By now most Marvel fans know what to expect out of a new Marvel Studios Disney Plus series. With the Hawkeye series about to debut on Disney Plus, we’ve been given an early look at the first two episodes. While that isn’t even half of the full series, it’s enough to get a general idea of what the series will be about, and how it may shape the future of the MCU for the characters involved.
Much like Loki and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Hawkeye consists of six one-hour episodes that will be available each Wednesday on Disney Plus. Two episodes will debut tomorrow, November 24th, with the remaining episodes following over the next four weeks. Of course, the episode length will vary, with the first two clocking in right around 45 minutes, including the credits.
The first two episodes of Hawkeye focus mainly on developing Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), and her friendly relationship with Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner). We see her origins as a character and a fan of Hawkeye, which have been changed from the comics. While the MCU has changed quite a bit when adapting comics to film and TV, Kate Bishop’s motivation to learn martial arts and archery were because she was raped at a young age. With Marvel Studios changing such an important aspect of the character, it may cause some issues with diehard fans.
Several other changes have been implemented from the comics to the Disney Plus series. Many of these changes are to fill out the roster of characters in the series and connect everything to the current history that exists within the MCU. Just like many of the recent movies mention The Snap and other events of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, similar changes have been made to connect the Hawkeye series to the greater MCU.
In addition to Clint Barton and Kate Bishop, the main characters in the Hawkeye series are Jack Duquesne (Tony Dalton), also known as Swordsman, Kate Bishop’s mother, Eleanor (Vera Farmiga), Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), better known as Echo, Kazi (Fra Fee), known as Clown in the comics, and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh). Since we’ve only seen the first two episodes, we don’t yet know how pivotal each of these characters will be, but so far we can say that Tony Dalton is clearly having a lot of fun with the character of Jack Duquesne.
We see a lot of Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop in the first two episodes, and while she clearly embodies the super fan nature of her relationship with Hawkeye, she does come off a bit too bewildered at times. She’s very skilled at martial arts and archery, but some of her fights early in the series are won more by luck than skill. This may be so that Clint Barton can train her to eventually become the more proficient leader of the Young Avengers, so we’ll see how the series progresses.
For all of the changes in Hawkeye, the Tracksuit Mafia is taken straight out of the comics. They are relatively clueless and use the word, “bro” on a frequent basis. With Echo, Clown, a heavily rumored cameo appearance by Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), and possibly Swordsman, there are plenty of antagonists to go around. While we haven’t seen much of these other antagonists in the first two episodes, it’s okay for the Tracksuits to be a bit clueless when you have some of those heavy hitters that will likely play a bigger role as we get further into the series.
So far, the Hawkeye series plays out a bit less serious than the previous Marvel live-action Disney Plus shows. We don’t yet know what the true stakes are, or where these characters will end up once the series is over, but hopefully we’ll see more of Swordsman in the MCU (maybe Val can recruit him?), and Kate Bishop getting closer to her role in the Young Avengers.
About Hawkeye
Synopsis: Series based on the Marvel Comics superhero Hawkeye, centering on the adventures of Young Avenger, Kate M. Bishop, who took on the role after the original Avenger, Clint Barton.
Directors: Bert, Bertie, Rhys Thomas
Writers: Tanner Bean, Jonathan Igla, Katrina Mathewson, Heather Quinn, Jenna Noel Frazier
Stars: Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld, Tony Dalton, Vera Farmiga, Alaqua Cox, Linda Cardellini
Runtime: One Hour Episodes
Releases: First 2 episodes on November 24th, 2021 (Disney+)
Bryan Dawson has been writing professionally since the age of 13. He started his career as a video game writer and has since worked for Random House, Prima Games, DirecTV, IGN, AOL, the British Government, and various other organizations. For GNN, Bryan taps into his passion for movies.
