A new trailer for Disney Plus' MCU Hawkeye show doubles down on the holiday season hijinks vibe of the first trailer for the streaming series, again showing Clint Barton and his family as their Christmas trip to see a Captain America-themed Broadway show is interrupted by threats from Clint's past.
The new trailer shows some of the villains coming after Hawkeye, and it seems that it all ties back to Clint's five years operating as stone-cold-killing vigilante Ronin between Avengers: Infinity War's Snap and Avengers: Endgame's Blip. But that said we also know Yelena Belova is set on Clint's trail at the end of the Black Widow due to what seems to be misleading information from Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
Whatever the threat is, Clint teams up with his comic book protégé Kate Bishop, crashing in a Brooklyn apartment building away from their families during the Christmas season. Clint and Kate confront the secrets that are bubbling up around them, apparently fending off the threats that attempt to invade their apartment - full-on Home Alone style.
Clint Barton and Kate Bishop pairing up to fight off a home invasion through a series of elaborate set-pieces may sound quite a bit like a movie-meta homage to the John Hughes-Chris Columbus Christmas classic (a movie Disney now owns and trots out every holiday season). But believe it or not, the premise goes right back to comic books - specifically writer Matt Fraction and artist David Aja's Hawkeye title - in which Clint and Kate team up to protect Clint's apartment building from criminals seeking revenge, and which even features a Christmas issue all its own.
Hawkeye doesn't premiere on Disney Plus until November 24, but before the holiday season, Newsarama is unwrapping a little gift in advance, taking a look at Hawkeye's Yuletide adventure, and how it informs his MCU show.
Fraction and Aja's Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon is a down-to-earth look at what Clint Barton does when he's not superhero-ing around with the Avengers, along with a deep dive into his burgeoning partnership with Kate Bishop, all centered around Clint's life in a rundown Brooklyn apartment building.
If that sounds familiar, the trailer for the Disney Plus Hawkeye show draws directly on the themes and trappings of the comic, right down to the presence of the odd 'Tracksuit Mafia' who are the villains of the comic story.
When Hawkeye discovers his landlord is raising the rent to try and force the building's tenants to leave under duress from an Eastern European gang (who Clint dubs the 'Tracksuit Mafia' or 'Tracksuit Draculas' thanks to their matching outfits), he decides to buy the building himself and protect the residents from the violent criminals who wish to force them out for a real estate scheme.
Over the course of the series' first arc, Clint gets to know the apartment building's tenants while also building a relationship with Kate, adopting a dog (you better believe we're gonna talk about the dog sooner or later), and facing off with the gangsters who want to tear down the apartment building.
The story culminates in Hawkeye #6, with a moment of soul-searching for Clint, who finds himself connecting with his neighbors more than ever while recovering from a beating given by the Tracksuit Mafia amidst the hustle and bustle of Christmas.
Clint and Kate decorate their apartment while also congregating with the building's other inhabitants, with Clint ultimately resolving to stay and fight the villains who are coming for him, including the supervillain known as the Clown, in order to protect his neighbors.
Actor Fra Free has reportedly been cast as "Kazi" in the Disney Plus Hawkeye series, making him a likely adaptation of the Clown, whose comic book name is Kazimierz Kazimierczak.
As the clock ticks down to the deadline Clint is given to vacate the area, his apartment building becomes a veritable war zone, with assassins, gangsters, and criminals besetting Hawkeye from all sides - leading to the death of one of his neighbors, and serious injuries to Clint and his brother Barney, who is staying with Clint.
Clint's years-old injuries to his ears are aggravated, and he is deafened, similar to his portrayal as wearing hearing aids in the Hawkeye trailer, leading to a climactic scene in which Clint, through American Sign Language depicted on the page by artist David Aja and letterer Chris Eliopoulos, rallies his neighbors to help him defend their home.
Though the 'Tracksuit Mafia' invades the building full-force, with the backing of Kingpin and other New York City crime bosses, they're met with strong resistance from the apartment building's tenants, who defend themselves full-Home Alone style with barricades of broken furniture guarding the stairwells, traps of burning charcoal grills falling on the invaders, and other homemade booby traps and defenses.
In the end, despite his serious injuries, Clint is able to defend the building and its inhabitants with the help of Kate Bishop, his dog, and the friends he's made through his time in the apartment - though not without some truly heart-wrenching casualties along the way.
Though somewhat more personal and smaller in scale than many superhero epics, Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon sets itself apart from many other Avengers-adjacent titles with a heaping helping of family, friends, and yes, even some holiday cheer to define help what it means to be the everyman among Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
With what the trailers for Hawkeye's MCU show have previewed, it looks like the streaming series will channel that same type of intimate, character-driven story, right down to the Christmas setting, and the focus on Clint's relationships with his family and his protégé Kate Bishop.
Clint Barton is already an MCU star. Meet Kate Bishop before Hawkeye premieres on Disney Plus.
