Tripwire Reviews Marvel’s Hawkeye: Go West

Hitting The Right Targets

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief Joel Meadows takes a look at Marvel’s Hawkeye: Go West out now…

Hawkeye: Go West
Writer: Kelly Thompson
Artists: Stefano Raffaelle, Leonardo Romero and Stefano Caselli
Marvel

Hawkeye, arguably Marvel’s version of DC’s Green Arrow, has had a little bit of a boost in recent years thanks to prominent appearances in Marvel’s Avengers movies. Back in 2015 the series by Matt Fraction and David Aja won many plaudits for the creators and the company.

Over the past three years though, Marvel has shifted the tone of Clint Barton and his fellow Hawkeye Kate Bishop, moving it to a young adults series. Hawkeye Go West by writer Kelly Thompson and three different artists reprints Generations: Hawkeye & Hawkeye, Hawkeye #13-#16 and West Coast Avengers #1-4. Generations is a one-shot that teams up the two Hawkeyes pittong them against some of their most deadly foes and is a fun Hunger Games style adventure. The four issues of Hawkeye sees our pair of heroes facing off against villain Eden Vale and setting things up for the forming of a new West Coast Avengers. In the West Coast Avengers story the team are forced to fight BRODOK, a villain with a connection to a well-known other Marvel supervillain.

Hawkeye Go West is a fun collection, presented in Marvel’s compact format. Thompson does a good job of setting up the two stories in Generations and all three artists make a very decent fist of Thompson’s script. Thompson also manages to pack a lot of information into her dialogue to allow the readers to keep track of who’s who and what’s going on.

Hawkeye: Go West is a light and breezy superhero adventure compendium, perfect to ease younger readers into Marvel’s superpowered universe. Thompson is a very talented writer and artists Rafaelle, Romero and Caselli all have styles which are all very different but they suit her writing down to the ground.

Comics are sometimes accused of being too inaccessible to younger readers who aren’t familiar with decades of continuity but this collection is something you could comfortably give to your young son or your young daughter.