Hawkeye 2012 Issue 19 Page 3 and 4: an In Depth Look
Intro
Hawkeye, also known as Clint Barton, was one the very first Avengers. The 2012 Hawkeye comics are more about his day to day life than his superhero life. He tries to save his apartment building from an organized group of thugs and gets stabbed in both ears with his own arrows in the process. In the two pages I’m analyzing the characters are: him, his parents, his doctors, and his brother barney. The first page is a flashback to Clint’s childhood in which its alluded to that Clint lost his hearing due to the physical abuse of his father. Clint’s hearing returns over time, but in the second page he has lost it again in the fight for the apartment complex.
Page 3 Panels 1–4
We can first analyze the pages through composition. The first thing that jumps out at you is the word “deaf”. It is the focal point. The next is Clint’s defiant glare at the end of the page. As we move from the first to the second focal point we are moving from the cause to the effect. As we take a look at this panel by panel you can see a moment to moment transition in the beginning. This lets you ruminate on the the weight of the word deaf while simultaneously distancing yourself from it. They following panels’ words don’t hold the same weight because they are far away. The last panel in the moment to moment sequence is very difficult to read and almost illegible because it’s no longer about the words being written. And if it’s no longer about the words being written then why even include it at all? Did we really need a fourth panel of the same subject? Yes, because it speaks to the slow procedural nature of the scene. It’s not an overly emotional scene. In fact, its rather clinical and the reader can get a lot of information about the emotionally neglectful family relationship from the clinical proceedings.
Page 3 Panel 5
In the biggest panel on the page we see Clint’s family talking to the doctor. The family and the doctor are much closer than Clint is to his family. In addition to this, the light spills into the room rather than being ambient. This leads your eye very strongly from left to right, and prevents your eyes form jumping ahead. So, although this story is about Clint, this panel is not. This light coupled with the distance from his family leaves Clint with the aura of being an outsider during his own doctors visit.
Page 3 Panels 6–9
In the next four panels it uses subject to subject transition. We see Clint just barely move his head up so time isn’t passing very quickly, but the camera zooms in so he starts to dominate the frame. It’s important that panels 6 and 8 are intermingled with panels of the doctor and his father talking because we can then read into the fact that neither are talking to him, but instead amongst themselves as a reason for his defiant look in the last four panels. This isn’t a hard sell because the speech bubbles couldn’t possibly be directed at him as they are cut off by the border of the panel.
Page 3 Panels 10–13
The last four panels seem to tell the reader that we are moving forward through time, however, it looks as though it is meant to be singular panel. I believe this conveys Clint’s determination through time and because it doesn’t change from panel to panel, that determination can be said to be unwavering.
Page 4 Panels 1–4
This same expression of angry determination can be seen at the top of the next page on an older Clint’s face adding a kind of heaviness to the amount of time that has been passed. His face is cast in a blue light, as is the rest of the page, which adds to a newly somber attitude toward the similar circumstances.
Page 4 Panels 5–9
Panels with the writing has also been mirrored and it says the exact same thing. What’s different is that it’s now typed electronically which eludes to Clint feeling kind of like Sisyphus watching the boulder roll all the way down the mountain again. Except things aren’t exactly the same. The speech bubbles are completely empty on this page versus the last which tells the audience he can’t even hear the unintelligible mumbling he heard back then. Maybe it’s the repetitiveness of it or his worsening symptoms, but he feels more defeated. It’s why the defiant glare is put at the top this time around, because even though his brother is signing to him he can’t even be bothered to look up at the end of the page.
Page 4 Panels 12–17
One of the particularly cool things they do in this comic is include a lot of sign language. However, they never interpret the sign language for the reader. Instead the reader has to use context clues. This gives the reader similar feelings to what Clint must have felt when he first lost his hearing. I’m sure it was very confusing not being able to understand anyone. The 5 smallest panels in the bottom are Clint’s name being finger spelled. This could be alluding to the face that Clint feels trapped by his deafness and in turn defined by it.
The 2012 Hawkeye comics are not only drawn in a very compelling manner, but are also shockingly well thought out. It’s worth a read.
