Grills, played by Clayton English, puts it in pretty clear terms when Clint confronts him about the stolen suit: unlike Kate, he’s never going to get the actual opportunity to be a superhero in real life, and LARPing is as close to that experience as he can get – especially if that means taking down an Avenger in a trial by combat. The specialness of what Hawkeye is and what he represents has layers, and that’s very much illustrated in Clint’s experience LARPing as a means to get his Ronin costume back. Kate is clearly destined for superhero glory, but that’s not where it begins and ends. Of course, Kate Bishop is basically the extreme version of what can happen as an end result of the inspiration that Hawkeye provides (and there’s certainly no questioning the leg up she is given thanks to her mother’s resources). Clint Barton’s LARPing adventure drills some important things home.
To paraphrase a scene from Hawkeye Episode 2, she is bought and sold on the inspiration that his journey offers, even if the guy’s actual energy is more about cynicism.
It’s what instantly drives her to pick up a bow following her father’s funeral (not to mention fencing and gymnastics) and become the self-proclaimed world’s greatest archer. When she looks at Clint Barton, she sees a hero whom she doesn’t just have to look up to – she can emulate him. Had Kate been saved by a Thor-generated lightning strike or a sizable Hulk smash, she couldn’t have dedicated her life to becoming an Asgardian or getting a proper dose of gamma radiation. Clearly this has a major influence on Kate’s appreciation of Hawkeye, but it’s what she does with that appreciation that drives home the specialness of her favorite hero.
The girl faces death as Loki’s Chitauri army blows a hole in her family’s apartment, but she is saved because a certain Avenger with a bow and a quiver full of trick arrows annihilates a threatening alien from a great distance. This naturally starts with Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop, who we first meet in Hawkeye via a flashback to 2012 and the aforementioned Battle of New York. Kate Bishop’s Hawkeye fan-hood clearly runs deeper than just him saving her life.
Up until now, that hasn’t been something that the franchise has addressed in any way, but it appears to be a centerpiece at the heart of the new Hawkeye series on Disney+, and in the wake of its two-episode premiere, it appears that fact is quickly being established as one of the most important aspects of the show. Hawkeye’s Avengers teammates all experienced one-in-a-billion life-changing events that turned them into the spectacular superheroes that they are, and Clint Barton is just a person with enough passion and determination to be considered their colleague. That’s a pretty damn special thing when you think about it. He’s just a guy (a hawk-guy, if you prefer), but he’s earned his title as one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
His power set hasn’t changed, but his role in the MCU has certainly felt more and more natural over time as we’ve seen him repeatedly save the world. To Marvel’s credit, the franchise has since made big strides to redress the character in each of his appearances, from his bond with the Maximoff twins in Avengers: Age of Ultron, to his excellent Team Cap moves in Captain America: Civil War, to his emotional devastation in Avengers: Endgame. Audiences didn’t reject the character, and Hawkeye certainly earned fans… but people laughed. During the Battle of New York, he stood alongside a super soldier, an armor-clad technological genius, an impossibly strong monster, a lightning-conjuring god, and a spy who began training to kill in pre-pubescence… and his skill was being really good at a sport strongly associated with summer camp. Beyond the fact that he spends more of the blockbuster as a villain than hero, his general worthiness of being a part of the titular team was drawn into question. Hawkeye made his legit Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in The Avengers (not counting his cameo in Thor), the character became, to a certain degree, a punchline.