David's Reviews > Hawkeye: The Saga of Barton and Bishop

“Hawkeye: The Saga of Barton and Bishop” (a.k.a., “Hawkeye by Fraction and Aja: The Saga of…”) Trade Paperback (Marvel, 2021). Writer: Matt Fraction. Artists: David Aja, Javier Pulido, Steve Lieber & Jesse Hamm, Francesco Francavilla, Chris Eliopoulos, Annie Wu, Alan Davis & Mark Farmer. Color art by Matt Hollingsworth, Francesco Francavilla, Jordie Bellaire, Paul Mounts. Reprints: Young Avengers Presents #6 (August 2008), and Hawkeye #1-22 and Annual #1 (October 2012 to September 2015). Read: 7/22/23 to 8/16/23. Opinion: Excellent! First Marvel material that I’ve read from this period in a very long time, so I was a bit unfamiliar with Hawkeye’s (Clint Barton’s relationships with the other Avengers (including Black Widow, Mockingbird, and Spider-Woman, who all appear here), but it didn’t take long to figure out that this was an entirely “side thing” to whatever else was coming out at the time. Barton here is a complete slacker and loser, relationships wise, here, although he fiercely protects the building he’s bought and lives in along with its fellow residents from the “Tracksuit Maffia” and their underworld bosses who desire to own the building. Meanwhile, Barton at least for a time takes fellow Hawkeye, Kate Bishop, on as a partner (although partway through the series she gets fed up with him and goes off to California on her own for awhile). This series is the basis for the 2021 “Hawkeye” Disney+ series and shares a few common scenes but the two are very different from each other as the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Clint Barton played by Jeremy Renner is a family man and no where near the loner loser figure that this version of the comics Barton is. And also because the tv version (which I also loved) is about establishing the character of Kate Bishop, while, in the comics, Bishop was introduced separately from Clint Barton prior to this material, in the first “Young Avengers” series that started in 2005 on the heels of the controversial “Avengers: Disassembled” story line. (This collection does start off with the first time the already established as “Hawkeye” Kate Bishop first meets Clint Barton (at the time going by his “Ronin” identity) in Young Avengers #6.) Again, I really liked this, especially the issues drawn by David Aja. Unfortunately, it becomes very apparent as reading this collected edition that Aja couldn’t keep up with a monthly schedule because there are numerous fill in issues by other artists, including the whole “Kate in California” side plot (which are all enjoyable but not nearly as much as the Matt Fraction and David Aja issues). I ended up giving this one four out of five stars on GoodReads. (Would have been five stars if Aja could have drawn more than half of the run, and the at times disjointed effect that had.)