Avengers 4: Is Hawkeye Turning Into Ronin?
Set photos confirm Barton's make-over.
After being the whipping boy of the MCU for most of the first two phases, it looks like Clint Barton is about to get a major bad-ass upgrade.
Set photos from Avengers 4 have seemingly confirmed that Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye - long considered the most obvious dead meat candidate in comic book movie history - will be rebranding himself and becoming Ronin. That seemingly suggests that the rumours about a darker makeover - first spotted on MCUExchange - are true.
The reveal comes courtesy of Chinese website Weibo, which show Renner in a long black trenchcoat, clearly designed to hide what he's wearing. The only problem is, the pattern on his legs is a pretty big hint that he's wearing the cool black Ronin costume from the comics.
Notice how spot on it is...
So what does it all mean? Well, in the comics, Hawkeye took on the new identity in the wake of Civil War, inheriting it from Echo, but rumour has it that he will be compelled to his darker identity by tragic events in Infinity War, which prompt a complete change of character. Whether that means the death of his family or of Black Widow remains to be seen, but death seems to loom large in the majority thinking.
Let's hope the new look comes with a substantial storyline, so it's not just a case of a lick of paint.