Hawkeye: Earth’s Mightiest Marksman

Its been a long time coming, but its finally here. This August, the creative team that brought you The Immortal Ironfist will be teaming up once again to place Clint Barton front and center in the new ongoing HAWKEYE series. So restring your bow and count your arrows because writer, Matt Fraction and artist, David Aja will take you on an adventure like never before.  Hawkeye is one of Marvel’s busiest superheroes, and has a resumé that could put Captain America to shame. Throughout his roller coster of a career, Clint Barton has been a villain, a leader, a husband, a giant, and has even been dead. The best there is in his field, Hawkeye is an expert archer with perfect accuracy. Bouncing back from the events of House of M, Secret Invasion, and Dark Reign, Hawkeye is now leader of the Secret Avengers tested and dubbed worthy by his mentor and close friend Captain America. Trained by criminals, inspired by heroes, Clint Barton has grown from a troubled youth into one of the greatest heroes on Earth. The world knows him best as Hawkeye: Earth’s Mightiest Marksman.

Comic Corner: Young Avengers

In a possible alternate future, a young robotic student named Nathaniel Richards  is saved from death in the year 3016 by his future self. Nathaniel also learns that he is destined to grow up to become Kang the Conqueror. Horrified, the 16-year-old flees to help from the Avengers, Kang’s greatest enemies. Unfortunately, Nathaniel arrives soon after the Scarlet Witch has disassembled the current team, He breaks into Stark Industries and uploads the central processing unit of the recently destroyed android the Vision, finding a failsafe program that pinpoints the next generation of super-powered youths. Calling himself Iron Lad, Nathaniel quickly recruits them and trains them for the battle with Kang. When Captain America and Iron Man learn of this new team, they try to convince the teenagers to disband before the get hurt, but Kang arrives and demands the return of Iron Lad so that destiny could fulfill its preordained course. Otherwise Kang would not exist! In the resulting battle, Kang is killed and Iron Lad must accept his destiny in order to prevent the destruction if the current timeline. In recent time the Young Avengers seek to find the whereabouts of the Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff, after the events of House of M event. But instead they find themselves in a race for life her life as the X-men, The Avengers, and Magneto are headed in her direction. This week launches the grand finale of Avengers: Th Children’s Crusade as they face the death of a fallen comrade, and a new lineup and a new direction for the Young Avengers, and it all happens this Wednesday in Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #9!

Comic Corner: The Avengers Review

From the acrobatics of Black Widow to the comedy relief that surprisingly took the form of The Incredible Hulk the movie was a “Two Thumbs Up!” So if you saw the movie you pretty much have a good idea of what happened and what was going on. Here’s a brief synopsis; the government lied to us, as they usually do, keeping a powerful energy source to use to make weapons, only to fall in the hands of Thor’s brother Loki the norse god of mischief, who planned to use it on the people of earth in order to make us his humble slaves. So who do you call when the world needs saving? No, not Ghost Busters, but THE AVENGERS! You forge a team: A demigod; a super-soldier, a living legend who actually lives up to the legend; a man with breathtaking anger management issues; a couple of master assassins; and you’ve just assembled the Worlds Mightiest Heroes! Picking up with the momentum that the previous movies left off, Director Joss Whendon was able to thrust you into a world of action and complete chaos. But don’t worry, there was plenty of room for character developments and further exploration into Marvel history. One of the good things about the story is that the heroes don’t exactly start off as friends. Okay, they pretty much start off as enemies, but thats only because of their polar opposite personalities. Prior to teamwork as the Avengers, none of these so called “World’s Mightiest” has ever experienced playing fair with others, in fact, they’re a bunch of overly confident, seclusive, out-of-place, misunderstood loners. Which oddly made the movie all the more enjoyable as it created rich tension and outright hilarious comedy. With a combination of top-notch acting from the cast, not to fail to mention newcomer Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, and incredible special effects; the film unleashed a full on attack on the human mind, leaving the audience in absolute awe. From the S.H.I.E.L.D. heli-carrier to the Hulk smashing just about everything in sight, the film kept you at the edge of your seat with the occasional visit to the back as you laughed hysterically. The Avengers get a 8.5 out of 10!

AVX: Through the Eyes of an X-man

What’s the difference between the X-men in Avengers Vs X-men and the Avengers in House of M? Absolutely nothing, except for disrespect. Lets review shall we: In House of M the Scarlet Witch threatened all life and reality because of the power she possessed. In Avengers Vs X-men Hope is destined for great good and/or horrific evil. Wanda Maximoff, daughter of Magneto was a beloved member of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the Avengers. Hope Summers, granddaughter of Scott Summers is a leader of the X-men and mutantkind’s last hope. Both are good people; both are capable of great destruction; and both are to be dealt with accordingly. But that isn’t the case now is it? We saw almost five years ago, what the Scarlet Witch was capable of. She single handily dissemble the Avengers and changed all reality with three words. Earth’s heroes including members of both the X-men and Avengers saw this coming and new what it took to avoid it. But tragedy struck anyway because Wanada Maximoff at the end of the day was an Avenger, and her fate lied in the decision of the Avengers alone.

Fast forward to the present and Hope Summers is standing where the Scarlet Witch stood before her. What’s the difference? Nothing except, for the disrespect shown to Scott Summers and the X-men. Since the birth of the X-men, the world has feared and hated mutants. X-men were alone in a battle against mankind, and have loss many in that battle. Mutants including the X-men have suffered from the indecision of Captain America and the rest of the Avengers in House of M when the Scarlet Witch decimated their entire species. Since then, mutants’ last stand against extinction arose in the form of Hope Summers, the Mutant Messiah. But faith in her may come at a high cost. Instead of having a conference with the X-men to discuss how to deal with Hope, like in House of M with the Scarlet Witch,  Captain America has decided to take Hope from them and jeopardize everything the X-men have been fighting for. It can be argued that Captain America is trying to avoid a mistake he made all those years ago with Scarlet Witch, and is trying to do right by the world and possibly even mutantkind. But does that justify his approach in Avengers Vs X-men #1? No it doesn’t,  the X-men have face genocide, extinction, and abandonment. The Avengers have been shown to not lift a finger to help them, and when Hope returned to her natural time from the future, escaping a murderous Bishop. The X-men escorted her to Utopia after launching a full out suicide mission to find her before Bastion did in Second Coming. I ask you, “Where were the Avengers?” Let me make this clear. Scott is the leader of mutant kind because he can make decision that no one else can. Does that make him a bad guy? Absolutely not. He’s in charge of keeping an entire species from going extinct. I think people need to take that into deeper consideration when discussing Scott Summer’s leadership. Rather than just saying he’s mentally unstable and emotionally tied to Hope and The Phoenix, think about this: everyone has something to lose, and Scott is responsible for everyone, so how much does he have to lose in the end?