In the second Avengers: Endgame trailer, we saw Clint Barton training a young girl to use a bow and arrow in his backyard. Immediately, fans thought this might be Kate Bishop, who took on the Hawkeye moniker after Clint was done with it in the comics.
We’d already seen Jeremy Renner’s Clint in an outfit that looked closer to that worn by his Ronin alter ego in the first trailer, so fans were just putting two and two together. It seems more likely that this is just Clint’s daughter, who we met in Age of Ultron. Still, just in case, here are 5 Reasons Why Kate Bishop Is A Better Hawkeye Than Clint (And 5 Why She's Not).
Why she’s not: Clint saved Kate’s life in Secret Invasion
In “Secret Invasion,” the comic book storyline in which Earth faced an invasion by the Skrulls, Kate Bishop was fighting against them and got knocked unconscious. After that, Clint Barton swooped in and grabbed her bow and arrows. He continued the fight for her and she lived to see another day.
Kate is a great Hawkeye, but she clearly isn’t as great as the one who jumped in to save her life when she was battling the Skrulls. Plus, Kate and the other Young Avengers had been previously defeated by the first wave of Skrulls at the beginning of the comic.
Why she is: It was Captain America’s idea for her to be Hawkeye
In the comics, it was actually Captain America who inspired Kate Bishop to take up the mantle of Hawkeye. After she stood up to him, he decided that she had the chops to take on the name and position of the Avengers’ star archer. He didn’t want the Young Avengers to train without their parents’ consent, but Kate kept training anyway.
When Cap realized the only other person besides Kate who had stood up to him like that was Clint Barton, he decided she should be Hawkeye. So, he sent her a note addressed to “Hawkeye” to let her know about it.
Why she’s not: Her personal life is way more complicated
Kate Bishop’s father is a crime lord who has been heavily involved in various comic book storylines as a villain. As we’ve seen, Clint Barton’s home life is much less complicated than that.
When he’s not jetting around the world and fighting with Earth’s mightiest heroes to save the universe from catastrophic threats, he’s living on a farm with his wife (played by Linda Cardellini) and kids. He actually has such a healthy personal life that he was given the same home arrest sentence as Scott Lang, so that he could spend time with his family (and sit out Infinity War).
Why she is: She has a better costume
Both Clint’s costume and Kate’s costume are colored with that distinctive shade of purple, but Kate wears hers better. Her dark hair color and dark leather gloves match the purple really well and she has awesome sunglasses to add to it. Plus, the actual design of the costume is more practical.
Her left arm, which she uses to hold the bow in place, has a full sleeve up to the wrist, while her right arm, which she needs to be mobile to pull back the string to various degrees as she fires out arrows, is sleeveless. It makes more sense and has been thought out more thoroughly than Clint’s costume, and that’s a huge point in her favor.
Why she’s not: She wasn’t the original
Clint Barton was the original Hawkeye. He was in the original line-up of the Avengers and he defined what it meant to be the guy with no powers whose only special ability is archery. Kate Bishop was simply following in his footsteps when she took up her own bow and arrow and joined the Young Avengers under the name Hawkeye.
Clint was the one who broke all the ground and blazed the trail to become the Avengers’ first archer. Kate just moved in after he was done being the Avengers’ archer and she took his name. She took the Hawkeye role in her own direction, but she did borrow a lot.
Why she is: She’s not a laughing stock
Ever since he joined the likes of Iron Man and Thor and the Hulk in a battle against an alien invasion in 2012’s The Avengers, Clint Barton’s Hawkeye has been a laughing stock among the MCU’s fan base.
It’s not really his fault, since he’s an archer who has to fight alongside a green monster who can stop alien spaceships with his bare hands and a super-soldier who was genetically enhanced by the U.S. government and a literal god. But the fact remains that Clint Barton is often derided as the most useless Avenger, while no moviegoers have anything against Kate Bishop yet.
Why she’s not: Clint’s been on more teams
A Hawkeye can’t really stand on their own – they have to be an asset to a team and provide strong support to the characters who actually have powers. Clint Barton has been a member of far more superhero teams than Kate Bishop.
Clint has been in the Avengers, the New Avengers, the Secret Avengers, the Defenders, the Thunderbolts, the World Counter-Terrorism Agency, the Wild Pack, and many more. Kate has only been a member of the Young Avengers, which is the affiliation she is best known for, and the West Coast Avengers, which, interestingly enough, was the first ever spin-off Avengers team.
Why she is: She’s proficient in more forms of combat
While both Clint Barton and Kate Bishop are proficient in both archery and hand-to-hand combat, Kate is proficient in more forms of combat than Clint. She practices martial arts and boxing.
She is also great at fencing and also just generally fighting with a sword. Kate also has a couple of weapons beyond the bow and arrow that make her more competent in close combat: battle staves (two of which we’ve seen Bobbi Morse possess in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., so they do exist in the MCU), trick arrows, and a sword. Suffice to say, Kate is more capable in combat situations than Clint.
Why she’s not: Her sidekick is way more powerful than her
Clint Barton’s closest ally, who could be called his sidekick, is Black Widow. They’re the best of friends and they’ve been going on missions together for S.H.I.E.L.D. since long before the Avengers first assembled. Like him, Black Widow is often called a useless Avenger, since she has no superpower and is merely a good fighter.
Kate’s sidekick actually has superpowers. Her name is America Chavez, otherwise known as Miss America, and she has a huge range of abilities: super strength, super speed, flight, interdimensional teleportation, and the ability to punch star-shaped portals to other realities. She greatly overshadows Kate Bishop.
Why she is: She’s one of the leaders of the Young Avengers
Along with characters like Hulkling and Iron Lad and Prodigy, Kate Bishop’s Hawkeye has led the Young Avengers through a number of wacky adventures. She was instrumental in their formation, since she fought against the motions passed by the original Avengers to stop them from training.
With the rumor mill suggesting Marvel is priming a new Avengers line-up to lead the MCU after Endgame – with the likes of Chris Evans and Robert Downey, Jr. leaving the franchise and the likes of Brie Larson and Tom Holland carrying it off their shoulders – this would make Kate a terrific candidate to join the leaders of the MCU’s future.