Finished watching the Hawkeye series on Disney+.
... and... I rather enjoyed it! (Not TOO many spoilers ahead... unless you count talking about the comic books from years back as spoilers...)
It wasn't yet another "We need to save the entire Universe!!!OMG!" storyline. Felt more human than most of the recent shows.
I'll be honest. I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it after the first episode. At that point it could have gone a lot of different ways. But they really surprised me with how much I enjoyed it... especially the last episode.
And, bonus, I don't recall a single political-y or culture-war-y thing in the whole series. Being as they were introducing Kate Bishop (who, in the comics, was the most recent "not Clint Barton" person to be called Hawkeye), they could have gone down a number of roads that would have been simply annoying to watch. But they didn't! They handled it with class and heart and style. Impressed.
I'm not a huge fan of the Kate Bishop character in the comics. They created that character like 15 years back... and, honestly, her storylines stunk and the character was really blah in the comics. But the writing here in the TV show was 10x better than the comics (which usually isn't the case) and the actress did a bang up job. Made me actually rather like Bishop!
Sidenote: So glad they just skipped Wyatt (the other "Hawkeye" from the comics). Golden Archer / Black Archer (depending on how the writers were feeling at the moment) was just... not great. Didn't love the character. Or the stories. Or, heck, even the art. Never felt like real "Hawkeye" to me.
Oh oh oh!
And Jacques Duquesne! Totally blew me away when they introduced that character. Though they renamed him to "Jack" in the MCU. Which... is totally fine. I wasn't 100% sure I was going to like how the character was portrayed (either by the actor, or the writing... which changed some significant things about him from the classic comics)... but, in the end, I approve. It was an excellent way to introduce him and I really hope they bring him back.
Historical sidenote: Duquesne was one of the early villains that the Avengers faced off against in the 1960s. Then he stopped being a jerk and actually joined the Avengers in the 1970s. At least for a while. Then he was Cotati-ified (that was a fun story line... hope they bring that in with the Kree stuff)... then he became a villain again in the 80s. Then there was Chaos War, about a decade back, where they made him a key player. But that storyline was annoying. hehe. Anyway, long story short: Duquesne is fun in the comics and I want more of him in the MCU.
I think Hawkeye might be my favorite of the Disney+ MCU shows so far. Lightyears better than "Falcon and the Winter Soldier" (which, on further consideration, was a trainwreck and the worst thing out of the MCU... a major blunder in story telling). Better than WandaVision (which was a fun retelling of one of the darkest comic story lines I've ever read). And better than Loki (which, despite a few small complaints and continuity issues, was a fun little romp).
Good show. Recommended
