Hawkeye
arrives at his meeting with Mockingbird a little late, leaving his Sky-Cycle
parked outside. He is annoyed that she chose a marriage counselor so far away
from Avengers Compound while she is miffed that he insisted that they do this
in costume. Dr. Steinmetz interrupts and invites them into his office to begin
but they are attacked by the Brothers Grimm tossing an explosive egg through
the window. Mockingbird is tied up fighting a pie full of blackbirds while
Hawkeye takes it outside. He and Mockingbird reunite against the twin baddies
on the roof and the Grimms let slip that there is a contract out on Clint. Bobbi
is paralyzed by nerve gas. Hawkeye sets a trap for the Grimms: by pretending to
fall over the edge under a cloud of smoke, he gets above them and ropes them
up—but then the archer is attacked by Mad-Dog. The vicious villain bites Hawkeye
on the arm, poisoning him; they fall over the edge and land on a car roof—then
suddenly Mad-Dog is pushed away and Hawkeye finds himself trapped between
Mad-Dog and Bobcat….
“Once,
There Was a Swordsman…!” 4/5
Writer:
Lou Mougin. Pencils: Don Heck. Inks: Don Heck, Jose Marzan, Jr. Colors: Paul
Becton. Letters: Joe Rosen.
Synopsis:
Hawkeye gathers Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Wonder Man to show them the FBI’s
tape of their interview with the Swordsman, the only record of his true origin…
In
the tape, Swordsman gives his name as Jacques Duquesne, son of Armand Duquesne,
government official in the French Protectorate of Sin-Cong in Southeast Asia.
When he turned 18, his father told him they were the descendants of WW1 hero
the Crimson Cavalier and Armand presented Jacques with the Cavalier’s sword. Disgusted
with how the French (including his father) treat the country’s natives, Jacques
joined the local revolutionary group and as the masked fighter calling himself
the Swordsman he took part in military missions against the French oppressors.
Jacques had cut a deal with rebel leader Wong-Chu that if he aided in the fight
for independence, Wong-Chu would allow him and his father to leave the country
unharmed. When independence was achieved and the war concluded, Wong-Chu
presented Jacques with the corpse of his father, murdered the previous year by his
servants. Wong-Chu then ordered his men to kill Jacques but the Swordsman seized
Wong-Chu as a hostage and fought his way out, cursing himself for an idealist
who was really a tool of another tyrant. Leaving the nation, the embittered
Jacques became a mercenary and a thief before becoming an Avenger. When the
tape ends, they all leave in a somber mood, Hawkeye planning to tape a
basketball game over it….