Hawkeye #12 – Review

By: Matt Fraction (story), Francesco Francavilla (art)

The Story: The Bro gang discovers that sometimes it’s easier just to give a guy some spare change.

The Review: I tend to think of the evil sibling as a pretty goony thing, as far as plot devices go.  It’s a cheap way to add some tension to the story, but it rarely feels convincing.  In the real world, you may squabble with your brothers and sisters a lot, but actively swearing vengeance upon each other is pretty excessive.  More often than not, the vengeful sibling comes across as irrational or stupid, making it easy for you to hope they disappear back into the woodwork.

Last time I heard of Barney Barton, he had just joined the Thunderbolts (though operating, confusingly enough, under the Dark Avengers title), masquerading as his brother.  Not long after, I dropped the series, leaving me completely ignorant of his ultimate fate.  So it’s with no little surprise that I see him here, homeless and disheveled, calling up Clint in a phone booth as if all the drama with their sudden-death battle and his run as a supervillain never happened: “Hey, guess what?  Chickenbutt.”