'Hawkeye? Isn't that the guy from the Avengers movie that didn't contribute a whole lot to the team and got beaten up by Scarlett Johansson?' This will probably be the attitude that you come up against when trying to recommend the current Hawkeye comic book to someone who only knows Marvel characters from the films. But all is not lost. You will simply have to convince them based on the fact that Hawkeye, by Matt Fraction (Invincible Iron Man) and David Aja (The Immortal Iron Fist), is one of the most consistently critically lauded books in the industry. It is realistic and gritty while simultaneously being off the wall and, crucially, funny. Very funny. It also tugs at the heartstrings with alarming regularity. In short, it's got everything you could want from a story, so it deserves to be read by as wide an audience as possible. Part of the fun of Hawkeye is that it doesn't play very much like a superhero comic at all. Clint Barton is presented as a bit of an also-ran, playing into the general public image of the character. He isn't one of the Marvel Universe's premier heroes and despite being a longtime Avenger, seems to get very little respect. But Clint is a good man at his core and he stands up for the little guy, operating with his own unique moral code. In the end, he is a great hero, even if few people think so. Oh, and in one issue he calls Tony Stark around to untangle his DVD player. Funny.
