Omar Holmon and William Evans been waiting on this finale to Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye run longer than it took to get some hi-res photos of the planet formerly known as Pluto. When that shit dropped on July 15th, 2015, you know the boys had to address this shit.
Omar: I’m not entirely sure how to start the conversation for Hawkeye #22 aside from “THAT’S HOW YOU DRIVE! FROM NOW ON, THAT’S HOW YOU DRIVE.” I’m reading through it like oh… ohhhhhhh, they’re just daring someone to try and do it better than the tag team champs?!??! This wasn’t a finale, this was a declaration of “who fucking with us?”
William: And the answer of who’s fuckin’ with us? Nobody. Naw, b, I see your quiver, I see your fold-up composite you got off of Amazon for a luxury sedan payment, but this right here? This Kate Da Gawd. This Kate Arch-Bishop, fam. The arrows be quotin’ Latin scripture when they whiz past. And him there? That’s Clint I-Didn’t-Need-The-Hearing-Aid-To-Shoot-You-In-The-Dark Barton. He woke up this morning ready to put the points and the paws on you. Naw man, comic book finales, this Hawkeye’s lunch table and you can’t sit with us.
Omar: The pacing of this book was amazing. We got pure cinematic John Woo-in-the-booth with Hype Williams-on-the-keys type shit. Kate comin’ through the smoke, Clint hitting the window, and all the players in the room on some Usual Suspect shit. Even Pizza Dog jumped in for the action, and all the tenants in the building?!?! This is literally a war in Brooklyn, man! Bro-Gentrification be GOD DAMNED!
William: Man, this shit looked like the flick John Wick, except if he was rockin’ the trick arrows instead of a 9mm Beretta. Right down to the hurt dog, man. I can’t believe that punkass shot Pizza Dog, man. He lucky to still be breathing off the strength of that alone. But yo, can we talk about Kate getting two of the best cinematic panels in recent memory in her last two appearances of this run? Issue #20 with the “We Gonna Have Words Pops” to her and Pizza Dog walking through the flames like Denzel in Man on Fire.
At this point, I’d challenge Creasy to a draw than take on the Arch-Bishop of Bows. But you right, the pacing was immaculate for this. Also, is there anything David Aja can’t do in the panels? Dude is the Swiss-Army knife of the pencil game.
Omar: LOOOOOL The Swiss Army Knife! My man Aja so meticulous and gritty with the details. Showing the mechanics behind the clown’s sleeve gun? Showing Clint taking the bullet out AND THEN USING IT AS A WEAPON??!?! Even when it’s not action packed, Aja is able to transition to Clint using sign language post fight smoothly for the reader. We might not know ASL but we get gist of what he is saying by his mannerisms.
William: And the gist be, “I’m tired of this shit.” Which might have actually been Clint speaking with Matt Fraction’s voice. Man, how Marvel gonna drop a generation between the last two issues of one of its best runs in recent memory? My daughter went from not being able to roll off of her back to doing flash cards with her multiplication tables on them since issue #21 dropped, fam. That E! True Hollywood story on the best Hawkeye book ever gonna be Lit as Fuck. I’m just waiting for the close-up at the halfway point of the documentary when it gets real quiet and Fraction looks into the camera and says, “And that’s when I decided, Fuck this Shit. You want that rap raw, BUT YOU DON’T REALLY WANT THAT RAP RAW, MARVEL!”
Omar: THIS WAS OUR GENERATION’S DETOX ALBUM ON PANELS! I’m telling you. Fraction was tired of the publishers dancing all up in his panels and ’bout to take his ass to Image records BUT… BUT… not before seeing that weight we been waiting for get distributed to the streets.
William: Man, now that it’s finally done, keepin’ it 100: How many Marvel books have been better than Hawkeye since it dropped that first mixtape back in 2012. Like what, negative 4? Under the sea with Ariel and Namor? On a Scale of Jared Leto to Heath Ledger, how great was Hawkeye, man?
Omar: Sheeeeeit man
I can’t even plead the 5th cause nobody was seeing this series in Marvel. Not to this scale, not to this level, and it was holding its own against books not even on the label. This is truly the end of an era.
William: Naw man, this shit done. 5 mics in your 2002 Source Magazine, Fraction, Aja and Wu should just put this shit on their resume as a link to Joe Budden spittin’ on the “No Church in the Wild” beat. Nothing else to be said man, this shit gonna sail off into a sunset of greatness like Barney with the loot and his soon-to-be step kids.
Omar: He kicked a hole in the speaker, pulled the plug, and then toooooooook the money to buy the jet so he could bounce! Man, the depth given to Barney and the shit we saw him go through before this? I’m not mad, man! Plus he took Simone and the kids out to Tahiti away from it all on some we family shit?!?! Naaaaaaah, Barney kept it more than one hunned when push came to buck-buck.
William: I ain’t mad at him either, my dude. And I’m gonna miss the potency of these panels as we get a dozen what-heroes-do-when-they-aren’t-part-of-a-super-team books over the next year or so. And the lowering of the bows after shooting that perfect shot at the end? Fucking perfection, yo.
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Chris
Just sayin’ he didn’t take the bullet out of him to hit the Clown. It was the collar stay that Kate gave him a couple issues back which is probably even cooler.