Age of Ultron #1 kicked off with an absolutely driven and relentless Clint Barton on a mission to save a kidnapped Spider-Man before he could be turned over to the Avengers greatest enemy. After Age of Ultron #5 the surviving heroes have divided with one team taking the fight to the human hating android and Wolverine going rogue. Hawkeye was the breakout character of the first issue. Brian Michael Bendis tells Marvel.com why Clint was chosen to show the world in the aftermath of Ultron’s victory.
“It was more about picking a character who would not thrive, but do well in this situation. We imagined that [Hawkeye] was exactly the kind of character that Ultron wouldn’t give two damns about from a mathematical point of view. Like, if you do the math you get rid of Hulk, Thor, Thing—you know what I mean, you go down the list of powerhouses. And Hawkeye would not be on that list, but then again if the world came to an end, and I would say if New York looked like a third world country, that’s something that Hawkeye may be able to do well in. We imagine he’s been in parts of the world that looked that bad before and thrived, so that was my thinking there.”
As Age of Ultron speeds towards the final act how will Clint figure into the last stand against Ultron?
“One of the cool things I like about [Age of Ultron], and one of the reasons I chose this route, was there’s a baton being passed, kind of like a relay race, where they hand off the baton. So the story is the baton and we are handing it off from character to character. Here we are with Hawkeye, and then there’s the big Moon Knight part, Red Hulk part, and then here comes the Savage Land elements and there will be people there, and the last half, not only does the entire story tone shift, and the arc shifts, but the character focus shifts as well.
So it’s a unique way to do a Marvel Universe storyline and there’re a couple ways to do them. One is you have all of them in a room fighting the other half that are all in the room, which has been done. But I thought it’d be interesting, like the story keeps on moving and the readers [move] with the story, but the character that is taking us through the story keeps changing.
And there will be some interaction, some back and forth and some repeat business. It’s very purposeful and, I thought, unique when thinking about these events and going out of your way to give the audience something they haven’t seen before that doesn’t follow the formula that they’ve seen. Even when we were doing House of M there wasn’t a formula that people were used too. But once we got to Civil War, there people could kind of see a formula. And then you want to go, “well let’s never do that formula again, let’s do other things.” Some will be interesting and successful, some will be not, but at least it’s an attempt to always give you something different. And this is my attempt to give you something different.
On top of that, literally the entire event is a third act. The horrible has happened. The first act has already happened. We’re not getting to it, we’re not flashing back to it. That I thought was a nice, unique way to dive into this thing. I know that that is an element that is frustrating for some readers who are not used to that but there are others that love it. So, the response has been, “I love that we’re just there” and other people are like, “how did we get there?”
Age of Ultron #6 hits this week and you can see Clint in his own solo series by Matt Fraction and David Aja.
For the entire interview here’s the Marvel.com link.
By Editor