Hawkeye Is Fixing Marvel’s Missing Bucky Story Mistake
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier left Bucky to have his final resolution off-screen, but Hawkeye promises to show Clint face his demons head-on.
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Warning: Contains spoilers for Hawkeye episode 4.
With Clint Barton, Disney+’s Hawkeye TV series is avoiding making the same mistake that the MCU previously made with Bucky Barnes in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. 2021 has been a big year for the Marvel Cinematic Universe with their return to large theatrical releases after 2020 and the debut of their Disney+ TV shows. These MCU TV shows have given the franchise the opportunity to delve deeper into some often-overlooked characters, but the episodic, action-packed constraints can still leave a little wanting.
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier saw Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) struggling with the loss of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) as Captain America, but more importantly, saw him reckoning with his actions as The Winter Soldier. He works through a notebook of the people that he killed and seeks to make amends with the families of his victims and deal with his own trauma. In Hawkeye, Clint Barton’s own narrative follows a similar path as he faces up to his time as Ronin after the events of Avengers: Infinity War, the death of Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), and the trauma inflicted by Thanos’ snap and the Avengers: Endgame Blip.
Both Hawkeye and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier work to address the issue of how a hero can be held accountable when they lose themselves to the darkness, whether that was technically their fault or not. However, in what proved a narrative misstep, Bucky Barnes’ resolution for this part of his narrative largely happened off-screen in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier as he opens up to the elderly father of one of his victims, Nakajima. Bucky’s story played second fiddle to Sam Wilson’s (Anthony Mackie) decision to pick up the mantle of Captain America. Hawkeye, by contrast, is facing Clint’s ghosts head-on as the primary focus of the series and fixes the MCU’s approach to heroes who cross the line by representing his actions as resulting in a serious conflict that can’t be resolved by simply apologizing.
In The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, Bucky’s past haunts him in his dreams and tortures his soul, but Hawkeye gives Clint Barton’s past as Ronin some very physical real-world consequences. While this allows for a more visual representation of him fighting against the repercussions of his actions, it is clear that the solution to his past misdeeds will not come from continuing to attack an endless wave of faceless goons. While it is notable that he works very hard not to kill any members of the Tracksuit Mafia with his bow, his larger redemption comes in the face of Kate Bishop. As Clint works to make amends for hit murder spree as Ronin, he is also training Kate Bishop (whether he likes it or not) and teaching her not to make the same mistakes he did. While Bucky’s off-camera resolution might have brought him peace, Clint Barton’s redemption for his Ronin kills comes in the form of a legacy of a new hero who won’t make the same mistakes.
While Hawkeye fixes the missing story aspect from The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, there is one element of it that is less successful. For Bucky, Nakajima gave a distinct face to the victims of his actions. However in Hawkeye, the audience is told that Clint Barton feels bad for the murders that he knows were wrong, but his victims remain a group of faceless mobsters. The closest Hawkeye comes to providing a more concrete connection is in the form of an antagonist, Maya Lopez/Echo (Alaqua Cox), who believes Ronin killed her father (but it seems distinctly possible that it was someone else masquerading as Ronin). Ultimately, Hawkeye more thoroughly addresses the trauma and emotional struggles that Clint Barton faces, but at times it feels that his true sorrows are that there are repercussions for his actions and that Nat died, rather than for the fact that he actually executed so many people.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/hawkeye-bucky-winter-soldier-story-mistake-fix/