Hawkeye Ronin Costume Revealed!

A few days ago, we got our first look at Hawkeye’s (Jeremy Renner) new costume in set photos for Avengers 4. While fans aren’t exactly sure what this means for the movie, it’s clear that he’s going to be sporting a brand-new suit. It looks a lot like Clint Barton’s Ronin suit that he wore in the comic book.

Ronin is an alias used by many Marvel characters. It’s a nod to the Japanese martial arts master known as the “Masterless Samurai.” In comics, Echo debuted as Ronin in 2005 in New Avengers #11 when she felt unworthy of joining the New Avengers because of her criminal past. After fighting with and against the team, she handed her Ronin identity to Clint Barton.

As the story progresses, Barton becomes a vigilante assassin under the Ronin name. His revenge on those who survived the snap of Infinity War leads him to turn his back on the world of the Avengers and take justice into his own hands.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen Hawkeye turn his back on the world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it’s the first time he’s done so in a Disney+ live-action series. It’s also the first time a character has gone through this kind of transformation without any other MCU movies to tie him to, which could be an interesting new way to approach the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The series is being written by Jonathan Igla, the writer behind the excellent “WandaVision,” which was one of the first live-action MCU shows to hit Disney+ last year. While the writing is generally good, the show’s early episodes aren’t quite strong enough to make this a great show.

Hawkeye’s low-key personality makes it a hard character to sell, but Igla does the best he can to make it work by balancing this with a young actress who is very charismatic and talented. The result is an edgy but mediocre first season.

However, the penultimate episode of the show (airing tomorrow) is much more compelling because it ties in to events from earlier episodes in an unexpected and very satisfying way. Taking place in the aftermath of the snap, the episode brings together the Avengers’ latest recruit Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) as well as Kate Bishop, the daughter of Kingpin who was chemically deprogrammed by Black Widow and now works as a highly successful assassin.

That’s the first part of a larger plotline where Kate’s newfound assassin abilities lead to her becoming a target for the villains, especially when she’s hired to kill a woman who was brainwashed into killing people. She also takes on a few of the other heroes she previously had to avoid, and even catches up with her old friend Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) as she works her way across the globe.

As the end of this season reaches its climax, we can expect to see more of Barton’s Ronin alter ego in future episodes. He’s a dark character who doesn’t have the same loyalty to the team as his former self, and it’ll be interesting to see where this takes him in future episodes.