4 out of 5

Frankly, this storyline shouldn’t be as good as it is.  Hawkeye trying to confront the gangs of L.A.?  A backup with U.S. Agent dealing with a killer whose targets are illegal border crossers?  Both seem ready-made for preachy soap opera dramatics that, in comic form, generally take the most obvious “right” position and try to convince us that superheroes are real people with real problems.   Meh.

And yet, Steve Gerber, in the Hawkeye story, is able to show off his uncanny ability to work within the confines of comic book reality to find a realistic approach, and then I have to credit Fabian Nicieza for hitting a solid groove with the U.S. Agent bit… normally Nicieza has some great ideas that get muddled by incredibly generic writing and then inevitable overwrought comicness, but perhaps having his story compressed into short bursts narrowed his focused and produced something consistent.

Focusing first on Hawkeye, I think the best thing about it is that there’s not even a touch of Gerber randomness.  It’s a technique Steve seemed to fall back on sometimes, but when it was used most effectively, it was always justified within the context of whatever Universe / world he was writing in.  And understandably, Gerber became known for his humor and weirdness, and its hard to weave around and through audience expectations.  So it’s always nice when there’s a straight piece of writing that still stands up.  But the same general rule applies: this tale works because Steve keeps it logical within its own confines.  Hawkeye doesn’t know how to deal with a gang mentality because they’re not super crooks, and yet, as per hero rules, he still tries to “clean up the streets…” without much success, until he tires himself out with an on-the-prowl-all-the-time approach, which of course can’t work.  His frustration mounts; a vigilante named ‘The Terminizer’ appears and starts following in Hawkeye’s wake, gunning down any gang members Hawky had intended to waylay for the police or simply discourage.  There can’t be much mystery for the reader as to who The Terminizer is, but when Hawkeye is confronted with it… he responds rather unbelievably for a do-gooder, boiling the “I won’t sink to your level” speech down to one panel, thank yew Steve, because it’s all we need to get the point.  So, unsurprisingly, Steve allows us more insight into the street criminal mindset by not directly addressing it, which we could say is Hawk’s error with his approach.  And to top it off, this is all given to us respectably.  Mockingbird – HE’s wife at the time of story – points out Clint’s errors in judgement without doing a stupid pouty character bit; she’s supportive of her husband… letting us understand that there’d be reasons they’re together.  Hawkeye deals with the police on several occasions, and the head detective (or whatever) lays it out plain – all cases are being worked on, but gang shootings generally won’t get priority – without, again, any preachiness.  All that praise being offered, of course there’s some cheese to get around, particularly with the gang talk and the subplot of a killer business woman (literally) who’s running the drug trade is fairly obviously inserted only to give the crooks a more intelligent ‘face,’ as her part in the story is mostly inconsequential otherwise.

Al Milgrom and Don Heck contribute some classic visuals, great use of space on each page, and though the colorist seems to vary each issue, there’s generally a really nice selection of colors to allow Hawk’s purple to not be all sore thumby.

Nicieza’s tale is straight-forward by necessity, as it is a backup, but again, much credit to the guy for getting a believable ‘voice’ down for both our killer and U.S. Agent, playing them just extreme enough to be interesting but not going way overboard into nonsense.  The art is a major highlight here – Dan Lawlis contributes some amazing panels, but Keith Williams inks just explode with motion, and Brad Vancata was doing things with color – finding blends, using shadows in a particular way – that just look years ahead of 1990.

Gerber enthusiasts looking for more weirdness might not be able to identify their writer in this, but these issues are pretty great for Hawkeye fans, delivering a slightly more intelligent Clint – maintaining his stubborness and persistence, of course – within a story that generally sticks to its narrative guns to tell its tale of superheroes vs. gangs.