Hawkeye is Turning Into a Villain in Marvel Comics | Screen Rant
This article contains spoilers for Hawkeye: Freefall #6.
Marvel Comics is officially turning Hawkeye into a supervillain. Clint Barton has long found himself walking close to the line between hero and villain. He actually started out as an Avengers enemy, manipulated into taking them on by the super-spy Black Widow; his belief in redemption led him to work with the Thunderbolts for a while.
Matthew Rosenberg's Hawkeye: Freefall miniseries has seen Clint Barton begin to cross this line. He took up the identity of Ronin once again, allowing him to wreak havoc against the Hood's criminal empire without any accountability. Hawkeye's war on the Hood led him to approach the Kingpin, and he was invited to strike a deal with the ruthless villain Count Nefaria. Even the Avengers have been well aware Hawkeye is close to the edge.
This week's Hawkeye: Freefall #6 officially confirms Hawkeye is on the road to becoming a supervillain. Clint's feud with the Hood escalates when Bullseye breaks in to his apartment and kills one of his friends, causing Clint to decide it's time to get some payback. He suits up as Bullseye, confident nobody will figure out it's an Avenger wearing the suit of the master assassin, and he successfully takes Bullseye down - with extreme prejudice.
Hawkeye then proceeds to go to lengths nobody else would go to. He commits a bank robbery, stealing the Hood's wealth from the Alethea Bank - and he does it in costume, letting the whole world know who's doing it. "Don't do anything stupid and I will do my best to do the same," Clint tells the people at the bank, and no doubt most of the Avengers would suggest he was doing something stupid the moment he walked through the doors and announced he was robbing the bank. But Clint puts the three million to good use, paying it to Count Nefaria so he can use a demon to take the Hood's magical cloak and reduce him to nothing more than an ordinary crook. It's a tremendously effective takedown, because the Hood has lost both his money and his powers.
In a chilling closing scene, the Hood's thugs consider killing the wounded Avenger before they leave. But Montana, one of the Outlaws, tells his allies to hold back. "He's one of us now," he observes. "Even if he doesn't know it yet." He recognizes a truth Hawkeye has not; that decisions have consequences. Hawkeye's reputation is in tatters, his friends think he's gone rogue, and he's forming alliances with the Kingpin and Count Nefaria. There is no way the Avengers' archer can be considered a straightforward superhero any more.