Is Hawkeye The Weakest Avenger? Well, We Don’t Think So…
Hawkeye is known for his proficiency with an arrow and bow that somehow falls on the borderline of superhuman, but the hero doesn’t have any superpowers except some excellent hand-to-hand combat abilities, accurate archery skills as years of practice. Not many fans would know but he has also trained with heroes like Swordsman and Captain America. In his initial appearances, Hawkeye’s ability to take on far more powerful enemies with his trick shots actually has something that goes beyond experience.
Hawkeye Is A Master At “Super Accuracy”
Clint Barton is a master at positioning, arrow manipulation, and mastery at angles and all of it seems to be on the verge of “super accuracy.” Firing arrows accurately is quite possible when we look at it from the view of a comic book world with its own regulations. However, Hawkeye seems to take this skill to another stage. He takes down most hostile threats by rebounding his arrows off of other objects. Keeping this in mind, his abilities seem more to do with accuracy, rather than just being at the peak of human abilities or performance.
Hawkeye is an excellent hand-to-hand fighter. He is known to use whatever he finds his hands on to gain an advantage over the enemy while fighting. These makeshift weapons aren’t as deadly or high tech but Hawkeye seems to accomplish almost impossible things using them. In 1982’s The Avengers #223, Barton uses Ant-Man on the head of his arrow, firing it at a bomb that’s about to go off, using its size-changing abilities – similar to what we’ve already seen in Civil War.
Hawkeye has a superhuman level of spatial cognition
All these above things hint that Hawkeye has a somewhat superhuman level of spatial cognition, something he was born with rather than acquired through training. Hawkeye’s hearing loss further boosts his sense of awareness and visual accuracy. This explains how he lines up all his targets with a lot of accuracies. The MCU’s version of Hawkeye goes to master this by sometimes not even looking at the target and yet shooting with accuracy. In Marvel Comics, his future version, Old Man Hawkeye also shows that ability by being blind in that very continuity.
His spatial awareness even helps him to dodge gunfire and all sorts of enemy projectiles. However, this doesn’t suggest that Hawkeye is impervious to gunfire. He is an ordinary human being and can be (and also has been hit) by bullets. Fans often make fun of Hawkeye’s uselessness on the Avengers side. However, history suggests that he has all the capabilities in the world to accomplish impossible feats of accuracy and awareness. Hawkeye, at the end of the day, is an underestimated adversary, which gives him a cutting edge.
