Every Marvel movie and show from Phase 4, ranked worst to best
By Daniel Roman
8. Hawkeye
What better way to ring in the holidays than with explosions, car chases, and a showdown in Rockefeller Plaza? Hawkeye was Marvel’s version of Die Hard, a thriller set at Christmastime, complete with twinkling lights and flashy fights. It’s also a sweet found family story, as Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) becomes the unwilling mentor for Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld).
Black Widow and Hawkeye kind of go together. Just as their titular heroes were partners in superhero-ing, these two pieces of the MCU puzzle really fit together. Hawkeye deals with Clint processing everything that happened during the Infinity Saga, especially the death of his best friend Natasha. At this time in his life, when he’s older and just wants to be left alone with his family, Kate Bishop comes insistently knocking to bring him out of retirement.
Marvel shows and movies always have some kind of ties to other Marvel shows and movies, but in Hawkeye, the references are foundational. Yelena Belova reappears, this time as an antihero dead set on killing Clint after being mislead by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) into thinking he was responsible for Natasha’s death. The deaf villain Echo (Alaqua Cox) is introduced, which allows the show to do interesting things with sound design. And the biggest character introduced in Hawkeye is the Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), who makes his leap from Netflix’s Daredevil series to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Hawkeye was a Marvel fan’s Marvel show. If you hadn’t seen a bunch of other movies and shows you’d miss out on the full context of what was happening. But if you had seen things like Netflix’s Daredevil or Black Widow, Hawkeye hit way harder. And all that’s aside from the genuinely compelling back-and-forth between Kate and Clint, Kate and Yelena…basically Kate and anyone, now that I think about it. Kate Bishop is a wonderful addition to the new pantheon of Marvel heroes, and Hawkeye nails her introduction.
And let’s not forget, this was also the show that gave us Rogers: The Musical. We could watch it all day.
