Hawkeye faces cold judgment of his past in Avengers #60 preview

Avengers #60 page — (Image credit: Marvel Comics)

AXE: Judgment Day has come to the Marvel Universe. And though the Celestial who decreed his plan to judge all of humanity and either wipe out all life on Earth or save humanity from itself has already made its fateful decision, the judging of some characters hasn't been shown just yet.

That's where Avengers #60 comes in, an AXE: Judgment Day tie-in which focuses on longtime Avenger Hawkeye who, despite being currently somewhat on the outs with the team, takes the spotlight in the issue as he faces judgment from the Celestial.

In the story, from guest creators writer Mark Russell and artist Greg Land, Hawkeye "must prove that he brings at least as much joy and usefulness to the world as a randomly chosen mailbox," according to the solicitation text for the issue.

The preview pages go a bit further than that, with Clint Barton confronting the Black Widow - secretly a manifestation of the Judging Celestial - as she invites him to share a meal and talk about their shared, sordid past.

Check out the pages here:

Image 1 of 6

AXE: Judgment Day kicked off as a three-way fight between the Avengers, X-Men, and Eternals as Druig of the Eternals leads his people in trying to wipe out mutantkind, who he sees as genetic offshoots of the Eternals' ancient enemies the Deviants.

Things haven't gone exactly to plan, however, and the plan that Tony Stark, Phastos of the Eternals, and others came up with to stop the conflict has backfired, as the Celestial they built to bring order to the conflict instead chose to judge Earth's worthiness to continue existing.

Avengers #60 goes on sale September 21.

Read up on the best Avengers stories of all time.

I've been Newsarama's resident Marvel Comics expert and general comic book historian since 2011, and now I'm the Entertainment Writer at GamesRadar+. I've also been the on-site reporter at most major comic conventions such as Comic-Con International: San Diego, New York Comic Con, and C2E2. Outside of comic journalism, I am the artist of many weird pictures, and the guitarist of many heavy riffs. (They/Them)