How The Avengers: Endgame Ending Changed The Comics

3. Hawkeye Finally Retires

Hawkeye Kate Bishop Origin
Marvel Comics

Kate Bishop may not have appeared in Endgame, but with the character set to join Jeremy Renner's Clint Barton in a brand new series on Disney+, her lack of inclusion might be even more confusing.

For a while, it was rumoured that 13 Reasons Why actor Katherine Langford was due to appear in the film as the younger Hawkeye, but that's neither here nor there. What matters is that, while the context for her introduction in the MCU differs drastically from the comics, there are certain similarities that may seed her introduction.

Bishop first appeared in Marvel's books just over a decade ago during the events of Civil War. It was around this time that the original Hawkeye, Clint Barton, was operating under the identity of Ronin. The pair first meet while Barton is under that guise, and Bishop's entrance is partially what inspires him to take up the Hawkeye mantle all over again.

The main difference between the film and the comics in this instance is that Kate starts out as a hero during Civil War, and only really cooperates with Clint after the events of Secret Invasion, which led to Marvel's Heroic Age. Whereas the Barton of the comics was determined to continue as Hawkeye, the one in the MCU is clearly set on retiring, providing a new justification for Bishop to adopt the archer's mantle.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.