Avengers: Endgame wasted Hawkeye’s Ronin story. Marvel’s most famous archer was entirely absent from Avengers: Infinity War, largely because he was still under house arrest having signed a plea deal after the events of Captain America: Civil War. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige claimed that was a great move, and promised that Marvel had big plans for Hawkeye.

On the surface, Avengers: Endgame seems to fulfill Feige’s promise. The plot of Avengers: Endgame focused in on the original six Avengers, with each member of the team given their own distinctive character arc. For family-man Clint Barton, the consequences of the snap meant that he took on a whole new superhero identity, Ronin, wearing a crowd-pleasing black costume and wielding deadly blades rather than his traditional bow and arrow.

But here’s the catch: While Hawkeye’s story worked at first, upon closer inspection, Endgame just didn’t quite give the Ronin story the payoff it deserved. The issue was an understandable one; Avengers: Endgame was a jam-packed movie, attempting to accomplish so much in the space of just three hours, and something was always going to give. Unfortunately, it was Ronin.

How Hawkeye Became Ronin In Avengers: Endgame

Avengers: Endgame opened with a haunting and emotional scene in which Clint Barton was confronted with the horror of the snap. No Avenger suffered more than Hawkeye from the snap; his wife and children were dusted, in a chilling and effective scene that drove home the human cost of Thanos’ genocidal actions. Using this to open the film established a bleak, somber tone and established the scale of the threat facing the universe.

Fast forward five years, and Avengers: Endgame revealed that Hawkeye had gone rogue. He was first mentioned in a team briefing, where War Machine told Black Widow he’d successfully tracked Clint down to Mexico. Rhodey had arrived a little too late, though, and instead of coming across Hawkeye he’d found his victims. The murders were so brutal that War Machine wasn’t even sure he wanted to find Clint. As the film continued, it was revealed that something had broken inside Hawkeye; angered at the arbitrary nature of the snap, he’d dedicated himself to slaughter the guilty who should have died in the Snap in the place of innocents like his wife and kids. When Black Widow finally tracked Clint down in Japan, she was shaken at the sight of him killing a Japanese crime lord.

The story is immediately familiar to comic book readers. In the comics, Hawkeye adopted the Ronin identity at one of the darkest times of his life. In the modernized Ultimate universe, just as in the MCU, the trigger was the death of his entire family. Hawkeye turned into a Punisher figure, seeking out criminals and murdering them in his own form of justice. The overarching idea is translated from page to screen in a remarkably comic-book-accurate way, and fans were thrilled. But then Marvel dropped the ball.

Avengers: Endgame Failed To Provide The Payoff To Ronin

Black Widow successfully persuaded Ronin to return with her to the Avengers Compound - and that’s where the problems begin. It’s important to remember that Hawkeye had become like Punisher in the MCU, a vigilante who uses his combat training to murder those he believes don’t deserve to live. While the Avengers have never pulled any punches - Captain America was a soldier in the Second World War, so it’s reasonable to assume he has a pretty hefty kill count - Clint has gone further down this road than anyone, bar Black Widow. And yet, not only do the rest of the Avengers not comment upon this, they don’t even look uncomfortable around Hawkeye. War Machine, the man who’s seen first-hand what kind of murders Clint has committed while wearing the mask of Ronin, doesn’t even give him a side-eye.

It’s not particularly unusual to get Captain America to team up with the Punisher in the comics. Those stories are usually tense, awkward affairs that shine a light upon the heroism of Captain America and the brutal methods the Punisher employs. Sometimes Cap winds up looking naive; sometimes the Punisher feels more like a monster than the villains he’s helping Cap take down. The dynamic between these two contrasting moralities is always fascinating, though, and comic book writers have mined it time and again. And yet, although the MCU transformed Hawkeye into a Punisher analog, the script of Avengers: Endgame failed to explore the morality of it all. When Clint arrived at Avengers Compound, it felt almost as though it was back to normal for him, as though the last five years of vigilantism hadn’t happened at all. It’s true that the Avengers no doubt understood why Hawkeye had fallen so far – and the times were exceedingly abnormal – but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they should condone it, still less be comfortable with it given they would all be disturbingly aware how they too had been transformed by the Snap.

The problem is compounded at the end of Avengers: Endgame, when Hawkeye returns to his family. The film clearly expects viewers to see this as a “Happily Ever After” moment, as though the world has been put to rights and the hero has received his reward. In reality, it’s slightly different, because the Clint Barton who’s gone back to his wife and kids is a serial killer, a man who for five years had cut a bloody swathe through the world’s criminal underworld. That kind of experience changes a person, and Hawkeye would be carrying a whole lot of fresh baggage that would put great strain upon that marriage. But Marvel doesn’t seem to have remembered just how dark a path they had set Hawkeye upon and, as a result, there’s no hint of it.

Could Disney + Redeem The Ronin Plot?

The first full trailer for the Hawkeye Disney+ series teases how Clint Barton meets his protegé, Kate Bishop, for the first time. Kate seems to have adopted the identity of Ronin to fight street criminals, thus drawing the attention of Clint after he has left his vengeful persona in the past. Kate’s stint as Ronin doesn’t appear to last long, as Clint soon begins mentoring her as the new Hawkeye in order to prevent her from giving in to her most violent desires. Although the figure of Ronin doesn’t seem to be at the forefront of Hawkeye, the series could finally give it the weight it deserves. While Avengers: Endgame showed Hawkeye abandoning Ronin without much effort and with absolutely no repercussions, Hawkeye can transform the sword-wielding anti-hero into an abstract force — the personification of Clint and Kate’s darkest flaws and an enemy they can’t defeat with only their physical capabilities.

Hawkeye has the potential to redeem the failings of Avengers: Endgame’s Ronin story by forcing Clint to confront the truth of what he did during that fateful five-year period. The initial question is, which version of Hawkeye has Kate Bishop been inspired by - the Avenger, or the serial killer? Even if Clint Barton succeeds in steering Kate Bishop away from the dark path of unrestrained violence, the original Hawkeye will find himself forced to stop ignoring his questionable actions. In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes came to terms with his time as the Winter Soldier, and though that acceptance lifted a weight off his shoulders, he still has a long road ahead. Clint’s character arc in Hawkeye can go in a similar direction. Avengers: Endgame was the first step towards his redemption, but it’s his Disney+ series that could finally explore Clint’s biggest battle so far, one that can only be won through introspection and mutual support with the archer that will carry his MCU legacy moving forward.

Next: Hawkeye’s Secret Weapon Is An MCU First

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