Ultimate Hawkeye is Going to be a Breakout Star (Just Not Yet) [Review]

The Ultimate Universe has delivered several breakout characters over the course of its first 12 issues, and now one of the brightest new stars is headlining the first Ultimate Universe one-shot. That breakout star is none other than Hawkeye, and with Marvel’s Hawkeye #1, Charli Ramsey steps out on his own for an adventure that will supposedly have a massive impact on the Ultimate Universe. Only time will tell if that’s the case, but even as a standalone issue, Ultimate Hawkeye is already showing strong potential.

Ultimate Hawkeye begins with its strongest foot forward through a prologue that sets up the overarching connection to The Ultimates and acts as the springboard for the issue’s main story. Writer Deniz Camp immediately brings you into the action with a sequence that feels unquestionably cool, and that’s heavily due to the killer artwork of Juan Frigeri and Federico Blee as well.

Rating: 3/5

While the prologue is just a few pages, it sets the tone so well and allows Charli to shine without having to say all that much. He also takes a huge player off the board almost effortlessly, and Camp’s narration paints a beyond vivid picture of a brutal takedown, and the contrast works immensely well.

Ultimate Hawkeye’s Main Story is A Mixed Bag

Then we move into the main story, and things are a bit more mixed. Writers B. Earl and Taboo depict Charli’s internal monologue throughout the course of the story, painting a clearer picture of Charli’s current mindset and his backstory through stories of his grandmother and love of poetry. At times, that really lands and brings you closer to the person wielding the bow, but other times it’s a bit too literal and on the nose, taking you out of the action at hand.

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What does land, however, is seeing how Hawkeye processes the moment and adapts on the fly to whatever’s thrown his way. There’s a series of events that leaves him hampered in a rather critical way for an archer, and seeing him not only deal with the effects in real time but find ways around his injuries to complete the mission at hand. There’s a resilience here that can’t be anything but impressive, and it gives the character a welcome grit that’s conveyed in some stellar action sequences towards the end from Michael Sta. Maria and Alex Sinclair.

There’s a bigger event towards the end of the issue that is obviously supposed to carry substantial impact, and that didn’t exactly land for me in the way I’d hoped. It’s not much of a mystery, which is fine as long as it carries the necessary weight, but there wasn’t much in the way of dialogue that expounded on why this person is here and what led to his change of heart, so by the end, it doesn’t feel meaningfully resolved.

Hawkeye #1 shows a lot of promise, and I’m still quite high on the character, even if this solo adventure leaves some of that potential on the table.

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