Dog’s Eye View: Hawkeye #11 Review

Hawkeye #11 is turning out to be one hell of a hard book to review in the way that I normally do it. Oh, I can hear you: “But Rob,” you’re saying, “You normally review comic books drunk, and you’re looking a little weavy right now. Plus, you smell an awful lot like a fraternity carpet.”

Well… yeah, Fair enough. But most of the time, the comics I review are about guys and women in tights, smacking the crap out of each other when they’re not trying to accomplish normal, human-type things. And Hawkeye #11 isn’t like that.

Because Hawkeye #11 is about a dog. Specifically, Hawkeye’s dog Lucky. Formerly known as Arrow, when he was owned by Russian mobsters. And known by Twitter as Pizzadog. And while I have seen comic books about dogs ever since I was a kid – Krypto and Rex The Wonder Dog from Steve Englehart’s old Justice League of America books leap to mind – those dogs were always presented as having human thoughts and motivations. Human thoughts and motivations that somehow elevated above, “I can lick my own sack! I will be busy for the immediate future!” but human thoughts nonetheless.

Hawkeye #11 writer Matt Fraction and artist David Aja try something very different. These guys are trying like hell to put us readers into the head of Pizzadog, and they do it with the full recognition that dogs don’t think in complete sentences, and they don’t think in terms like “conspiracy,” or “treachery,” or, “long-term goals.” They think in smells and in immediate motivations and in sounds and in vague memories, and their loyalties are based on a combination of simple and complex motivations that come from current need and prior treatment.

And the end result is a comic book that you don’t read so much as decode and experience. And while I don’t think the result is completely successful – show me, for example, a dog that can salute out of nothing but pride, and the next time you’ll see my fat ass will be on Letterman – what it is is one of the most interesting single issues of a comic book you’ll find, and one of the best books I’ve read all damn year.

Hawkguy Trouble: Hawkeye #9 Review

Hawkeye is one of the best superhero comic books that you can currently buy, and it is because it isn’t about superheroes. Oh sure: it has all the trappings of a standard superhero comic book: it stars an Avenger, it features The Black Widow and Spider-Woman, it has fistfights and a motorcycle chase and international crime and women of mystery, but those aren’t the things that Hawkeye, and in particular Hawkeye #9, is about. For all the action and the trappings, Hawkeye #9 is about a guy who has made some bad decisions  – some for good reasons and some not – and is dealing with the consequences of how those decisions have affected the women in his life, and by extension how those women’s reactions are affecting him.

So Hawkeye #9 is a story about some superheroes, but it is not a superhero story. It is, instead, a very human story that anyone with any regrets over how they have treated someone close to them, or anyone who has felt let down by someone close to them, can relate to. And it includes Russian mobsters getting the living shit kicked out of them on more than one occasion. Which means that this is an extraordinary issue of an extraordinary comic book, and one of the best books in the past several weeks.

Seriously: considering there’s another issue this week where Hawkeye fights Ultrons, it says a lot that Hawkeye’s most compelling conflict this week is with Spider-Woman over an old girlfriend. This is a good one, kids.

Purple-Headed Warrior: Hawkeye #1 Review

From one point of view, Matt Fraction’s and David Aja’s Hawkeye #1 is a truly crappy Hawkeye comic book. Hawkeye doesn’t appear in costume for more than five panels, and he is getting the shit kicked out of him for each and every one of those panels. Other than those five illustrations, Hawkeye never holds a bow, we never see an arrow, there are no other Avengers, and there is a cab ride instead of a bitchin’ skycycle run.

So yeah: as a traditional Hawkeye comic book, one could make the argument that this is a pile of shit, an experience akin to buying a porno with certain expectations in your mind (and pants), and finding you’ve taken home a 90-minute video of a fully-clothed woman repeating, “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” The elements are there, but it’s not what one necessarily wants from an item of that type.

However, some dingbat could also make the argument that it would be a colossal disappointment to open a box of Cracker Jacks and finding a giant wad of gold bullion – just because it’s not what you expected based on your prior experiences doesn’t make it bad. Rather, Hawkeye #1 is a pulpy, character-driven, street-level crime story that not only made me care about the purple-headed warrior (get it?) for the first time almost ever, but which is arguably the best comic book you’ll read this week.