in Avengers Disassembled, came back and got killed again in the following year's big event, and got burned alive halfway through Avengers vs. X-Men. If you see a big Marvel Crisis Crossover, expect bad things for Hawkeye.
• Chick Magnet: Black Widow lampshaded this in Widowmaker: Despite having absolutely nothing remotely attractive about his demeanor (he spends a lot of time making an idiot of himself) women seem to fall for him.
• Choice of Two Weapons: Preference for bows notwithstanding, Hawkeye is actually something of a weapon's master... not even limited to just two, actually, but his most used weapons are a bow and arrows and a sword.
• Circus Brat: Clint and his brother Barney both grew up in the Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders, and this is where Clint learned his sharpshooting skills to begin with.
• Clark Kenting: Clint just wears some shades. He doesn't make a real effort to conceal his identity, though he finds it more convenient if people don't realize that he's the Avenger Hawkeye. As a running gag, everyone in his apartment know who he is, to his annoyance when they loudly call him this, though everyone else needs him to actually tell them this because, frankly, they don't even know of him.
• Color Motif: Strongly associated with purple, to the point of it being his dominant color in general.
• Commander Contrarian: Clint was king of this as related to Avengers team leader Captain America. This was elegantly lampshaded by Wonder Man in 2005's "Avengers Finale", the epilogue to the Avengers Disassembled saga. The remaining Avengers are having a get-together, reminiscing about old times and departed friends, including the recently killed Hawkeye. As told by Wonder Man:
  Wonder Man: Clint didn't just disagree with Cap; he'd CRAZY disagree. Cap could just say something as simple as "I like turkey", and Clint would say "turkey sucks, and you suck and WHO MADE YOU BOSS, ANYWAY?!?"
• Cool Bike: The Sky-Cycle.
• Convenient Miscarriage: Subverted by Hawkeye and Mockingbird, who underwent one of these during their marriage; the reader didn't find out about the pregnancy at all until years after it was over, and the miscarriage didn't manage to maintain the status-quo - the couple divorced afterward.
• Crazy-Prepared: Hawkeye carries target-specific arrowheads for almost any occasion. In JLA/Avengers, Hawkeye locks down Captain Atom with a lead foil containment arrow meant for the Radioactive Man. He claims to have an arrow custom made to defeat every single one of his Avengers teammates. During his time with the Thunderbolts (in the arc when Moonstone goes nuts as her power increases), after taking out The Vision with a specialized arrow:
  You know I got an arrow for every single one of you. Don't think for one second that I didn't come here prepared to take down both teams if I have to!
• Crossover: In JLA/Avengers, he gains the honor of being the only character in all of fiction to be a canonical member of both the Avengers and the Justice League.
• Darker and Edgier: During the period Clint operated as Ronin, he jettisoned his "No Killing" rule and even briefly used firearms. And of course, in a literal example, he had started wearing a black costume rather than his purple outfit.
• Dating Catwoman: He had a fling with Meteorite/Moonstone during his tenure with the Thunderbolts.
• Deadly Dodging: A talented acrobat, Hawkeye uses his agility against his enemies, especially when he's outnumbered. In a training session with the Thunderbolts, Hawkeye uses this technique against Jolt and Moonstone to demonstrate the importance of teamwork.
• Deadpan Snarker: Quite possibly his most defining personality trait, and by far the most notable among the Avengers (pre-MCU, which promoted Iron Man to the snarker). He was so snarky in fact it actually spread to others, as his influence caused even Captain America to learn how to make a snarky comment.
• Dented Iron: He's the Avengers' primary Badass Normal who's a One-Man Army, but his adventures have left him with more than a few permanent injuries, most notably costing him his hearing. The Fraction run had him almost permanently wearing bandages, he's shown having surgery a handful of times to deal with severe injuries, and he casually mentions suffering chronic pain.
• Depending on the Artist:
  • His hair, length and style, and in the Ultimate Universe, how dark it is.
  • There's also his costume's sleeves. IE, if he has any sleeves at all, if he has one sleeve, short sleeves, or bare arms. With his new costume, this includes what are his glasses like (are they like any normal pair, do they look like Mockingbird's, do they look more stylized, are they just solid purple glass, etc), if he's wearing any glasses at all, does he wear wrist guards, how big or how detailed his logo is, how many pouches does he have, does he have a second quiver on his waist, is he wearing cargo pants or superhero tights, does he have any more purple on his costume, etc.
  • Lastly, his bow. Is it a stylized Longbow, a fancy recurve, a compound, some kind of custom one-of-a-kind bow, does it lean towards more fancy looking, or is it more futuristic and practical, does it fold up or come apart, does it have any attachments, etc. This also extends to his arrow heads: Do they all have little metal cylinders on the end holding whatever trick implements are inside, or is it a a more realistic, though bulky, sharp and pointy arrow head. Due to his nature, its entirely possible that he has a mix of both.
  • One notable discrepency is also his height. Officially, Clint is 6'3, making him an inch taller than Captain America, however quite often he's drawn to be shorter than Cap. Likewise, Kate is officially 5'5, but sometimes the two are drawn either the same height, or only a few inches apart, when Clint should be nearly a foot taller than her.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • Recently, Clint's view on killing. Previously, Clint was so against killing that he refused to listen to his wife's plea after she killed a man that raped her. Next minute, he's willingly firing arrows into bad guys boy parts without caring if they'll survive, then he's lecturing Anti-Heroes why they should let bad guys live, then he's killing Skrulls. Addressed in New Avengers The Reunion, where he admits that he now understands why someone would want to kill another.
  • Clint's social skills too. He's either a childish and occasionally snarky Nice Guy, or he's a complete Jerk with a Heart of Gold that has a mouth too big for him. When written by Brian Michael Bendis, he also tends to be FAR more of a jerk than he is usually, and tends to be the one itching to just kill the villain and making other rash decisions.
  • And, strangely, Clint's knowledge of TV pop culture, and his interest in it in general. In a Team up with Spider-Man, Clint claims he doesn't watch TV (and doesn't even own one; given his later confession about the amount of pressure he has to live up to as a Badass Normal it's possible he was lying to look good), but in The Reunion and his new ongoing, he makes references to Grey's Anatomy and owning a TiVo. In issue 6, he's terrified of getting the ending of Dog Cops spoiled, and throughout his series TVs can be seen, though this could be explained by the fact he received a large amount of money before the series started.
  • Clint's knowledge of languages. In Hawkeye, he struggles to tell languages apart, while in Infinity he manages to speak another language.
• Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: He can punch them out too, mind you, but he's not above scamming them either.
  • He once managed to beat the Grandmaster, one of the Elders of the Universe, (who was at the time pitting the Avengers [or at least Captain America and Hawkeye, the only two still alive] in an endless series of games to the death) by convincing the Grandmaster to engage in a game of chance to make it more interesting. Hawkeye, of course, wins. He did, after all, cheat.
• Disability Immunity: An encounter with Crossfire left Hawkeye deaf in one ear. He got his hearing back as a benefit of being brought back from the dead, but he lost it again, this time in both ears, when Clown stabbed him in the head with one of his own arrows. In both instances, Tony Stark provides him with a cybernetic implant to compensate for the disability. Since the implant can be turned on and off, he is ironically been able to No-Sell sonic attacks that have incapacitated his allies.
• Disability Superpower: Ever since an incident with a villain using sound-based mind control and one of his own ultrasonic arrowheads, Hawkeye needs a hearing aid. This doesn't come up often, but occasionally it protects him against the subtler sonic attacks as a plot point. (Perhaps less plausibly, once he's also shown unmasking an android as such by, apparently, turning his hearing aid all the way up and hearing the imposter's internal mechanisms.)
• Discard and Draw: A few incidents has seen Clint abandon the bow-and-arrows in favor of Pym Particles, taking up the identity of Goliath, most notably in Operation: Galactic Storm.
• Distaff Counterpart: Kate Bishop.
• Ear Ache: A self-inflicted case of this is the original reason for Clint's deafness - faced with a villain with a sound-based weapon, Hawkeye blew out his eardrums by activating a sonic arrow in his mouth.
• Epic Fail: Loki: Agent of Asgard #1 has Clint somehow falling out of the sky in an airplane with no health and the cops chasing him while playing a fishing simulator.
  Clint: I KNOW! It just... it just happens!
• The Everyman: Clint has been portrayed this way relative to the rest of the Marvel Universe, given that he has no powers and no super-genius/super-heart to make him special. A lot of his conflicts deal more with relationships, disability, and personal/financial issues than with supervillains. Still, the comics reestablish his uniqueness from time to time.
  Penny: Imagine you want to kill the Avengers... Who do you target first? The normal guy.
  Natasha: There is nothing normal about Clint Barton.
• Everythings Better With Ninjas/Everything's Better with Samurai: Ronin, the masterless samurai.
• Evil Counterpart: Swordsman, Trick Shot, and Barney Barton as Trickshot. Bullseye & Barney Barton both served as Hawkeye in Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers teams.
• Evil Mentor: Clint Barton's mentor Trickshot, the man who taught him archery in the first place, was this at first. He trained young Clint to be a great marksman — so he could have an accomplice watching his back when he committed crimes. After being forced to shoot his own brother, Clint backed out of their arrangement, causing Trickshot to promise he'll live to regret that decision. When they meet again in the present day, Trickshot gradually becomes Hawkeye's ally if not necessarily his friend.
• Face–Heel Turn: Hawkeye, despite starting off trying to be a hero, was manipulated by Black Widow and was a villain before joining the Avengers.
• Failure-to-Save Murder: Hawkeye and Mockingbird's marriage broke down initially largely because of this. Long story short, Mockingbird was drugged and raped by the Phantom Rider, and gets revenge by choosing to let him fall to his death rather than save him. When Hawkeye finds out, via the obviously biased word of Phantom Rider's spirit that Bobbi allowed him to die, Hawkeye becomes strained with her because 'Avengers don't kill'. He later gets past it when he learns the full details, but they never return to their former closeness.
• Family Man: This is seen a bit by the way he cares for his brother Barney and the long relationship he has with Bobbi. While with the Thunderbolts, he formed a surrogate family unit with the team, him as Team Dad next to Moonstone's Team Mom, and was even (illegally) acting as a foster father to Jolt and Charcoal.
• Fastball Special: Has one with Ant-Man & the various other size shifters in the Marvel Universe, where the shrunken down hero is fired on one of Clint's arrows and proceeds to increase in size whilst flying at the enemy. Also serves as Clint's Level 3 Hyper in Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3.
• Foil: To Daredevil. Clint acts like a goofy idiot while Matt is almost always serious. Clint was almost deaf (prior to Heroes Reborn), but has the best eyes in the Marvel U, while Matt is blind, but has super-humanly good hearing. Hawkeye works best in teams while Daredevil prefers working alone. It's worth noting that both were love interests for Black Widow.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Hawkeye and Mockingbird got married a couple of days after they met. Admittedly it was a very intense couple of days.
• Gadgeteer Genius: It's often forgotten that, since his first appearance, Clint was depicted as making all of his own Trick Arrows himself. Though he lacks any formal education, he's a skilled self-taught engineer who can come up with insane ideas for arrowheads that work surprisingly well. He might not understand the science behind Pym Particles, but he knows how they work and is more than capable of combining that with arrow ideas.
• The Gadfly: He can be childish in more light-hearted comics, like disagreeing with the team leader for the sake of it, cracking jokes about She-Hulk because he had a crush on her, and in general trolling villains and teasing teammates. He also demonstrated that, while they have their purposes, the main reason for all his trick arrows is simply because they're fun.
• Good Is Not Soft: Tries to avoid killing opponents when he can, but he WILL put you down for good if you don't give him any other options, or push his berserk button too hard. And he's got no problem dishing out painful, possibly career ending injuries.
  Hawkeye: He'll live. Not well, but he'll live.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted with Hawkeye and Mockingbird. Hawkeye's an archer, the best in the world, in fact; Mockingbird's a fighter who prefers to fight with her battle staves, and is one of the best fighters in the Marvel Universe, at least on the same level as Nick Fury and Captain America (and that's before gaining their respective powers). Given his past relationships with Black Widow and She-Hulk, and his recent relationship with Spider-Woman, Hawkeye in general seems to have a thing for women who can do the punching while he does the shooting. In a bit of a subversion, all of those women are exceptional marksswomen or have potent ranged superpowers while Hawkeye is a phenomenal martial artist in his own right, it's just that their fields of speciality are an inversion.
• Handicapped Badass: He's deaf, borderline illiterate, and has mentioned having chronic pain and shown obvious signs of depression. He's also a One-Man Army who's on-par with Captain America.
• Headbutting Heroes: With John Walker, the U.S.Agent. In contrast to his close bond with Steve, Clint and John do not get along at all and they spend the majority of the West Coast Avengers openly hating each other and eventually came to blows.
• Heel–Face Turn: Clint started out as a normal guy trying to be a hero, but after he was mistaken for a criminal Black Widow picked him up and convinced him to help her. Barney Barton becomes the second Trick Shot.
• He Who Fights Monsters: In Freefall, Hawkeye's feud with the Hood takes him into Captain Ahab territory: He uses some of Kang's old time travel devices to simultaneously fight the Hood as both Hawkeye and Ronin, outright lying to his fellow Avengers when they inquire if he has returned to the Ronin identity (which puts him in hot water when Bullseye attacks Captain America disguised as Ronin). Daredevil, who had similar struggles during Shadowland, rightfully calls Hawkeye out on his behavior. By the end, Hawkeye has not only alienated several of his allies, he has also made a Deal with the Devil with Kingpin, and it's only a matter of time before Mr. Fisk collects on that favor Hawkeye now owes him.
  Fancy Dan: He's one of us now. Even if he doesn't know it yet.

I-Z

• Idiot Hero: Downplayed. Clint's not stupid, he's a fairly smart man and has a wide range of talents/skills, but he's uneducated, doesn't plan too far ahead, isn't particularly good at understanding others, and can sometimes come off as incredibly dense.
• I Have Many Names: Clint has used the names Hawkeye, Goliath, Golden Archer, Captain America, and Ronin. What's notable is that every one of those names has been adopted by someone else, or belonged to someone else before he picked it up.
• Improbable Use of a Weapon: He's more than capable of using his bow as a close-quarters weapon, and can even throw arrows like darts if his bow is broken or out of reach.
• Improbable Weapon User: Not as much as Bullseye, but Clint has, in recent years, been shown to be able to weaponize anything from plying cards to pennies. He notes in #3 that when he walks into a room, he looks at everything and makes a mental note on its use as a weapon, something he also notes is a completely insane thing to do.
• Indy Ploy: Clint prefers to walk into a situation without having a plan. As he sees it, you fight harder when you know you don't have a safety net.
  • As he explained to Moonstone at one point during the original run of Thunderbolts, Clint prefers to walk into a situation without having a plan. As he sees it, you fight harder when you know you don't have a safety net.
• Inertia Is a Cruel Mistress: Hawkeye's weapon of choice against speedsters and agile opponents is to predict their next move and put an arrow in their path. Batroc the Leaper found himself stuck to the floor by an adhesive arrow after Hawkeye correctly deduced his landing point.
• Informed Attribute: Officially, Clint is 6'3", which makes him an inch taller than Captain America (who's billed at 6'2") and taller than most other characters. Despite this, he's rarely drawn any taller than Spider-Man (who's not a particularly tall guy), and is almost never depicted as taller than Steve.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Clint and Kate. While they don't appear to be that far apart in age (going by what's said, Kate is about 20 now, while Clint's age is probably only ten years older at most), they did first meet when she was about 16.
  • To a lesser extent, Clint and Songbird too became very close when on the Thunderbolts; it's not clear how much younger than him she is, but it is clear there's a gap.
• Irony: In Dark Reign, Clint was highly suspicious at Spider-Woman/Jessica Drew, considering she was the face of the Skrull Queen during Secret Invasion. They were afterwards in a somewhat complicated relationship (even though they were only in this state of affairs because she unknowingly manipulated his pheromones).
• Jack of All Stats: Played With since he does specialise in archery and ranged weapons and is the worlds greatest marksmen; still, outside of archery, Clint is a master at any weapon, but it's clear he's not the greatest master at any said weapon. Bobbi notes, while Clint is a high-skilled staff fighter, she still bests him because that's the weapon she specialises in, and it can be assumed that similar would happen if he fought katana-to-katana against Colleen Wing or longsword-to-longsword against Black Knight. When unarmed, he can still fight ten guys on his own and win, but he also once fought a Brainwashed and Crazy Shang-Chi while unarmed and got utterly wrecked. Basically, he himself avoids Crippling Overspecialization, anyone who doesn't will probably beat him in said specialization, unless it's archery.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Depending on the Writer how much one side wins out.
• Katanas Are Just Better: As Ronin. Fridge Logic comes when one notes that he was trained by Swordsman, who used longswords, not katanas, and the two weapons are not interchangeable.
• Killing in Self-Defense: In The Trial of Yellowjacket, Clint saves Hank Pym from Egghead by firing an arrow into the blaster the villain was using. However, as he did so as Egghead was pulling the trigger, the feedback caused an explosion that killed the villain. He was horrified that happened since he had no intention in actually killing him and both the courts and the Avengers deem that he did no wrong-doing in doing so.
• Knife-Throwing Act: Clint developed his skills as part of a knife-throwing act with the Swordsman
• Knockout Gas: One of Clint's trick arrows is a knock-out gas arrow.
• The Lancer: To Captain America in The Avengers. He tends to chafe under Captain America's leadership, but it's clear how much like Cap he is — he led both his own Avengers franchise and the Thunderbolts for several years.
• Leader Wannabe: When He joined The Avengers, spent all his time harassing Captain America.
• Legacy Character: Clint Barton took up Ronin's mantle with her blessing. He also served as the second Goliath after Hank Pym adopts the Yellowjacket persona. After the death of Captain America, Clint had a very short stint as the new Cap until Kate Bishop (Not knowing it was Clint) pointed out the hypocrisy in him wearing Cap's costume whilst he called her out on using the Hawkeye. This convinced him to give the costume and shield back to Tony Stark (he'd never really been comfortable with being the replacement Cap anyway; Tony had pressured him into it because Clint was the only one he could find who could pull off Cap's shield toss tricks). While he was Ronin, Clint gave Kate Bishop his blessing to continue serving as the second Hawkeye after testing her skills. Barney Barton became the second Trick Shot, renaming himself Trickshot.
• Like Brother and Sister:
  • Clint Barton and Kate Bishop have made it clear they're exceptionally close, but have zero interest in ever dating the other. A lot of their dynamic actually seem like what you'd see between siblings, particularly with how Clint is both a source of inspiration and frustration for Kate.
  • Before Kate, Clint and Melissa Gold/Songbird, from their time together in the Thunderbolts. They became incredibly close friends, probably the closest among the team besides their individual love interests, and Clint saw himself as a Big Brother Mentor to Mel.
  • Similarly, Kate herself is pretty much Billy and Teddy's closest friend, with the couple viewing her like family and likewise she seeing them in this manner in return.
• Love Makes You Stupid: In his very first appearance he becomes smitten with Black Widow the moment he sees her. Because of this he just goes along with whatever she tells him to do without question.
• Made of Iron: Only as Goliath II.
• Martial Arts Staff: As Ronin, Clint used one, created by locking together both of his nunchakus. He learned how to wield a staff in honor and remembrance of his wife, Mockingbird, who he thought was dead. Still not as good as her as it is her weapon, but still.
• Master Archer: Clint Barton is the canon's foremost archer. His accuracy is nigh-superhuman due to much training, and he achieves things an average human can only dream of. In addition to being a Master Archer he is also skilled with several other weapons (among other things, he's just about the only person other than Taskmaster who can throw a shield as well as Captain America; even Bucky can only do it thanks to cyborg enhancement, but Clint pulls it off with just marksmanship) and is a highly-trained martial artist.
• Master Swordsman: Hawkeye is an expert with a sword, his use of it as Ronin is in honor of the Swordsman, one of his mentors, who taught him everything about swordsmanship.
• McNinja: As Ronin; prior to this, Clint was styled more like a modern day European warrior.
• Mr. Fanservice: His original miniseries had him spend a chunk of it in just a pair of briefs. The Fraction run spent a chunk of an issue with him naked, and this became a short Running Gag in other comics. He's sometimes worn Stripperific costumes, including once wearing a tunic with no pants and a plunging neck line.
• Multi-Melee Master: In addition to his bow and arrows, Hawkeye is a master of martial arts and a weapon master, being excellent at using a sword, nunchakus, bo staff and even straight up throwing projectiles. Along with using arrows as melee weapons.
• Multishot: One of his more notable skills.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: A mild version of it is used for him. Hawkeye is obviously not as musclebound as Captain America or the Hulk, but he is plenty strong himself as a villain finds out when he tried using Hawkeye's bow against him and finds he can't pull back the string, considering to do so means he would have to pull back the equivalent of 250 pounds with three fingers, which Hawkeye does all the time without effort. With that in mind, Clint is, usually, drawn with an impressive build.
• My Greatest Failure: New Avengers: The Reunion and Hawkeye & Mockingbird revealed that Clint has regarded his failure to support Bobbi letting the Phantom Rider fall to his death (he raped her, but Clint used to have a much stronger hatred of killing) as his greatest failure for years, and it has constantly haunted him. He also considered her "death" one, telling her that he saw her everywhere while she was missing.
• Net Gun: One of Hawkeye's many Trick Arrows is a net arrow, which explodes into a net to capture the target.
• No "Arc" in "Archery": Employed on occasion when Hawkeye uses his trick arrows.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: In Secret Avengers, neither Jessica nor Natasha think much of him, seeing him as a goofball. Maria Hill tells them that's precisely why he's so dangerous — no one thinks much of him.
• One-Man Army: Though he prefers to work in teams, Clint is incredibly dangerous on his own, especially so long as he's armed.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. The 2010s era with both Clint and Kate using an unmodified "Hawkeye" identity was the first Marvel work to unambiguously break the publisher's long-term rule of not having two characters use the same costumed identity simultaneously.
• Parental Substitute: Swordsman and Trick Shot in his youth, Captain America as an Avenger. Seems to be trying to act as one for Kate...success is arguable.
• Pinball Projectile
• Platonic Life-Partners: with Kate Bishop.
• Promoted Fanboy: It's been established that Clint had a childhood love for cowboy fiction, which made the tenure he spent time-travelling to the Wild West and having bromantic adventures with Two-Gun Kid a dream come true. Sadly, this is largely what lead to his wife then getting raped by another cowboy superhero, and the breakdown of their marriage.
• Rain of Arrows: In Hawkeye/Mockingbird he unleashed special trick arrows, the heads of which are filled with dozens, if not hundreds, of regular arrows shrunken down with Pym particles, leading to this trope. Hawkeye has a smaller-scale version of this attack in Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 called the scatter shot.
• Really Gets Around: He gradually grows into his reputation as a womanizer. Beside his ex-wife, he had been with Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Moonstone, and Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew).
• Real Men Wear Pink: His primary colours are typically blue, purple, and pink, though recently he's swapped blue for black. He also once wore a costume that amounted to a minidress and a headband. His time in the circus essentially gave him a flare for flamboyant outfits.
• Replacement Artifact: In Hawkeye Vol. 1, Hawkeye purposely blew out his eardrum while he and Mockingbird were under control of a villain's sonic Mind Control. As a result, he was 80% deaf in one ear and used a hearing aid. After a while he temporarily died, as you do, and was resurrected with his hearing restored. However, some fans disliked losing a good example of disabled representation, so eventually he lost his hearing again after being stabbed in both ears in Hawkeye (2012).
• Right Through His Pants: Inverted; the aftermath of a sexual encounter has him completely nude and her being the one half-dressed.
• Rogues Gallery: Surprisingly, yes. Crossfire, Bobcat, Razor-Fist, the Tracksuit Mafia, Trickshot, the Clown, the Bullet Biker, Swordsman, Bullseye, Oddball and the Death Throws, the Circus Of Crime, and The Griffin.
• Rule of Fun: Some of his trick arrows. Surely, a boomerang arrow makes no sense at all, but it works, 'because...boomerangs'.
• The Runaway: Clint, along with his brother Barney, joined the circus after running away from their foster family.
• Sarcastic Devotee: Clint embodies this trope so thoroughly, that he's almost a better example of The Starscream. For years, he served under the leadership of Captain America and disputed every judgment call the wing-head made, no matter how trivial, and never failed to punctuate his complaints by claiming that he would make a much better leader. Even after Hawkeye got to lead his own team of Avengers, these arguments still cropped up every time he had to step back into a supporting role.
• Second Super-Identity: Clint Barton USUALLY goes by Hawkeye, but he's also been Ronin (the second Ronin in the Avengers) and Goliath. Plus he tried out the Captain America identity after the death of the original, but decided it wasn't for him.
• Shoot the Bullet: Clint has been known to do this with arrows, such as one instance where he couldn't dodge an arrow with dynamite strapped to it without getting caught in the blast range, so he shot it in midair instead. Naturally, when he and Green Arrow meet up in Marvel/DC Crossovers, they do it to each other quite often.
• Short Range Guy, Long Range Guy: Hawkeye and Mockingbird provide a romantic example (and the page image) — he's a master archer who specialises in making the impossible shot; she's a martial arts master capable of beating up a dozen men at once with her staves.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Most of the time, the reason his love interests are attracted to him is in part because he's a good natured guy. Black Widow defected largely because of his influence, and Moonstone's Character Development was in-part triggered by falling in love with his good nature and wanting to be a better person for his sake.
  • With Mockingbird, it's a bit more complicated. She fell in love with him while they were working together and she proposed because he sacrificed his hearing to save her, but they developed relationship problems because of his Holier Than Thou attitude about killing. At the same time, she finds him particularly attractive next to other Avengers specifically because Clint is a brash Anti-Hero Jerk with a Heart of Gold and she finds his wild nature much more her speed. When Domonic Fortune calls Clint a "boyscout", Bobbi laughed because he is probably the only person who'd think that, and also finds Fortune's own unscrupulous nature, though useful, a complete turn-off. Essentially, she likes that Clint is a good man, but also likes that he's not a boy-scout, yet doesn't want to see him lose his good nature.
• Sizeshifter: Clint's stint as Goliath II gave him the ability to change size at will thanks to the Pym Particles.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Clint usually has sleeveless costumes.
• Steel Ear Drums: Averted when he deliberately deafened himself in order to protect himself from a supervillain who was using a sound-based mind control device. He wore hearing aids for years after that, though eventually writers stopped referencing it.
• Stock Ninja Weaponry: As Ronin: Katana? Check. Nunchaku? Check. Kunai and/or Shuriken? Sure, in a pinch. Hell, even his trademark bow and arrow qualifies. And those melee weapons? Yeah, he'll dual wield them for added badass Ninja points.
• The Straight and Arrow Path: Clint trained under fellow trope-qualifier Trickshot and performed in the circus before turning to crime and then heroics as Hawkeye. He later took up the identity of Ronin, a close-combat fighter.
• Stupid Sacrifice: In Avengers Disassembled, a stray hit in battle breaches one of the explosive arrows in his quiver, accidently priming it to explode. Not wanting to go out like a Red Shirt, he decides to replicate Major Kong's Dying Moment of Awesome from Dr. Strangelove. After his resurrection, his teammates remind him that he could have easily avoided death by taking off the quiver and throwing it out of harm's way. He eventually develops a sense of humor about it.
• Super-Strength: Only as Goliath II.
• "Take That!" Kiss: Clint did this to Deathbird after defeating her. This went beyond his usual style, but she was an exceptionally dangerous opponent, and he defeated her by himself, and he hadn't had a fight like that in quite a while, so he was riding on exhilaration.
  • Clint has also been on the receiving end of one of these, courtesy of She-Hulk. He'd been messing with the newly recruited Avenger for a while now, and She-Hulk's response to his latest jabs was to forcibly pick him up, kiss him, and drop him on his ass. Even Clint admitted she's won that round.
• 10-Minute Retirement: Clint has had moments where, fed up with disrespect, bailed on the Avengers in frustration, coming back a few issues later.
• Thememobile: His Sky-Cycle is sometimes the same shade of purple as his costume, and maybe even patterned with "H"s or arrows.
• There Are No Therapists: Clint's suffered the death of his brother, his wife, his own death at the hands of his best friend, recovering his memories in a world created by said friend and discovering that he is dead in the real world, his resurrection by the same friend, but no one has ever recommended that he sees a therapist—not even when the death of his wife led to him staying in the wilderness until his old mentor convinced him that Bobbi wouldn't want him to live like that.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Early in his career, he had a strict no-kill policy, and even read Mockingbird the riot act for allowing Phantom Rider to die. He would later acknowledge that he failed her during this particular instance, and that lethal force in their line of work was sometimes unavoidable. Since Secret Invasion, he will kill opponents if left with no other options... or if he's pissed off beyond reasonable limits.
• Throwing Off the Disability: For a time, Clint's deafness was cured by Franklin Richards, but he lost his hearing again in Hawkeye (2012) when the Clown jammed arrows in each of his ears.
• Trick Arrow: Hawkeye has special arrowheads that can carry acid, fire, Pym Particles, nets, Knockout Gas, grappling hooks, sonic stunners, electricity, ice or explosives. Other specialized arrows include the Adamantium arrow and the Vibranium arrow.
  • And the boomerang. Don't forget to respect the boomerang. It comes back to you in the end.
  • These are even just the ones we see him use; he's referenced even crazier ideas in the past even if never outright using them. Doubling as a Shout-Out, the concept of a Boxing Glove arrow has been mentioned,
• The Trickster: Has elements of this. With the fate of the world in the balance, he challenges the Grandmaster to a final game of skill and chance: Guessing which of the two arrows he's holding has an arrowhead. Grandmaster picks the wrong one, and the universe is saved. The kicker? Hawkeye cheated, using slight of hand from his Carnival days. The fact he saves existence with such a trick gets a laugh from Death itself.
• True Love Is Boring: After several years of marital bliss, the Phantom Rider incident happened, and Clint and Bobbi broke up. Right after they made up and were on track to getting back together, she was killed. And now that she's Back from the Dead, they find out they're now technically divorced. When they reunite as a couple, they find out they're both going through hard times and aren't ready to stay together.
• *Twang* Hello: Except for him barely missing his targets isn't an issue. His arrows blow up.
• Underdogs Never Lose: He lacks superpowers or any kind of enhancement and intentionally specialises in a weapon that's highly outdated. He's still one of the best among Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and it's notable he's often been the one to save the day. When he confronted the Thunderbolts, not only did he single-handedly save them while not even using his own gimmick, but he then proved his qualification to lead them via Asskicking Leads to Leadership — bare-in-mind, the entire team had superpowers (Abe Jenkins/Mach-1 was the only non-powered member, and even he used Powered Armor) and he still kicked their asses for 15 minutes without a single one of them landing a hit on him. He then went on to apply this to the Thunderbolts themselves, helping them become an effective super-team after spending months on the run from everyone and getting their asses kicked.
• Underestimating Badassery: Villains, and in some cases some fans, usually underestimate Hawkeye because he fights alongside Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America. He soon reminds them why he fights alongside Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America.
• Undying Loyalty: Clint has shown over the years that, if he works alongside you or considers you a friend, he will stick by and trust you no matter what. A perfect example would be the Greg Pak War Machine run, where Clint and other former WCA members were called to rein in Rhodey's increasingly violent Blood Knight tendencies. While Mockingbird seemed to think Rhodey had gone off the deep end, Clint was sure that Rhodey had a perfectly good reason for his actions, simply because of the time they spent together previously^note Technically, they were both right on this one; Rhodey had gone off the deep end, but only because he was being forced to witness every recorded war crime constantly and was trying to clear up the world; they both decide to help Rhodey with his mission, albeit while staying away from his murderous actions.
• Uptight Loves Wild: Outside of Mockingbird, most of Clint's love interests tend to be comparatively more serious women, who none-the-less find his brash, Deadpan Snarker Idiot Hero persona charming and attractive.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Hawkeye and Green Arrow in JLA/Avengers.
  • Clint and anyone, really. He'll call out and argue with Cap, but there's no one he holds more respect for. He'll patronize Kate Bishop and treat her like a child but considers her the best archer he's ever met, he'll tease Bobbi but she's the love of his life, he makes fun of Spider-Man yet he's got no problem confessing his insecurities to him and considers him a good friend, etc.
  • He and Bucky have taken this to new levels after Tales of Suspense, being an effective duo who also can't stop annoying each other, but have slowly morphed into best friends (who hate each other).
• Weapon-Based Characterization: Clint is a hotshot archer whose real weapon isn't the bow so much as the bag of tricks he fires from it. He's shown to have the same accuracy hand-throwing his arsenal of arrowheads or firing them from improvised launchers. As Ronin, he shifts his weapon to a katana.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Struggled with this prior to the Avengers; his father was physically and verbally abusive, so Clint did everything he could to try and make his father like him in the hopes he'd get beaten less. At the orphanage, Barney would take out his anger on Clint, so Clint became a doormat in the hopes Barney would be nicer to him, which included running away with Barney when the latter decided to leave. At the circus, Clint did everything he could to please Swordsman and Trickshot, who had taken him under their wings but both constantly negged and gaslighted him. By the time he joined the Avengers, the reason he was so hostile to Steve was, largely, that Clint had realised this was the case and decided he'd stand up for himself this time, ironically against the one mentor figure who wasn't an asshole.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: He uses a bow and arrow, not even a crossbow. He's on a team that at times features The Mighty Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Scarlet Witch and many other juggernauts. Despite this he makes it work. It's often forgotten that
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Clint used to hit up the Tinkerer for Trick Arrows back when he was first starting out, often using money he'd stolen from drug dealers.
• World's Best Warrior: Specifically, he's the World's Greatest Marksman, but he's also more-or-less the greatest weapon user in the world. He's not the greatest at unarmed combat (still good enough), but if he has access to weapons there's very few who can beat him.

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