Page 45 Review by Stephen
“Okay, this… this looks bad. Is there a plan here, Kate?”
Oh, Kate, of course you’ve no plan. You’re as bad as Clint is!
Much of the mirth in HAWKEYE has been watching Kate Bishop – the younger, female and infinitely more clued-up of the two Hawkeyes – pick up the pieces of her mentor Clint Barton’s cock-ups. They have been manifold, and Kate has been constantly peering over her sunglasses at the archer / Avenger with a mixture of recrimination and resignation. Now it transpires that our equally impetuous Ms Bishop is equally prone to pratfalls.
Here we’ve swapped coasts – New York for Los Angeles – as well as sharp-shooters’ perspectives, but hilariously nothing has changed except the age and gender of the dive-in-first and wonder-what-on-earth-went-wrong-righter.
Okay, no, the artists have changed for some of this. While Aja remains on board for the Clint Barton episodes, Kate’s West Coast sabbatical is introduced by Javier Pulido who will delight Darwyn Cooke fans with a fine line in fashion coloured by Matt Hollingsworth as if L.A. was the brightest, most beautiful city with the freshest air in the world. As Annie Wu takes the driving seat things grow much darker, though the body language – both broken and indefatigable – can rarely be beaten along with the facial tics which reveal exactly what our Kate’s thinking long before she’s uttered a word.
Kate Bishop has set off for L.A. in a very flash car after finally losing patience with Clint as well as her cash-rich father.
“Kate, let your mother get you a little something to drink.”
“She’s not my mother.”
“Well, no, but I hope, maybe with time, you’ll begin to think of me as --“
“You’re three years older than me. We were literally in school together, Heather.”
“That was a nice time. Diazepam?”
Unfortunately before Kate has even turned her ignition key Madame Masque has Ms Bishop in her revenge-seeking sights and arranges for her credit card to be bled, her stuff to be stolen, and that car won’t last long, either. Broke and homeless, Kate is determined to reverse her misfortune by taking on jobs as a Private Investigator. Alas, she has no knowledge of the law and absolutely no knack for investigating privately. She’s spotted within seconds.
There’s the tragic case of the Bryson Brothers who essentially were The Sixties to some. But the musical one, Will, became so absorbed in his masterpiece ‘Wish’ that he could never complete it to his own satisfaction so his production-orientated brother, Grey, could never release it. They’re now old, ill, and at odds in a sequestered mansion.
“It’s like if Mike Brady designed the Bates Motel. If I had to live here for 60 years I bet I’d have gone full Syd Barrett m’self…”
But the first case Miss Bishop chances upon involves her neighbours Marcus and Finch who, after waiting so long to be married, find their perfect day in danger of being ruined when the orchids of Marcus’s dream-vision are stolen. You won’t believe how fast that escalates and where it eventually leads to. Nor will Kate, but it all comes beautifully – yet appallingly – full circle.
Before then, however, there’s plenty of time to exasperate the L.A.P.D.’s Detective Caudle, infuriate Flynt Ward The Weed Lord (it is all legal there) and throw in a great many cat jokes while the mysterious man in the market aisle, a certain Harold H. Harold (you’ll never guess his middle name), offers words of encouragement at every wrong turn. Will our couple ever get their orchids back and their wedding on track? Regardless:
“Oh honey. You are my happily ever after.”
Awww. Now, aren’t you forgetting someone, Kate? I think Clint’s going to need all the help he can get.
He’s been duffed up and deafened, his brother’s back in town and the Tracksuit Dracula mafia are about to launch one final assault on his tenement building.
I remember some saying that they found the deaf scenes difficult to read, but that was the whole point: a world without sound requires a great deal of additional interpretation. You’re going to have to walk the metaphorical mile in the proverbial shoes of those who have to do so every day including, now, Clint. Thanks to Fraction and Aja’s skilful storytelling, judgement and balance, the experience proved utterly immersive.
