Hawkeye has been compared both to Die Hard (action/comedy at Christmas) and the more street-level feel of the Netflix/Defenders series, and I can see both points there. Far too soon, we’re at the season finale, in “So This Is Christmas.”
One of the things I have been enjoying about Hawkeye is that they have spent time developing characters besides the lead. Clint and Kate, of course, get a lot of screen time, but so has Maya/Echo and now, Yelena Belova, Natasha Romanov’s kid sister from the Black Widow movie.
Hawkeye is one of my favorite Avengers, and I’m thrilled to see him getting more screen time and not being overshadowed by some of his flashier teammates. We’ve seen Kate Bishop, Maya Lopez, and had some hints at a few other characters so far. Now we get some interesting developments and the return of a plot point from episode one in “Partners, Am I Right?”
At the end of last episode, we met Echo, a character with a complicated history in the comics. Now we get to learn more about her, what her connection is to the MCU Ronin, and see a great car chase.
I’ve been commenting that, by and large, the writers on the first season of Marvel’s What If…? seem to be in a competition about who can write the darkest story. While last episode, featuring the hijinks of an only child version of Thor, was a lot lighter and funnier, it ended on a bleak note that gave a hint about the next episode, “What if Ultron Won?”
In 2012, Marvel Studios made history. Not only did the Avengers set all kinds of box office records at the time, but for the first time, characters that had headlined their own movies came together as a team for a major event. In the MCU, there were six founding Avengers, and five of them have had their own movie, or movies. Hawkeye, often overlooked and with arguably the smallest part in both his first appearance (Thor) and The Avengers, now gets the Disney+ treatment in his own six episode series.
After one bright initial episode, and a second one that was a lot of fun, Marvel’s What If…? has gotten steadily darker. I’ve commented before that I wonder if the writers are in a contest to see who can come up with the most depressing storyline.
The one we see this week, well… again, the title is a clue, “What if The World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?” This one has a lot of twists and turns and I don’t see a way to do this otherwise, so there will be spoilers .
There are no spoilers in this review. I even had someone else check it over for me, just to be sure.
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