Hawkeye

August 10th Drink n Draw. I finally caught up and read Mark Millar's The Ultimates last year. If you don't know, the Ultimates is essentially non-canonical Avengers - grittier, and in many ways, more "plausible". Captain America is a knee-jerk patriot, Ant-Man/Giant-Man is a physically abusive alcoholic spouse, Wasp is a cheater, Thor might be having insane delusions of grandeur and Nick Fury is, well, Samuel L. Jackson. Hawkeye was the character who most appealed to me, and continues to fascinate me. He begrudgingly works for Fury and is easily the least powerful Ultimate, yet the writers seem to have amped up his abilities to the point where he truly is the world's greatest marksman. He literally killed his captors by flicking his own fingernails into their throats, while still bound to an interrogation chair.

Consequently, I've also been reading the canonical Avengers, starting with the Heroic Age reboot drawn by John Romita Jr. Currently, the overarching storyline is called Fear Itself, yada yada. The series is interspersing interviews with the various Avengers into the action storyline. The interviews are fascinating. A cautious romance has been struck between Hawkeye and Spider-Woman and I'm very curious to see how it will play out.

In the LOTR series, I've been a fan of Boromir since the first book. I see him as a flawed character, but ultimately he is a hero at heart. I feel the same way about a Jedi named Ganner Rhysode in the New Jedi Order series. He's a brash but inwardly insecure character with many flaws, but, in the end, he summons incredible heroics to save those closest to him, namely Jacen Solo. I feel the same way about Hawkeye. He's always been a poor man's Captain America, but he is truly just as heroic and inwardly strives to be Cap. He has, on occasion, channeled Cap and assumed the mantle of leadership in critical situations.

Long story short (too late), I've a new found fascination with Hawkeye. He is one of the B-list characters in the Marvel Universe, but his "human" attributes make him one of the most compelling.