Hawkeye: Blind Spot

(spoiler free review)

This was an idea with promise, but poorly executed.

The final three issues have terrible pacing. For example, there’s an incredibly extended fight scene in #2 that serves no purpose but to provide an excuse for some banter, and it kills the story’s momentum (plus it doesn’t make much sense).

Even worse, there are times the writing is incomprehensible. I don’t say that to exaggerate, I literally mean there were times it seemed like a piece of dialogue was missing, or the narration boxes were out of order. That’s inexcusable.

Other times, the writing is simply sloppy, like when Hawkeye refers to “occipital blindness, a disease of which I suffer from.” Awkward sentences and strained vernacular repeatedly pulled me out of the story.

The plot was a decent concept, and its faults can mostly be forgiven as a very comic-booky plot. There were several moments that were just classic comic book shlock: “Someone’s attacking me. It’s my friend, oh no! Oh, we fought and resolved it and we’re not fighting any more.” If it seemed intentionally old-fashioned, it would have been more fun. Instead, it came off as lazy, and the plot barely hangs together because of it.

I was skeptical of the villain reveal at the end of #2. Then, after reading the reveal at the beginning of #3 which dips way back into character history, I actually said out loud “did he actually pull this together?” But then I kept reading and no, no he didn’t.

The main problem with the plotting is that many of the characters’ motivations don’t make any sense. McCann tries to explain his new villain’s hatred for Hawkeye, but (especially in context) it’s not enough to explain the permanent vendetta that apparently exists. Similarly, the behavior of the big established villain in #4 is erratic and out of character.