Why Is Hawkeye Called Hawkeye? What Are Hawkeye’s Superpowers?

Hawkeye is the Marvel character that originally referred to Clint Barton. Clint and his brother Barney ran away from an abusive father and ended up as Carnies in a Traveling Carnival. Clint was mentored by two men who taught him a range of edged weapon ranged weapons, most specifically the bow.

Hawkeye refers to the unerring marksmanship, having eyes like a hawk. One was a man called The Swordsman and the other was called Trickshot when each also donned a super suit. Hawkeye doesn’t have superpowers really. What he has are practiced skills that make him deadly with just about any object that can be thrown or otherwise propelled.

Because of his lifetime of training, he’s very strong for a man or his size and weight, especially in his upper body strength.

Read this: Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin Will Appear In The Upcoming Hawkeye Disney+ series

Hawkeye has also been mentored in martial arts by Steve Rogers also known as Captain America. At first, Clint was very confrontational toward Steve, having learned to treat authority figures disrespectfully.

But Hawkeye has largely outgrown that childhood predilection and now looks up to Steve even as they are mutual respectful peers most of the time. For a normal human, Clint is competitive hand to hand with many heroes and villains who specialize in martial arts ranging from Daredevil to Batroc.

Clint has led several superhero teams, including the West Coast Avengers, The Great Lakes Avengers and the Thunderbolts with varying degrees of success. After WCA, Clint would seemingly seek underdog teams.

Read: What Is The Story Behind Hawkeye?

The Thunderbolts were revealed to have been former villains who had united in the absence of the Avengers (the original Heroes Reborn storyline) but who rejected Baron Zemo when they learned to like being heroes (this is a very over simplified review of that era). Clint also tried to mentor the Great Lakes Avengers when USAgent was installed as a West Coast Avenger against his will.

Clint has also dated a lot of Marvel superhero women, and a few supervillain women as well. He’d notoriously handsome and roguish.

The MCU Hawkeye is very different. The Hawkeye in the MCU was an agent of SHIELD and family man. Joss Whedon radically altered Hawkeye for The Avengers in order to try and give the team an anchor. Hawkeye’s skills in the MCU and comics are quite similar but he have no background on MCU Hawkeye and how he obtained those skills.

In the comics, Clint’s brother Barney and the villain Bullseye were also installed as Hawkeye for Dark Avengers super teams when Norman Osborn was promoted to the head of SHIELD which he renamed HAMMER.

Last but but by no means least, Kate Bishop has shared the name Hawkeye with Clint for many years now. Kate was a Young Avenger, a great limited series featuring teens who were determined to honor and stand-in for their heroes after the events of Avengers Disassembled. Kate has been both a guest star of Hawkeye series with Clint and been the lead in a few series

such as an updated West Coast Avengers series, a team she led. This comics’ character is the inspiration for the new Ronin we just met in the latest MCU Disney+ Hawkeye series Christmas trailer.