Although he started off as S.H.I.E.L.D.’s mysterious and talented archer in Thor, Hawkeye quickly became a laughing stock among the MCU fan base after The Avengers. In a team that includes a Norse god, a super soldier, and a gamma ray-powered monster, what use is a guy with nothing but a bow and arrow?
However, although Hawkeye doesn’t contribute as much to the team as some of his fellow heroes, he’s nowhere near as useless as a lot of fans think he is, which he’s proven on a few occasions. So, here are 10 Times Hawkeye Proved He’s Not As Useless As Everyone Says.
Shielding A Sokovian Kid From Gunfire
Towards the end of Age of Ultron, as the Avengers get the residents of Sokovia onto Nick Fury’s ships to evacuate them from the floating city, Hawkeye spots a kid they didn’t manage to save. So, he runs after him and Ultron fires down on them from his ship. Instantly, Hawkeye shields the kid, ready to sacrifice himself to save him. In the end, Quicksilver runs in front of the bullets to sacrifice himself to save both Hawkeye and the kid. But still, Hawkeye was willing to make that sacrifice, even though it would’ve meant orphaning his kids. He didn’t think twice – that’s the mark of a true hero.
Piloting The Quinjet
The Quinjet is an interesting and powerful piece of equipment. Not every Avenger is able to fly it. But not only can Hawkeye fly it; he’s brilliant at flying it. In Joss Whedon’s original Avengers movie, he flew the Quinjet into New York to drop Earth’s mightiest heroes – including himself – into the urban battlefield. As we saw from the plot twist at the end of Age of Ultron, the Hulk can also fly the Quinjet, but not as well as Hawkeye – and he only did it to abandon Bruce Banner’s life and spend two years as a gladiator on Sakaar.
Protecting Mjolnir In New Mexico
Hawkeye’s first appearance in the MCU came in 2011’s Thor. He was assigned by S.H.I.E.L.D. to protect Mjolnir in New Mexico. When Thor arrived to reclaim his hammer, Hawkeye jumped up to a higher vantage point, hanging from a crane, and got a perfect shot at the God of Thunder. The only reason he didn’t take Thor out is that he never got the call to do so. But until then, he was doing a fine job of protecting the hammer, and despite Thor being able to take out everyone in the S.H.I.E.L.D. compound on his way to Mjolnir, Hawkeye had him directly in his sights.
Testing The Avengers’ Time Machine For The First Time
Many MCU fans went into Avengers: Endgame expecting a time travel movie, since some of the cast were seen in their 2012 costumes on the set and some supposedly dead characters from the MCU’s history were confirmed to return, so it was hardly a surprise when Ant-Man emerged from the Quantum Realm with the idea for a “time heist.”
However, there were still a lot of surprises along the way. When Professor Hulk first tested the time machine, Clint Barton was the one who volunteered to try it out. He’d lost his family, so he had nothing to lose. The Avengers owe the whole success of the “time heist” to the risk Barton took.
Fighting Black Panther
Captain America: Civil War was the last time we’d see Clint Barton for a while, as he was placed under house arrest and we wouldn’t see him again until he lost his family and spent his days killing yakuza guys in Tokyo. During the famous airport battle sequence, Hawkeye got into a scuffle with Black Panther and, surprisingly, held his own pretty well. As Black Panther easily dodged his arrows, he adapted his combat style for the opponent, turning his bow into a blunt object to whack the Wakandan king with. Black Panther ended up winning the fight, but Clint was going strong for a while there.
Joining The Battle Of New York
The first Avengers movie was the one that initially got MCU fans talking about how useless Hawkeye is, but that’s not really fair. Sure, Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk probably could’ve fought off the Chitauri on their own. But Captain America, Black Widow, and yes, Hawkeye do an important job, too: keeping civilians safe. They’re the ground-level Avengers. And Hawkeye even subverted the expectation that he would just keep civilians safe when he got Iron Man to fly him up to a better vantage point and used explosive arrows to take out dozens of alien invaders. He displayed fearlessness and heroism in the Battle of New York.
Blowing Up A Chitauri Craft Without Looking
This moment deserves its own entry separate from Hawkeye’s overall contributions to the Battle of New York, because it was simply that impressive. We see him standing on the roof of a skyscraper with his bow and arrow, distracted by a conversation as Chitauri soldiers fly by, and then with a sly smirk, he shoots an arrow off behind him to blow up a Chitauri craft without breaking eye contact. It might be the single greatest Hawkeye moment in the whole MCU. It’s just a shame that he doesn’t get more moments like this in these movies, because it was spectacular.
Convincing Scarlet Witch To Join The Fight In Sokovia
At the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron, the titular cybernetic overlord has an Eastern European city floating in the sky. The Avengers divide themselves between fighting Ultron and evacuating the civilians. In that movie, the Maximoff twins, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, are the latest additions to Earth’s mightiest heroes.
Hawkeye is the one who makes the closest connection with them, and when Scarlet Witch is scared to join the fight in the movie’s climax, he’s the one who gives her the pep talk that changes her mind. He might not be the most powerful Avenger himself, but he got one of the team’s most powerful members to join a battle.
Raising Three Kids
Say what you will about Hawkeye, but his alter ego Clint Barton has raised three great kids, and in many ways, that’s a greater feat than anything any of the other Avengers have done. Tony Stark and Steve Rogers would both eventually become parents, but it was after retiring their superhero monikers (well, Stark briefly returned to his to save the universe and ended up getting killed). Hawkeye managed to balance family life with being an Avenger without screwing up his kids, which is some accomplishment. Now, it looks as though his daughter’s going to grow up and take his place.
Getting The Iron Gauntlet Away From Thanos’ Army
After Thanos brought his ship from 2014 into 2023 to attack the Avengers’ HQ in Endgame, he sent his army of mindless, subservient Outriders into the wreckage to retrieve the Iron Gauntlet and the Infinity Stones in it. And who was the not-so-useless Avenger who grabbed the Gauntlet and kept it away from the Outriders long enough for the rest of the heroes to show up? Hawkeye. If he hadn’t grabbed the Gauntlet and gotten it out of there, Thanos would’ve gotten it a lot earlier and re-snapped his fingers successfully. In this sense, Hawkeye was surprisingly integral to Doctor Strange’s one-in-14-million scenario. Still think he’s useless?
