Hawkeye 4 review

This issue concludes the first story arc in Kelly Thompson’s Hawkeye run, starring Kate Bishop.

At the end of the previous issue, Kate snuck into a rich boy’s house party and discovered the missing girl, Mikka, tied in a hidden basement. This issue begins a bit later, with Kate tied to a chair and her mysterious captor hiding behind a mask. The first page is entirely made up of Kate teasing the mystery man with some entertaining dialogue, irritating him enough to kick start a bit of a painful escape. It’s hard to talk about the rest of this issue’s events without spoiling the fun, but it’s an enjoyable one.

I’m not sure if Kate Bishop is usually this sassy, but she’s got a lot of that kind of dialogue in this issue. This happens both during her fight with the man who calls himself Aggregate and after. Usually her teasing isn’t as entertaining as people’s annoyed reactions, like the cop who needs to clean up the mess afterward. That might be intentional. The action scene is intense for the most part, involving a bunch of brainwashed young adults and Aggregate himself, who seems to feed off of negative emotions to make himself physically stronger. The solution is kind of weird and a bit disappointing though.

Leonardo Bellaire’s art is good. It’s mostly a simple, somewhat traditional look, but with great use of background details when it helps tell the story. The opening page shows a variety of Kate’s teasing smiles while she’s talking with Aggregate. In the middle of the action scene where Aggregate suddenly leeches off a whole bunch of negative energy to grow Hulk level big, there’s great use of his shirt spontaneously tearing apart, energy flying out of the mouths of his brainwashed followers and good use of panicked looking facial expressions. It’s nice that Kate is visibly hurt during the fight, and she later wears several bandages on her face. Jordie Bellaire’s colouring is also good. It matches the simple style of the art, and the comic is nice and colourful.

I’m not yet sure if I’ll keep reading this series or not, but it’s an enjoyable comic and an easy recommendation to Kate Bishop fans. The way this story arc ends is a bit weird, but it’s fitting for the somewhat bizarre story that leads up to it.

7.5/10