For a little while there, Hawkeye was dead. Gone. Kaputt. Brian Michael Bendis's Avengers: Disassembled storyline saw many members of Earth's Mightiest Heroes killed off or otherwise dispatched, with the demise of Clint Barton being particularly memorable. A fan favourite for many years, the sudden and senseless killing of Hawkeye had a lot of fans up in arms. But it did provide the opportunity for bored, spoiled teenager Kate Bishop to do something with her life besides attending glitzy charity dinners with her insanely rich father. It just so happened she was a dab hand with a bow and arrow, too. Joining the adolescent superhero team the Young Avengers during one of their earliest missions, Kate raided the abandoned and half-destroyed Avengers Mansion and put together a costume that was half-Hawkeye, half-Mockingbird - in fact she even toyed with the codename "Hawkingbird" for a while, which everyone agreed was pretty stupid. With Clint Barton out of the picture she chose to honour his memory by taking on the Hawkeye name, and nabbing off with his quiver full of trick arrows whilst she was at it. As it happens Clint Barton wasn't actually dead. We er, don't actually recall the circumstances of his resurrection, but after sneaking around in the guise of Ronin for a while he decided to become Hawkeye once more. And Kate Bishop stayed as Hawkeye, too. So they're both called Hawkeye, which has become something of a running joke in Matt Fraction, David Aja and Annie Wu's series. Kate is great because she's everything Clint Barton isn't: young, female, together, prim, proper, and with slightly better luck. And both have pretty sweet archery skills. She's great as his equal and opposite, and we hope she keeps the name going for a good long while.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
