Hawkeye Annual #1: Review

Jul 2013
Matt Fraction, Javier Pulido

Story Name:

West Coast Avenger

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Hawkeye Annual #1 Review by (July 30, 2022)
Whitney Frost's story here is true as far as it goes. She's the daughter of Italian Count Nefaria, head of a Maggia family. Her father did supposedly die in Iron Man #116 (but this is Marvel so he came back later). But Whitney had already taken over the Maggia long before and become a regular villain for Shellhead, along the way getting her face disfigured and becoming Madame Masque (IM#17). But her face was healed in Avengers (2010) #10.

Madame Masque used to have cloned duplicates of herself (starting from IM#138) which she sent out to do her work while she stayed safely hidden from danger real and imagined. However her paranoia extended to the clones themselves and she often had the next 1 kill the previous 1. 1 of the bio-duplicates going by the name of Masque helped the Avengers during the Crossing event. The truth behind them was only revealed in Av (1999) #32-34.
The duplicates seen here are I think actually SHIELD-style LMDs.

The Madripoor incident in #4-5 which made MM Kate Bishop's enemy involved an underworld auction of a tape that SHIELD wanted back. Kate tied Masque up and replaced her at the auction.
MM will continue to harass KB in this series (from #14), the 2016 Hawkeye series that stars Kate, and the 2018 West Coast Avengers series.

Kate's story will continue in #14. Clint Barton will next be in #15 and they'll continue to alternate issues.

Kate's father Derek Bishop previously only appeared in Young Avengers v1 #2 at the wedding of her sister Susan. He'll be back in #20 and play a larger role in Kate's comics life subsequently.





 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Hawkeye Annual #1 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
This starts Hawkeye (Kate Bishop)'s independent issues of this mag, to alternate with Hawkeye (Clint Barton) issues. It follows on from the the overlapping #8-13, and begins with the scene where Kate leaves her working partnership with Clint, which we've seen fragments of in #11 and #13.

Kate tells Clint she can't stay and be his verbal punching bag anymore. She's sick of seeing him dig himself into depression and refuse her help. He promised the people in this apartment block he would defend them and now he needs to step up. She picks up her stuff including her bow and arrows, Clint warns her that he's left some of his trick arrows in there including some remote-control explosive ones which he gives her a keyfob device to detonate. He thinks she's going back to rich daddy, but she says she's going to the West Coast, probably Los Angeles. And she takes Lucky, the dog Clint rescued from the Tracksuit Draculas.

But there's a 2-part flashback that indicates she didn't go *straight* to LA, so I'll insert it here. She *does* go to see Derek Bishop and we find that he's remarried to a girl Heather who's only 3 years older than Kate and went to the same school as her. Needless to say the girls don't get on. She tells daddy about splitting from her mentor and he invites her to come on a world yacht cruise with him and Heather (and lots of staff). She declines and says she's going to make her own way in the world. As she leaves he reminds her that he pays *all* her bills.

So she *does* drive her car and Lucky to LA. But we see Madame Masque wanting revenge for what Kate did to her in Madripoor (#4-5). Her people are tracking Kate. And when she tries to claim her reservation at a hotel she finds her (only) credit card declined. She asks them to contact her father and they give her a complimentary drink to sip by the pool while it gets sorted out. But the manager is told to destroy the card and lose her stuff. (Of course Masque is behind this.)

A beautiful woman named Whitney Frost exits the pool and asks to borrow Kate's towel They begin to chat but then Lucky runs off barking and Kate follows. She sees her car being towed away by a repo company, and bellhops stealing the contents of her suitcases. She fails to stop them taking her bow and arrows. The manager gives her the pieces of her card and claims she owes the credit card company a lot. He also claims the men weren't his bellboys, they must have been a local gang. Finally he tells her to leave the premises.

Whitney takes her to lunch. Kate tries to Google her but her phone is drained. Frost gives her a potted history. Daughter of an Italian Count. Had to take over the family business when he died. She pops to that hotel occasionally to get away from all that. She offers to put Kate up until she sorts her life out. Kate doesn't like needing help and offers to pay (but she's only got $80). Whitney refuses that but suggests K stay for 1 night free at least. But when she asks Kate for a cigarette K recognises her phrasing as exactly the same as Madame Masque in #5.

Whitney drives Kate and Lucky to her modern mansion. While the guests settle in she contacts her people and orders everyone who saw her at the hotel liquidated. And she's going to take a couple of days to punish Kate for the Madripoor incident. Meanwhile K talks to herself summarising:- Whitney obviously knows who Kate is but now *she* knows who Frost is, and Frost doesn't know that.

Whitney prepares a meal and slips something into Kate's wine. But K only pretends to drink it and tips it in a plant pot. Then she pretends to feel really tired and W shows her and Lucky to their room to kip.

But then the duo sneak down to the basement where they find Kate's car and her stuff, along with a row of Madame Masque duplicates. Our heroine grabs her weapons and drives her car through the garage doors. However Madame Masque is waiting for her with the 'bellboys' and a big gun. So she reverses back into the garage and smashes into the MM duplicates (which MM refers to as her decoys). However now she's trapped and the bellboys grab her. But Lucky bites Masque's gun arm as Kate backflips to kick the BBs in their faces. And she uses Clint's keyfob to set off the explosive arrows.

Kate has lost her car and weapons and other stuff, but she and Lucky escape. Masque survives and swears to kill her.

Next day Kate puts up a passionate case to 2 old hippie ladies to give her a job. They take her on to house-sit their trailer on the beach and look after their cat while they go to a festival. Then K goes to a sports shop and uses the same spiel to blag her way into getting a bow and arrows cheap. And we leave her, dog and cat sitting atop the camper watching the sunset over the ocean.



Javier Pulido
Javier Pulido
Matt Hollingsworth
Javier Pulido (Cover Penciler)
Javier Pulido (Cover Inker)
Javier Pulido (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: Clayton Cowles.
Editor: Steve Wacker. Editor-in-chief: Axel Alonso.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Hawkeye
Hawkeye

(Clint Barton)
Hawkeye
Hawkeye

(Kate Bishop)

Plus: Derek Bishop.

> Hawkeye Annual: Book info and issue index

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