Hawkeye #5 – Review

By: Matt Fraction (story), Javier Pulido (art), Matt Hollingsworth (colors)

The Story: And just like that, Clint’s much hoped-for peaceful night goes out the window.

The Review: With Alex on break once again, I’ll just use the same speech here that I made on Daredevil #18: a Marvel title I respect, always wanted the chance to check it out, and here it is.  A.V. Club calls this series the best comic out of Marvel, and while I can’t really confirm or dispel that—not having read every comic out of Marvel—it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re right.  The praise for this series has been almost shockingly universal.

You have to keep in mind that Fraction makes things easy on himself by aiming for a more action-packed type of book, at least at first.  It doesn’t take literary genius to write that kind of thing, but it does some effort and a lot of craft to make an action title more than just mindless violence.  Fraction not only plays out the action well, he also makes it incredibly fun and even gives it some real stakes—not an easy balance to pull off.