Iron Man: "Hawkeye, The Marksman!"

Tales of Suspense #57 (1964)

By Stan Lee, Don Heck

So, What Happens? After a misunderstanding, Tony Stark takes Pepper Potts out on a date to the carnival on Coney Island, where one of the attractions is Hawkeye the marksman. Suddenly the flying pinwheel goes out of control, forcing Tony to switch to Iron Man and fly to the rescue. He makes short work of it, but Hawkeye is jealous for having been upstaged and decides to become a more famous hero than Iron Man. Overnight, the archer prepares several trick arrows and a costume, confident that his great skills will make him the equal of any other hero. He almost immediately prevents a robbery, but the arriving police believe him to be the culprit and force him to flee. He is rescued by the spy known as the Black Widow and is immediately taken by her beauty, quickly agreeing to defeat her enemy Iron Man to impress her. Later on, he breaks into Stark's factory and attacks Iron Man with rusting arrows, forcing him to flee to replace the damaged parts of his armour. Hawkeye leaves to analyze the parts left behind, but a furious Iron Man intercepts him for round two and quickly gains the upper hand. A final demolition arrow accidentally injures the onlooking Black Widow, so Hawkeye runs away to take her to a doctor while the fog prevents Iron Man from following. 

Notes: This is Hawkeye's first appearance, but we won't learn his real name until Avengers #19

Something Silly This Way Comes: In typical Silver Age fashion, Hawkeye claims the Black Widow is the only one he's ever loved despite having just met her. The rust arrow is genuine Silver Age goofy fun, but the final bits of the peer's fight look like scenes from a Wile Coyote cartoon. 

Review: Origin stories can be cringeworthy affairs, especially for secondary characters who don't have the luxury of starring in their own book and saving the day straight away, but all things considered Hawkeye's debut here is pretty solid. Clint doesn't quite have his smirk o attitude yet, but nevertheless immediately comes across as an ambitious but essentially good guy who covets fame and love and is easy to dupe, traits he will keep throughout his editorial life. Jealousy is the motivation of many supervillains, but here it's nice to see someone focusing it in a positive way and deciding to use his skills to become a hero, even if he does end up on the wrong side of the law at first.

The action is pretty good too. It's easy to dismiss Hawkeye as a guy with bow and arrows, but he will soon be worthy of joining the Avengers, and in the not too distant future will hold his own against the Collector. The battle against Iron Man is cleverly balanced so that neither character looks overpowered, and Hawkeye's skills allow him to go head to head against the far more powerful golden Avenger. It never looks like Iron Man will lose, but at least we don't get the impression he's having a walk in the park either. It's only towards the end that it all takes a silly twist, especially when Tony bends what should be a solid wooden pillar to catapult Clint away into the sea. The final "warhead" arrow also implies that Hawkeye is ready to cross the line and kill Iron Man, but thankfully it never becomes more serious than that.

Conversely, the soap opera side of the story is a bit of a mess. The Tony-Pepper-Happy triangle is at the heart of these early Tales of Suspance stories but never becomes really interesting, and it's hard to sympathize with either Tony or Pepper. The former feels sorry for himself and forgets there are many people with life-threatening conditions who don't let them influence their lives, and the latter comes across as shallow and a little cruel, accepting Happy's invitation only to make Tony jealous, and unhappy when Stark doesn't take her somewhere "glitzy and glamorous", suggesting she could be more interested in the lifestyle than in the man. The Black Widow at this stage is only a femme fatale and a spy with little fighting ability, but Clint falls in love way too easily considering they just met.

Generally speaking I don't much like Don Heck's art, but this is a decent effort and the fight scenes look dramatic enough. Both Pepper and the Widow are very pretty too, whereas the men, and Happy in particular, look rough, and the Iron Man armor is still a work in progress. Except for a few uninspired  colour choices, Hawkeye's costume already has all the iconic elements that he will keep over the years. I've always wondered about the use of purple, a secondary colour that in fiction is nearly always used only for villains, but at least the dark tones give Hawkeye a serious look whereas a more garish outfit would have made him look silly.

Final Verdict: A satisfactory debut for one of Marvel's most popular heroes. 4/5