Hawkeye (Clinton Barton)

== History ==
: I mean, I can't miss... I'm on a team with super-humans. And one god, in case you've forgotten. Even you... well, you climb walls really well. The training is the only thing that makes me special. And if I'm not special, then none of this is worth it. I gave up a lot for this life. I could have been happy with Mockingbir-- Bobbi. We could have had a good, simple life. But I wanted to play with the big boys. And if I miss, it means I'm just another dude with a bow. It means I've been fooling myself this whole time. And that's why I never miss. 
: -- Hawkeye 
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=== Early life ===
Clinton "Clint" Barton was born to Harold and Edith Barton. He grew up working in his father's Butchers shop in Waverly, Iowa with his brother, Barney. Their father was abusive, especially when he drank and continually beat the young boys; Barney taught Clint how to fight and helped him to improve his aim.[9]Harold's drinking eventually cost him his life along with his wife when both died in a car accident. Clint and Barney were sent to numerous foster homes; while running away from one of them, they encountered and joined a traveling circus where the pair worked as roustabouts.[10] While a member of the circus, Clint was trained by the original Swordsman[11] and by Trick Shot.
=== Hawkeye ===
Witnessing Iron Man in action, Barton attempted to emulate him by donning a colorful costume and employing his archery skills to fight crime. However, during his first public appearance, Hawkeye was mistaken for a thief by police. The Black Widow enlisted him as her partner and they clashed with Iron Man on several occasions.
=== The Avengers ===
Although Hawkeye became romantically involved with the Black Widow, he was unhappy being a criminal. When he approached the Avengers and told them of his desire to reform, Iron Man sponsored his membership on the team. Barton formed, along with Captain America, Scarlet Witch and her brother, Quicksilver, an incarnation of the Avengers known as "Cap's Kooky Quartet." This was the lineup that succeeded the original after the four remaining founders took indefinite leaves of absence.[14] At first regarded as less formidable than the previous roster, the new team soon proved themselves against the likes of Kang the Conqueror[15] and Doctor Doom.[16]
Hawkeye remained an active member of the Avengers for years, his archery skills and inventive trick arrows augmenting the superhuman powers of his associates. His carefree and rebellious personality meant that he sometimes argued with Captain America, believing he could make a better leader. Eventually, however, Hawkeye came to respect Cap more than any other Avenger, and became one of his staunchest supporters.[17]
=== Continued Career and Mockingbird ===
For a short time, Barton abandoned his Hawkeye identity and while taking Hank Pym's growth serum, operated under the name Goliath.[1] After resuming his Hawkeye role, he also briefly became the Golden Archer.
Around this time, Hawkeye began a series of extended leaves of absence from the Avengers, often trying to establish an independent identity outside of the group. The first instance actually saw Clint resign on the grounds of wanting to prove he did not need a team to be effective - only to almost immediately join the Defenders[18]for several adventures (including opposing the Avengers[19])! He also ended up in the 1870s where he befriended Western hero Two-Gun Kid and with the help of the Avengers, defeated Kang[20]. He brought the Western Hero along to the present and left the Avengers to team up with him[21].
During the course of another leave, Barton became security chief for Cross Technological Enterprises. While at Cross, he met Jorge Latham, an engineer who would design the Sky-Cycle as Barton's personal conveyance when he was incapacitated with a broken leg. Shortly thereafter, Clint also met and eloped with Bobbi Morse, a.k.a. fellow crime fighter Mockingbird, when the two were kidnapped by Crossfire, a villain who wanted to use hypnotic ultrasounds to force superheroes to kill each other. Hawkeye and Mockingbird defeated Crossfire, but Barton suffered permanent hearing damage due to the ultrasounds[22] and for a long time was forced to wear a hearing aid. Eventually, Franklin Richards would cure him of this injury when Clint was among heroes restored from an alternate reality.
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=== West Coast Avengers ===
Upon his return to the Avengers with his new bride, Barton was appointed to chair a new second team of Avengers based on the West Coast by then-chairman, the Vision. The team Hawkeye chose consisted of Mockingbird, his original inspiration Iron Man, Wonder Man, and Tigra. Hawkeye and Mockingbird acted as the guiding force behind the team. Barton hired his old friend from Cross Technologies, Jorge Latham, to act as the on-staff mechanic and to build a new fleet of sky-cycles. Hank Pym helped the team in a civilian capacity as the resident scientist. [24]
One of the western team's adventures scattered them across time. While Hawkeye and most of the others were stranded in ancient Egypt, Mockingbird was in the Old West, held captive and rendered amnesiac by Phantom Rider (Lincoln Slade), posing as her lover. In a mountaintop battle between the two after her escape, Barbara allowed Slade to fall to his death. The couple separated after Clint learned of all this through the vengeful Rider's spirit.[25]
Morse, along with Tigra and Moon Knight, left the team and briefly formed a splinter group. After that group failed,[26]Mockingbird proved instrumental in consulting on a multinational plot to abduct and dismantle the Vision for his near "benevolent" takeover of the world (although he aborted the plan before anyone was truly harmed). When Bobbi realized the plot wasn't just a "worst case scenario" and was actually being put into action, she returned to warn the Whackos.[27]The government intrusion into the Avengers continued when they were forced to accept a new leader, USAgent, in order to keep their security clearance. Clint quit the team after being tossed aside like this, and he and Mockingbird ended up in Wisconsin training the unofficial franchise team, the Great Lakes Avengers.[28]
Hawkeye later returned to the West Coast branch after they reorganized under United Nations jurisdiction, although Bobbi remained with the Great Lakes team.[29] The West Coast team operated both independently and in conjunction with the senior East Coast team. One mission they were involved on was Operation Galactic Storm. Barton was initially relegated to remain on Earth as part of the "rear guard" team due to a "lack of raw power." With some timely aid from Hank Pym, he re-assumed his old Goliath identity, and took USAgent's place on Captain America's team bound for the Kree Empire. After Iron Man, against orders, led a group of Avengers to execute the Kree Supreme Intelligence, Barton was important in helping Captain America regain confidence in his leadership.[30][31] Briefly maintaining the Goliath identity, Clint and Bobbi seemingly managed to reconcile.[32]
(It would later be revealed, though, that the "Mockingbird" he was rebuilding a relationship with was in actuality a deep-cover Skrull sleeper agent[33])
On one of the AWC's last mission, the team began an otherworldly trek to rescue the captured "Mockingbird" from the hands of Satannish the Supreme and Mephisto. During their escape, Mephisto killed "Mockingbird".[34] Shortly thereafter, Vision began the vote that disbanded the West Coast team. Hawkeye was on leave from the team mourning for Mockingbird, and wasn't involved in the decision.
=== Renewed Solo Career and Thunderbolts ===
After Mockingbird's apparent death, Hawkeye became a solo agent for a period of time. During which, Barton was commissioned to train a group of rebels known as the Shadows along with Sundance and Striker. He attempted to keep them from killing, but on one raid Striker killed a woman and injured her fiancee, a friend of James Rhodes. As War Machine, Rhodes investigated and was surprised to see Hawkeye among the rebels. A government-backed group led by USAgent also arrived adding further confusion between the "Brothers in Arms". The three were able to stop the conflict and were confronted by the mysterious Advisor.
After years of fighting alongside the Avengers, Hawkeye offered to lead the Thunderbolts.[41] Sympathetic to their plight as criminals trying to redeem themselves for their past actions, he decided to help them become a legitimate superhero team. Hawkeye initially posed as the criminal Dreadknight to meet the team before formally introducing himself and his intentions. He also became romantically involved with Moonstone. As leader, Hawkeye led the Thunderbolts both alongside and sometimes against his former teammates in the Avengers.
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=== Death and Rebirth ===
Eventually rejoining the Avengers, Clint began a dallying affair with the Wasp, causing tension with her sometime lover, Hank Pym. When the Scarlet Witch had her breakdown that resulted in the breakup of the Avengers, Barton perished on an exploding Kree ship created by her crazed state.[43]
The Scarlet Witch did not act again until sometime later when she altered time and space on a universal level: changing Earth's history to where mutants were the rulers while human beings were a minority. Barton was very much alive in this remade world and affiliated with an underground human resistance opposing the general mutant supremacy. Like all of the other inhabitants on the planet, though, Clint retained no memory of his previous life.[44]
This changed, however, after X-Man Emma Frost restored his memories, hoping to recruit him to a direct opposition of reawakened heroes against Magneto and the Scarlet Witch. While this rebellious network incorporated more of his original Avenger teammates, Barton was at the time reluctant, preoccupied with the disquieting notion of his recent demise among his returned memories.
Eventually confronting and failing to kill Wanda Maximoff with one of his arrows, he brought up their shared history as teammates as well as his former romantic feelings for her, angrily demanding to know why she ended his life. This encounter did not last long as Clint's heightened emotional state renewed Wanda's own mental instability, causing her to once again erase him from existence.[45]
Wanda then restored reality to its original state, only to remove the mutant genome from millions on Earth, remaking them as powerless mainline humans. Clint awoke inside the ruins of Avengers Mansion confused by the events. Leaving his "Hawkeye" wardrobe and equipment there, he set out to locate the Scarlet Witch, seeking Doctor Strange for assistance. Strange was the only person in the world to know of his revival at this time. Clint found her living as a gypsy in a small European mountain village. Spending the night with her, Barton learned she had no memory of her previous life and was evidently depowered. He left at dawn the next morning, heeding the warning of Doctor Strange not to attempt to revive her memories and possibly worsen her mental condition.[46]
=== Ronin ===
After the apparent assassination of Captain America, Iron Man approached Clint about taking up the shield.[47] Barton proved himself to be one of the few who could wield it effectively, and considered taking up the mantle. He and Iron Man encountered the Young Avengers called Patriot and Hawkeye. They convinced him that wearing Steve Rogers' costume and wielding his shield would be wrong, and he allowed the unregistered young heroes to go free. Later, when Clint learned that Stark had given the shield to "Bucky" Barnes (Cap's WWII sidekick and the reformed Winter Soldier), he payed this new Captain America a visit to express his disapproval.
Barton revealed himself as the current user of the Ronin guise, joining the New Avengers. During World War Hulk, he was defeated by two of the Hulk's Warbound while trying to defend Rick Jones.[48]
During the Skrull Invasion, Barton headed to the Savage Land with the New Avengers to investigate a crashed Skrull ship. There, both they and the Mighty Avengers came across many heroes from years past including a "Hawkeye" and a "Mockingbird". This "Hawkeye" was discovered to be a Skrull, but after Clint questioned "Mockingbird" of her miscarriage, he truly believed her to be his late wife. Teammates Luke Cage and Wolverine were more suspicious. This was justified later, when Clint was proven wrong by Mr. Fantastic, whose technology forced the Skrulls to revert to their true forms. Clint did not hesitate in shooting the Skrull Mockingbird impostor dead with one of Black Widow's firearms. Enraged by such deception, Barton became more dedicated to opposing the invading Skrulls without any second thoughts about killing them. During the final battle with the Skrulls alongside dozens of superheroes, he used his old bow and quiver of trick arrows (dropped by the wounded Kate Bishop) to kill several Super-Skrulls and to severely wound Queen Veranke, who orchestrated the entire invasion while posing as Spider-Woman. After the fighting, it was discovered that the people replaced by the Skrulls were alive and well, including Bobbi.[49]
=== Dark Reign ===
Reuniting with his wife, they were the first to be invited by Barnes to his Brooklyn safe house, offering it as a new base of operations for the fugitive New Avengers. The team’s first order of business became a search and rescue mission for the infant daughter of fellow teammate Luke Cage, abducted during the final Skrull conflict.[50]
Clint was infuriated at Norman Osborn’s rise to power- especially at the allegedly "former" villain’s own Avengers group, secretly composed of super villains publicly masquerading in familiar heroic identities. Wanting to dissuade Osborn and his group from further sullying the Avengers' name and legacy, Clint and his New Avengers attempted to lure them into battle at the Hellfire Club's former headquarters. Instead, they were opposed by the Hood's crime syndicate, sent in place of the new "Dark Avengers."[51]
Deducing Osborn’s corrupt politics, Clint went to the media exposing his identity, denouncing the Dark Avengers and revealing Osborn’s ties to the Hood. His final words were a message encouraging the American public to resist Osborn’s regime. This did not rest well with Clint’s teammates as none of them were comfortable with him starting a public flame war without their consent, growing concerned for their general safety. Despite this negative feedback, Clint remained on good terms with his friends.[51]
Aside from the New Avengers’ missions, Clint’s relationships with his individual teammates continued to develop. He gradually became good friends with Luke Cage, Spider-Man, Iron Fist and Wolverine. He was also particularly happy to be working with "classic" Avengers teammate and friend, Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers)- especially coming off prior tensions with her former pro-registration Mighty Avengers team. He also came to trust James Barnes, gradually accepting him as the new Captain America as well as his valued friend and ally.[citation needed]
Clint also learned that Bobbi did not consider him her husband any longer, having had intentions to divorce him just prior to her abduction years before, although they somewhat successfully revived their relationship. It is also noteworthy, however, that he remained distrustful and cautious of Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) during this time due to Skrull Queen Veranke’s portrayal of her, reservations he apparently shared with teammate Luke Cage.
: He was later unanimously voted as leader of the New Avengers, appointing Ms. Marvel as his deputy leader. He coordinated the team in aiding Doctor Strange in locating the next Sorcerer Supreme in New Orleans, opposing Dormammu, the Hood and Madame Masque in the process. Other adventures saw the New Avengers battle a rampaging Ymir alongside the Osborn’s Avengers [52], aiding the Hank Pym-led Mighty Avengers and Chinese nationalist heroes, People's Defense Force, against the powerful deposed Inhuman monarch, the Unspoken and escaping capture from the combined efforts of the Dark Avengers and the Hood’s Crime Syndicate, then commandeered by Doctor Jonas Harrow.
: The effects of the New Avengers’ latter activities, however, placed Luke Cage in critical condition. Concurrently, Wolverine had also been temporarily exiled to the newly-created X-island, Utopia, residing out in San Francisco Bay and declared a mutant prison by Norman Osborn. Wanting to end Osborn’s reign before the status of the superhero community worsened, Clint infiltrated Stark Tower. While incapacitating a majority of the Dark Avengers in a failed assassination attempt on Norman Osborn, he ultimately became imprisoned as a bargaining tool against his own team.[53] Osborn, using Mentallo (Marvin Flumm), took the location of the New Avengers secret base from his mind. Fortunately, his friends were able to clear out, using the timing of the Dark Avengers' attack on their now empty hideout to free Barton from captivity. Once they were safe in their auxiliary safe house, Clint apologized for his rogue behavior. Steve Rogers then turned up, saying that they, as the Avengers, would right Osborn's wrongs, finally defeating the villains at the Siege (Event) of Asgard.
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=== Heroic Age ===
Steve Rogers put together a new team of Avengers. Clint joined the team and returned to his Hawkeye identity (although he encouraged Kate Bishop to keep the Hawkeye identity as well). He and Mockingbird were also members of the New Avengers, although Hawkeye later left the New Avengers when he received an Avengers priority call from the main team, claiming that he was only there to spend time with his wife.[55]
Hawkeye aided Mockingbird and her anti-terrorist organization, the World Counter-terrorism Agency. Together, they thwarted Crossfire's illegal arms operation, and encountered Lincoln Slade's descendant, Jaime Slade, who later went on to become the new Phantom Rider. Crossfire and the new Phantom Rider teamed up to battle the heroes.[56] This feud had its casualties with Mockingbird's mother being severely wounded and the death of Hamilton Slade, both at the hands of Crossfire. Hawkeye left the W.C.A. after it became clear that his relationship with Mockingbird had become too strained. However, he quickly rejoined after being informed by Steve Rogers that a kill list of international spies included Mockingbird.[57]
=== Blindspot ===
Hawkeye and Mockingbird teamed up with the Black Widow to take on the mysterious new Ronin and the Dark Ocean Society. The new Ronin was later revealed to be Alexi Shostakov, the former Red Guardian and ex-husband of the Black Widow. During the final battle with the new Ronin, Hawkeye received a strong blow to the head, which proved to be more serious than first thought.[58]
While battling the Lethal Legion with the Avengers, Hawkeye's aim was faltering. After the battle, Tony Stark, Blake and Steve Rogers examined Hawkeye to discover what was causing it. Their diagnosis is that Hawkeye was steadily losing his sight and would soon go blind. Iron Man provided Hawkeye with technology that should stall the blindness. Later, Trick Shot arrived at Avengers Tower on the brink of death. Trick Shot told Hawkeye that he was forced to train another archer, one who was as good as Hawkeye, before fainting in his arms. Hawkeye was later ambushed by his brother Barney Barton (who was the one trained by Trick Shot) who proclaimed himself the new Trickshot. Barney manages to subdue Hawkeye and bring him to Baron Zemo. Zemo had the brothers duel to the death. Hawkeye, despite going blind, managed to best Trickshot in battle. Before teleporting away, Baron Zemo transferred Trickshot's criminal funds over to the "victor", Hawkeye, then taunted the hero for turning his brother against him. In custody, Trickshot agreed to a bone marrow transplant to save his brother's sight, but only so he could battle Hawkeye again in the future.
=== Fear Itself, Shattered Heroes & Secret Avengers ===
During the Asgardian Serpent and his Worthy's attack on Earth [59], Hawkeye developed feelings for fellow Avenger, Spider-Woman, after they battled Nul in Brazil. Since that time, they have displayed a very curious chemistry, much to the consternation of Mockingbird. Some of their "date/missions" have seen the couple in the midst of Spider-Island and a renewed campaign of Norman Osborn rallying the combined forces of H.A.M.M.E.R., Hydra, the Hand and A.I.M. against the heroes.[60]
Captain America left the leadership of the Secret Avengers in the hands of Clint. He, in turn, recruited Giant-Man, Captain Britain, a new heroic Venom, and the original Human Torch to supplement the team's roster. He then led the Secret Avengers against the Father, a mad scientist seeking an android takeover of Earth.[61][62]
=== Renaissance ===
During the controversial struggle against the X-Men over the impending Earthbound arrival of the cataclysmic Phoenix Force, Hawkeye was active in the Avengers' efforts of retrieving Hope Summers, whom they believed was the key to averting the crisis.
The preservation of the planet necessitating a means of destroying the Phoenix Force, the Avengers instead accidentally refracted the entity, bonding it to five X-Men in a showdown on the Moon.[64] When the X-Men started to hunt down the Avengers, Clint was severely burned in a sacrificial play, saving Scarlet Witch from the Phoenix-powered Emma Frost.[65] Forced to be abandoned by his teammates, Hawkeye was brought to Utopia, healed and put into custody along other captured Avengers.[66] He rejoined the team after Storm and Professor X helped retrieve every one of their captured members.[67]
When this crisis was over, Clint found a new purpose to his life, beginning to take more serious stock in his personal life outside of his various Avenger-related duties. First he bought an apartment building in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn where he had recently began living, out from under the unsavory thugs who were going to evict all of his neighbors by tripling their rent. In the process, Hawkeye also adopted an injured dog named Arrow, which he later gave the name Lucky.[68] Barton also began closer mentoring of Kate Bishop as his partner/protege.[69]
=== Civil War II ===
Clint had a meeting with Bruce Banner in an unknown location. Banner then told him that he hadn't turned into the Hulk in almost a year, but he felt the Hulk's rage within him still. He gave Clint a specialized arrow tip for him to use to kill Banner if he gave any indication that he was transforming into the Hulk again.
Months later, when the Inhuman precog Ulysses Cain had a vision that Banner was going to transform into the Hulk and kill everyone, a team of heroes went to Banner's secret lab and tried to calm him down. The Beast revealed that Banner had been secretly experimenting on himself with dead gamma cells, but Banner protested the accusation. Seeing his rising level of anger and frustration, Clint, hidden in the bushes nearby loosed the arrow and killed Banner.
For killing Banner, Clint was put on trial for murder[70] and was eventually acquitted.
=== Earth Crossover ===
: