Comic Book / Hawkeye (2012)

_{Hawkeye #1 cover by David Aja}

"Okay... this looks bad."

—Clint Barton a.k.a. Hawkeye, once an issue

The fourth volume of Hawkeye was written by Matt Fraction and drawn by David Aja, published by Marvel Comics from August 2012 to July 2015. It is the first (and to date, only) ongoing Hawkeye title to feature Clint Barton in the title role.

After years of serving as a stalwart Avenger, Clint embarks on his most treacherous mission yet: managing an apartment building in Brooklyn. But with the previous landlord and his gang breathing down Clint's neck, not to mention loads of personal baggage for him to deal with, the job will be much easier said than done. Good thing he's got backup in the form of the other Hawkeye, Kate Bishop, and their canine companion, Lucky the Pizza Dog.

This run of Hawkeye is notable for its looser structure than most modern ongoing superhero titles, with only a few short story arcs but numerous one-offs and standalone issues between them. They are:

Story arcs

• "My Life as a Weapon" — Spurred into action by wanting to defend the defenseless —his apartment building neighbors— Clint takes matters into his own hands when his cruel landlord asserts himself.
• "The Tape" — When Clint is recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. to intercept some incriminating evidence, the job proves to have deadly implications for all parties involved. Drawn entirely by Javier Pullido.
• "Little Hits" — After the events of the previous arc, Clint and his associates enjoy some downtime, or at least as much they can enjoy it. Features guest art from Steve Lieber & Jesse Hamm, Annie Wu, and Francesco Francavilla.
• "L.A. Woman" — When Kate retreats to Los Angeles to get away from Clint, she accidentally finds herself in the crosshairs of her new archrival, the supervillainess Madame Masque. Drawn entirely by Annie Wu, following a one-shot annual drawn by Pullido.
• "Rio Bravo" — Just when things couldn't get bad enough for Clint, his estranged brother Barney —the other other Hawkeye— turns up, just in time for the final standoff against the Tracksuit Draculas.

Released as part of the Marvel NOW! initiative, Matt Fraction & David Aja's Hawkeye offered a completely new take on the character, recontextualizing him as the everyman in a universe full of superheroes with amazing powers. Clint's adventures in this run tend to more closely resemble that of the Slice of Life genre than traditional cape comics, focusing on his personal relationships and home life rather than the world-shaking adventures common to his fellow Avengers. The look of the book also notably stood out in Marvel's publishing slate at the time, favoring a unique aesthetic inspired more by indie comics than the house style they usually went with. This approach earned the title widespread acclaim, winning Aja four Eisner Awards for his art on the series, as well as Best Single Issue/One-Shot for issue #11, “Pizza Is My Business". Furthermore, it quickly became the definitive version of the character moving forward, informing not just how Clint would be portrayed in later appearances by creators but also how the audience perceived him and his role in the Marvel Universe. Fraction & Aja's Hawkeye ran for twenty-two issues total over three years, with frequent delays leading to inconsistent release dates and story arcs not running linearly. The final issue of ultimately came out in July 2015.

Jeff Lemire and Ramón Pérez's All-New Hawkeye immediately followed this run, inheriting the tone and visual flair set by their predecessors. It actually picked up so quickly after Fraction & Aja's run that it was collected in trade as the fifth and sixth volumes of Hawkeye, despite having a different title and not sharing any of the same creative team. Kelly Thompson & Leonardo Romero's Hawkeye (2016)^note published monthly as Hawkeye but collected in trade as Hawkeye: Kate Bishop is a sequel series to the "L.A. Woman" arc, following Kate as she works as a private investigator in Los Angeles. The 2018 run of West Coast Avengers could also be seen as a stealth sequel to both the Fraction/Aja and Thompson/Romero runs, as it prominently features Clint and Kate together again. Finally, Matthew Rosenberg & Otto Schmidt's Hawkeye: Freefall contains callbacks to this run, once again proving just how influential Fraction & Aja were to the character during their time on the title.

This run would later be loosely adapted into the Hawkeye (2021) series on Disney+, with Jeremy Renner reprising his role from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as introducing Hailee Steinfeld as Kate. Kate, Gil, and Clint's apartment complex were also included in in Crystal Dynamics'/Square Enix's Marvel's Avengers in an Expansion Pack.

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Matt Fraction & David Aja's Hawkeye contains examples of:

• The '60s: Despite being set in 2012/2013, the series has undertones of Sixties style to it. The Tracksuit Mafia drive original Minis, Kazimierz Kazimierczak/Clown wouldn't look out of place in The Italian Job (1969), all the women wear Sixties dresses, and Kate might as well have joined a different Avengers.
• Acting Unnatural: In issue #2, Clint and Kate infiltrate a swanky gathering of underworld types, where Clint feels distinctly out of place:
  Clint: [to himself] Casual. Casual. Super-casual.
  Kate: You know there's nothing casual about a guy muttering "casual" to himself over and over again, right?
• American Accents: Used nontraditionally, as Clint's neighbor Grills has an accent that keeps him from hearing the difference between Hawkeye and Hawkguy.
• Amicable Exes: Bobbi Morse is entirely sympathetic to Clint and his growing stresses about protecting the apartment from the Tracksuits despite coming over to have him finalize some divorce papers.
• Anachronic Order:
  • Issue #6 takes place mid-December, but #7 is an issue about Hurricane Sandy, which occurred in October 2012. The second trade paperback instead opts for straight chronological order, with the issues ordered 7, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11.
  • Issue #6 itself is also in anachronic order, jumping around one week of December and presenting the reasons for certain situations as they come up: December 18, 13, 17, 14, 15, 19, 15, 16, and 19.
• Arc Words: "Okay... this looks bad." The phrase starts just about every issue of the Matt Fraction run, and it usually involves Clint falling to his doom or in some other horrible situation. Eventually, there's an issue that starts with him being held at gunpoint with his pants around his ankles, and the phrase becomes, "Okay... this looks... completely ridiculous."
• Art Shift: This run is mostly drawn by Aja, with some exceptions. "The Tape" was drawn by Javier Pullido, while "L.A. Woman" was drawn by Annie Wu.
• Auction of Evil: In issue #4, at a villain auction in Madripoor, a tape that shows Clint killing a dictator is being sold off.
• Big Applesauce: Even more than most Marvel titles set in the city. This run's version of New York probably feels as close to the real thing as you're gonna get in a Marvel comic.
• Body Sushi: In issue #20, Kate Bishop goes undercover as a body-sushi girl in order to get inside Madame Masque's headquarters.
• Bond One-Liner: There's a funny subversion when Barney Barton has helped his brother Clint fight off the Tracksuit Draculas.
  Barney: Sorry about that. Our guests didn't, uh... Guess you could say those guys really... They really... Those two guys, they... I threw 'em off the fire escape.
• Bookends: This run begins and ends with Clint fighting off the Tracksuit Draculas and saving his apartment building.
• Bows and Errors: Averted for the most part, and the series would like to make that very clear with diagrams on proper archery form as part of the aesthetic.
• Brick Joke: Kate Bishop criticizes Clint for keeping a boomerang arrow, only for her to use it to disable a gangster who was holding a gun to Clint's head.
• Bulletproof Vest: Treated fairly realistically when Clint is shot at close range by Madame Masque, and despite wearing a SHIELD-issue vest he's knocked flat and is next seen in a medical ward. He outright says it felt like being hit by a truck.
• Censor Box: A nude Clint's modesty is covered by a classic-style corner box logo of his face.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The boomerang arrow, which Kate mocks, is set up early in issue #3 and proves crucial in a climactic moment.
  • The collar stays that Kate gives Clint in #13; he blinds the Clown with them in the final issue.
  • The HDMI cables that Clint has trouble with in #6 return in the final issue to restrain the Clown.
• Continuity Snarl: Several in issue #9, mainly in relation to Clint and Bobbi's relationship. They sign divorce papers despite being considered divorced as early as New Avengers The Reunion and Jessica claims that he ran away when things got tough, but they had made multiple attempts at getting back together and the last one failed due to a combination of them both suffering from severe PTSD and them both feeling that they couldn't be together at that point. But, the last one may just be poor research on Jess's part.
• Decon-Recon Switch: The series does this to Trick Arrows within a single issue. They're Awesome, but Impractical, and a big waste of time due to them being tailored to specific situations. Plus Clint never bothered to label any of them so when caught in a car chase, he's firing arrows of varying degrees of usefulness. By the end though, many of the arrows that Clint uses become more and more effective in fighting the Tracksuits and keeping him alive, and the Boomerang Arrow that Kate mocks at the beginning of the issue does wonders to get Clint out of a hairy situation.
• Deuteragonist: Though Clint Barton is undoubtedly the lead of this run, Kate Bishop has nearly as much focus and eventually gets her own solo arc.
• Damsel in Distress: Cherry is married to a member of the Tracksuit Mafia and rescued by Clint. She proves to be a lot more cunning and more manipulative than this trope usually implies.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Despite Kate not being romantically attracted to Clint, it doesn't stop her from remarking on Clint's defined physique.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: In issue #9, this is subverted when Jessica Drew finds out that Clint had slept with another woman, despite being in a sorta-relationship with her (it's not made clear exactly, but the implication is that Clint didn't think they were in a serious, closed relationship). She then slaps him twice and tries to hit him a third time, but he stops her and says that, while she's angry, she doesn't get to do that. Should be noted that Spider-Woman has super-strength and could easily crack his skull, while he's a Badass Normal with no defense.
• Driver Faces Passenger: In issue #3, a member of the Tracksuit Draculas, while driving a car, spends more time talking to his kidnapped victim than looking at what's happening on the road. He fails to notice the pursuing Clint in another car, who promptly crashes into his car from the side.
• Fauxreigner: In issue #2, the Circus of Crime's Ringmaster and some students of Clint's old mentor the Swordsman masquerade as fake Frenchmen in a Cirque du Soleil-style revue/criminal operation. Clint knows that the Ringmaster is Austrian, and upon hearing the Swordsmen's accents immediately recognizes them as fakes.
• Fight Magnet: Clint Barton and Kate Bishop keep tangling with large numbers of the Tracksuit Mafia.
• Foreshadowing: The Show Within a Show Winter Friends shows Steve, the character allegorical to Clint, having an older brother. This is several issues before Barney would be introduced.
• Freudian Slip: Clint often says "Back in a sex—sec."
• Gag Censor: In issue #3, as Clint dives naked across a bed, his naughty bits are covered by... a picture of his face with his traditional purple mask.
• Genre Deconstruction:
  • Much of Matt Fraction's run was about the realities of a non-powered Badass Normal superhero, particularly what their life would entail when not saving the world. The result: Clint is nearly constantly exhausted, bruised, and in some degree of pain during the series because his "day job" has him constantly getting tossed around and hurt.
  • Part of the reason for the infamous "incompetence" in the series is just showing the realistic outcome of one man fighting a much larger group of people. They don't use lasers or superpowers, they just Zerg Rush him and jump him when he's not expecting a fight, and thus don't have his arsenal of Trick Arrows to take them down without doing serious damage. This also affects Kate later, who not only has the disadvantage of being outnumbered, but is also a very tiny woman who lacks Clint's physical strength. She can take down a guy twice her size without a problem, but fighting several is going to be a problem.
  • In issue #7 (the Hurricane Sandy issue), Grills asks Clint why he isn't out with his fellow Avengers. Clint responds by stating that his archery skills would be rendered useless thanks to the hurricane's winds.
• Get Out!: A light-hearted example, as Clint's argument over the best Bruce in rock music gets him kicked out by his teenage protege Kate. Kicked out of his own apartment. In the building he owns.
• Good is Not Nice: Clint talks about how much of The Paragon Captain America is, how he truly believes in Clint being capable of doing so much good and Clint feels good about proving him right. That said, Clint makes a point to Ivan about how Captain America is not there and how he's completely at Clint's mercy.
• Heroes Love Dogs: In issue #1, Clint makes sure to get a severely injured dog treated after he saves Clint from being shot at by some thugs while he is unarmed (the dog took a liking to Barton because he gave him a slice of pizza) and ends up getting hit by a car because of it. When one of the criminals responsible for wounding him arrives at the vet to attack Clint, he yells "Who throws a damn dog into traffic —" while punching them. The dog, while now severely banged up, is seen living with him by issue #2. For added points, the dog's called Arrow, but Clint changes it to Lucky to highlight the unlikely survival. Clint's successor Kate also qualifies, as along with his codename, she also takes Lucky under her guard.
• Honor Before Reason: Madame Masque’s deception of Kate in LA would have failed if Kate had bothered to look under her mask in Madripoor but she was simply too polite to peek even for a ruthless supervillain.
• House Amnesia: A light-hearted example, as Clint's argument over the best Bruce in rock music gets him kicked out by his teenage protege. Kicked out of his own apartment. In the building he owns.
• I Know You Know I Know: A somewhat low-key example, one between colleagues, occurs when Clint wants to know if Black Widow showing up to their meeting in disguise means that they're being spied on. She denies that anything is the matter or that's wearing a disguise at all:
  Natasha: What "cloak-and-dagger" stuff? This is just hat.
  Clint (Narrating): She's lying, of course, but she knows I know she's lying so that's okay.
• In Medias Res: Many issues in this run begin with a plot already in progress, and Clint acutely noting that whatever is happening to him looks bad.
• Kid Sidekick: Played with, as Clint's teen sidekick Kate Bishop is also Hawkeye. Aside from sharing the same superhero monicker, Kate is actually the better Hawkeye of the two.
• Laughably Evil: The series introduces the Tracksuit Mafia. If the name isn't enough indicative, they add "bro" to every sentence to drive their comedic nature home.
• The Mafiya: Clint gets into a feud with the Tracksuit Mafia, a bunch of dumb but dangerous Russian gangsters who are responsible for street-level crime in his neighborhood.
• Mama Bear: In a rare moment of tactical brilliance, Ivan enlists his mother to help fight in the Battle of Bed-Stuy, and she is so mad that he hurt her son that she beats Clint with a baseball bat.
• Media Scaremongering: One issue has a non-Spidey banner headline of the Daily Bugle... still proclaiming doom and terror.
• Mondegreen Gag: "Hawkguy" is what Matt Fraction's son called Hawkeye. It eventually shaped the character's portrayal in the new series, made its way into issue #6, and has become the unofficial nickname of the series.
• Ms. Fanservice: Jessica Drew, Kate Bishop, Black Widow, and Mockingbird all appear in loving detail in the books. Strangely, all of them dress in pseudo-1960s fashions as well as hairstyles. Cherry also qualifies for this.
• Mugged for Disguise:
  • In issue #2, Kate infiltrates the Circus of Crime by replacing the group's female archer (who luckily had the same body measurements), with the real archer left beaten, bound, and gagged in her dressing room.
  • In issue #4, Kate does this again to Madame Masque, leaving the villainess bound and gagged with her mouth duct-taped shut. This ends up annoying Masque so much that she becomes Kate's extremely dangerous Arch-Enemy out of sheer humiliation. She even revenged herself on Kate by turning the tables on her (with a Grand Theft Me cloning twist) a few years later in Hawkeye (2016).
• Multishot:
  • In issue #2, Clint notches three arrows, pulls back the string, takes aim at a target, and hits the target in the head, stomach, and groin in the time it took Kate to say "That's so cool".
  • In issue #3, Kate shoots five arrows at once.
• Must Have Caffeine: Clint. He has a terrible sleep cycle, is constantly exhausted as a Badass Normal trying to keep up with superheroes, and depends on caffeine to function in the daytime; he's seen chugging coffee directly from the percolator jug at one point. Then there's the heartrending "Aw, coffee, no..." panel showing Clint ruefully discovering a serious spillage.
• My Eyes Are Up Here: In issue #8, Penny says this to Clint after she takes off her coat to reveal the stripper outfit she had on underneath.
• Mythology Gag: The opening page of the series shows Clint falling backward off a building, firing a grappling hook arrow, recreating a shot from the climactic battle in The Avengers (2012).
• Narrative Profanity Filter: It's quite obvious that "futz" is only around to keep the comic at PG-13 levels.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Will Bryson in issue #16 is a very unsubtle one for Brian Wilson.
  • His music band, 'The Greyson Brothers', and a pic from their (not updated) website is mostly a pastiche of The Everly Brothers.
• No-Dialogue Episode:
  • Issue #11 is a Day in the Life of Lucky the Pizza Dog, following how he sees the world. All dialogue spoken by the humans around him is illegible sans a familiar keyword here and there, and Lucky's thought process is told exclusively through interconnected pictograms. Given the actual plot has to do with him discovering a dead body and piecing together a murder mystery, it gets surprisingly complex.
  • Issue #19 sees Clint's deafness come to a peak after a recent injury, and all speech bubbles around him are empty. He ends up communicating back and forth using sign language, again represented through individual pictograms, but they're never outright translated for the reader — anyone unfamiliar with ASL will need to piece together the plot through gesture and visual storytelling alone.
• Once More, with Clarity: Much of the "Little Hits" arc is the same period of time retold from the perspective of different characters, ranging from Lucky, to Barney, to Kate, to the Clown, and to Clint himself.
• Once per Episode: Each issue always starts with Clint thinking "Okay, this looks bad" or some variation of it.
• One Phone Call: When Kate is arrested on suspicion of murdering Harold H. Harold, she demands one phone call, which she then uses to call Detective Caudle... who is in the same room with her.
• One-Steve Limit: An aversion of a codename variant. Clint and Kate openly and proudly refer to each other as Hawkeye.
• Terrible Interviewees Montage: Issue #20 features a montage of questionable interviewees for Kate’s detective business.
• The One That Got Away: While the two are firmly established as Platonic Life-Partners, #2 heavily implies that Kate is disappointed that Clint doesn't want to sleep with her.
• Painting the Medium: One of the main running themes of the series.
  • Foreign languages go untranslated; instead, they're replaced by whatever language Clint thinks they're speaking.
    Maynard Tiboldt: Ladies and gentlemen. (French stuff.) (Wait, maybe some Italian, too?) ... (French!)
    Clown: (Curses in Polish)
  • Several sound effects aren't onomatopoeiae, but instead descriptions of the actual sound—for example, "(Roar of blood in head transmutes to smudgy backward talking in a cup or something I dunno)". If there are Written Sound Effects, half the time they're Unsound Effects like "KGLASSSSS" for a shattering window.
  • The recap on the credits page berates the reader for reading it, as they should already know the information presented.
  • Issue #19 mostly tells its story as though the reader is as deaf as Clint. Dialogue is missing or hypothetical (due to Clint reading lips) or exchanged through sign language graphics.
• Pet the Dog: Literal example. Clint saves a dog early in the run, establishing his inherent goodness despite some of his behavior.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Clint and Kate's close relationship is cemented in this series after the two of them only really being acquaintances prior.
• Production Throwback: The Running Gag of Clint being mistaken for Iron Fist is not only lampshading David Aja's drawing both almost exactly the same, but also a reference to Fraction and Aja's previous work on The Immortal Iron Fist with Ed Brubaker.
• Purple Is Powerful: Clint has always had Purple as his signature color, but this is taken to the extreme as he's always wearing something purple and his entire apartment seems to be purple.
• Reading Lips: Clint loses his hearing again and is shown reading lips. Is a bit Truth in Television since it shows blanks on words he cannot fully read and him guessing words based on context.
• Reality Has No Subtitles: After Clint loses his hearing again, there are often multiple, consecutive panels with clear action occurring, but no dialogue bubbles to emphasize that Clint can not hear the world around him. There are also sequences of un-subtitled panels with Clint and his brother, Barney, signing. It is not until Barney relays the message to the other characters that the audience is informed of what the signs mean.
  • In one particular scene, Clint is engaged in battle and he and the villain are bantering back and forth. Clint is struck in the head and his hearing aid is damaged beyond use. Subsequent panels show continued action, but no further dialogue is included until Clint is able to get a backup hearing aid.
• Ripped from the Headlines: Hurricane Sandy, which happened in late 2012 and greatly affected the Tri-state Area, is incorporated into issue #7 just mere months after the fact.
• Rock Beats Laser: The Tape arc revolved around Clint trying to recapture a videotape of him murdering someone. Captain America notes that criminal organizations are using more and more analog technology since digital information is much more easily traceable.
• Running Gag:
  • Most of the issues open with Clint in a compromising situation (such as falling from a building or waking up in bed with a woman) and saying, "Okay. This looks bad."
  • Grills repeatedly refers to Clint as "Hawkguy".
  • People keep mistaking Clint for Iron Fist.
  • "Bro."
• Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: Clint gets into a feud with a bunch of dumb but dangerous Russian gangsters called the Tracksuit Mafia who are responsible for street-level crime in his neighborhood.
• Sexy Silhouette: In issue #20, this happens with Kate Bishop after she smuggles herself into Madame Masque's headquarters as a Body Sushi. She is later seen as a silhouette behind a dressing screen while admonishing all the old men in the room for Eating the Eye Candy.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • "The Tape" ends up being this when it's revealed the whole plot was a setup by S.H.I.E.L.D. to uncover a mole in their ranks.
  • “L.A. Woman” ends with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents taking over the case of Madame Masque selling Life Model Decoys, locking Kate out of the matter she discovered and intending to shut down with her detective skills.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Clint internally refers to Jessica as his "friend-girl". This notably bites him in the ass as she considered herself to be in a monogamous relationship with him and breaks up with him after he cheats on her with Damsel in Distress Cherry.
• Shout-Out:
  • We get to see the moment when, as a kid, Clint learned that there'd been an accident and he was an orphan now. Just like Walter from ''Watchmen, Clint has nothing to say in response except "Good."
  • Clint calls a cummerbund a "Cumberbatch".
  • In issue #6, a page looks eerily like a screenshot from the Captain America and the Avengers arcade game, except it has current Hawkeye, Spider-Man, and Wolverine vs a bunch of AIM mooks.
• A Simple Plan: Several of the stories in the Matt Fraction run.
  • Firstly, all Clint wanted was some tape to label his trick arrows with, but then he buys a car, sleeps with its owner, and gets into a shootout with his former landlord's gang, and ends up in a hostage situation. Secondly, he was trying to go to Madripoor to reclaim a tape of him killing a dictator. Instead, he gets detained at the airport, robbed in the cab, loses his money and Avenger ID, then gets kidnapped by Madame Masque, only for this to be Kate pretending to be Masque. The second half they managed to Indy Ploy their way out though.
  • Issue #8 doesn't work out too well for him either. Clint and Cherry manage to steal the Red Safe, but Clint gets arrested and they end up losing the combination.
• Simple Solution Won't Work: The Tape arc revolves around Clint's mission to retrieve a VHS tape owned by a criminal organization that has several SHIELD secrets. Why the heck does a videotape even exist, you wonder (and Clint asks Captain America) when everybody and their dog would just upload it to a computer? Because in the post-Civil War world, with Tony Stark's Extremis-given super-Hollywood Hacking capabilities being well known, criminals have had to go extremely low-tech to maintain their secrets (with some success, to boot).
• Small Reference Pools: In-universe in issue #6; Clint says his line of work is like being in the NFL year-round. Wolverine compares him to Mel Hein, which Spider-Man scoffs at. "Mel Hein? What are you, a hundred years old?" Wolverine is, of course, actually a bit older than that.
• Something Something Leonard Bernstein: How human dialogue sounds to Clint's dog.
• So Proud of You: Much of Clint's opinion of Kate involves gushing about her archery skills and her worthiness of being the second Hawkeye after him.
• Spy Catsuit: Kate wears a purple catsuit. Matt Fraction has stated this was a deliberate Shout-Out to Emma Peel since he writes Kate and Clint with a similar dynamic to that of Steed & Peel.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Jessica Drew angrily lampshades how Clint could easily have simply called the cops or the Avengers to help. Clint admits to her that he'd really just wanted to do something right on his own for once.
  • Lampshaded at the beginning of the story, Clint asks Kate for help with a job. Kate immediately points out he could ask the other Avengers but Clint keeps making excuses.
• Surpassed the Teacher: The series suggests that Kate has surpassed Clint as an archer, being able to fire five arrows at once (after which he outright calls her perfect in his mind).
• Symbol Swearing: All of the cursing in this run gets the censored treatment.
• That Came Out Wrong: In issue #15, Bobbi asks Clint about the strip club he busted up. He is surprised that she knows about that and attempts to defend himself:
  Clint: I wasn't there for the girls. I was there for the guys. No. Wait."
• That Poor Plant: In Hawkeye Annual #1, Madame Masque attempts to drug Kate. Kate takes a fake sip of the wine and then dumps it in a pot plant. The result is this trope.
• Trouser Space: During the first part of "The Tape" story arc, Clint wound up stuffing his special "Amex Black" card (which has no credit limit) down the front of his pants. While interrogating him Madam Masque is disgusted to hear this and is the only one willing to reach in and get it especially since she's actually Clint's teenage sidekick Kate in disguise.
• Unsound Effect: The series has "KGLASSSSSSS" to represent a Super Window Jump.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Clint is having a light-hearted argument and barbecue with the tenants of his apartment building. S.H.E.I.L.D agents suddenly swoop in and drag Clint away for a mission, with the barbecue continuing as usual.
• Vague Age: Kate Bishop was supposed to be a teenager in Young Avengers but is old enough to live on her own and run her own business with no sign of school in the series. Also, she's old enough that while Clint shoots down any possibility of a romance, Kate is annoyed at the dismissal (even if uninterested).
• Verbal Tic: Ivan and the Tracksuit Draculas tend to end each of their sentences with "bro". They also say "seriously" a lot.
• Villain Episode: Matt Fraction gave Clown an issue from his viewpoint.
• Wham Episode:
  • Clint and Barney realize that the Tracksuits have been managing to sneak past them and enter the apartment building. Not long after this realization, the Clown cripples them both: he deafens Clint by stabbing him in the ears and shoots Barney, paralyzing him.
  • Issue #11 is Lucky the dog's perspective on the goings on of the apartment building. It ends with Kate and Lucky leaving Clint for California.
• Wire Dilemma: Parodied in issue #6. The issue starts with Clint standing over a bunch of wires, thinking carefully, and finally cutting the green wire over Tony Stark's objections... then it turns out they're the wires to all the electronics in his apartment, which have gotten hopelessly tangled.

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