Avengers and Philosophy: Earth's Mightiest Thinkers, The (26 page)

Humility can have strategic benefit as well, especially when it comes to fooling your enemies. When Crossfire captures Hawkeye, planning to kill him and use his dead body to draw out the rest of Earth’s heroes, he tells Clint he chose him because he is “the weakest, most vulnerable known costumed crime fighter in town.”
²⁷
But as you can easily guess, Crossfire grossly underestimates our favorite archer, who escapes his trap by outsmarting the villain, who then tries to kill Clint with his own bow and arrow but ironically discovers he is not strong enough to pull the string. As Lao Tzu wrote, “No calamity is greater than underestimating opponents,” which also implies an advantage to appearing weak to your enemies, as Clint learns (but, it seems, has not taken to heart).
²⁸

The Life and Death of a Hero

Like so many heroes in the Marvel Universe, Hawkeye has had firsthand experience with death, and lived (again) to tell about it—both times. When a mentally unstable Scarlet Witch attacks Avengers Mansion with a Kree armada that she fabricates with her reality-altering powers, Clint is shot in the back by a number of Kree soldiers. Refusing to die that way, he grabs a nearby Kree, activates his jetpack, and flies into the Kree warship, destroying it and killing himself.
²⁹
We could choose to see this simply as one final grandstanding move from the former carnival showman, but instead we will use it to explore two final themes in Taoism, heroism and death, both of which involve (in the spirit of
wei wu wei
) sacrifice “without sacrifice.”

As Lao Tzu wrote, “Sages put themselves last, and they were first; they excluded themselves, and they survived.”
³⁰
This is true of heroes as well: by putting their own needs and safety aside to protect others, they ensure their own survival, either literally (continuing as heroes if they live) or metaphorically (as legacies after their death). Hawkeye makes the ultimate sacrifice when he flies into the Kree warship, which ensures that he will be remembered as a hero for years to come. And after Kate Bishop, one of the Young Avengers and a fine archer, stands up to Captain America like only Clint has before her, he bestows on her the name Hawkeye (as well as his equipment).
³¹
Hawkeye is now a legacy, a mantle to be passed on to future heroes.
³²

Lao Tzu asked, “If people usually don’t fear death, how can death be used to scare them?”
³³
Through his heroism, Clint Barton has proven that he does not fear death—and even if he did, he doesn’t let that fear prevent him from being a hero. Lao Tzu also wrote (in one of his more straightforward moments), “Sages always consider it good to save people,” and in this sense, even Hawkeye is a sage. It isn’t just about superheroics and Avenging for Clint, though, at least later in his career. When he recently took a road trip to Myrtle Beach, he stopped to help stranded motorists along the way (granted, female stranded motorists). He ended up saving a stripper from a lout in a bar, an act that embroiled him in a scheme involving war crimes in Laos and a stolen religious relic—and he didn’t put on his costume until the end of the six-issue story line.
³⁴

Soon after Hawkeye’s death, the Scarlet Witch (under the sway of her brother Quicksilver) uses her mutant powers to re-form the entire world into one dominated by mutants under the rule of her father, Magneto. She also resurrects Hawkeye, to whom she had long been close, but after he threatens her life she “disassembles” him again. He is believed dead, but a mysterious copy of his newspaper obituary pinned to a wall with an arrow leads us (and the Avengers) to suspect otherwise.
³⁵
After seeking out (and, we might say, “reconciling with”) the Scarlet Witch, who apparently has no memory of the destruction she caused, Clint adopts the identity of Ronin until returning to the classic Hawkeye colors after the Siege of Asgard ends and the “Heroic Age” begins.
³⁶

The unique nature of Hawkeye’s experiences during this second period recalls one of Chuang Tzu’s most famous tales:

Once Chuang Chou dreamed he was a butterfly. He was happy as a butterfly, enjoying himself and going where he wanted. He did not know he was Chou. Suddenly he awoke, whereupon he was startled to find he was Chou. He didn’t know whether Chou had dreamed he was a butterfly, or if a butterfly were dreaming it was Chou.
³⁷

Earlier in the same chapter of his works, Chuang Tzu connects this idea with death: “How do I know the dead do not regret having longed for life at first?”
³⁸
He’s making two points here: first, that there is no way to compare two such different states of being to determine which one is more “real,” as in the butterfly or Chou. The Scarlet Witch completely altered reality to fit Quicksilver’s conception of the perfect world: who’s to say which was more real, that reality or the original one? Second, there is also no way to say which one you would prefer: is it better to be the butterfly or Chou, and is it better to be alive or dead? To the Taoist, life and death are both parts of nature. Neither is to be celebrated more than the other, but both are to be welcomed as part of the
tao
(“the Way”). Clint has been both, and in two different realities—if only we could ask him which he preferred!

The Way of the Archer

After Clint took up the Hawkeye identity most recently, he thought to himself, “Been a while, but here, now, feeling the pull of the string, the fletching of the arrow between my fingers, the weight of the quiver on my back . . . it’s like coming home.”
³⁹
He has returned to his true path, the one that expresses
wei wu wei
in that it is the most natural and effortless one for him. It is only natural, then, to end this chapter with a final quote from Lao Tzu: “The Way of Heaven is like drawing a bow; the high is lowered, the low is raised; excess is reduced, need is fulfilled.”
⁴⁰
The Way moderates all things and keeps them in balance, and after all his experiences with love, loss, and struggle, Clint Barton may be on his way to realizing the Way as well.

NOTES

1.
Tales of Suspense
#57, 60, and 64 (1964–1965), reprinted in
Essential Iron Man Vol. 1
(2002), and
Avengers
, vol. 1, #16 (May 1965), reprinted in
Essential Avengers Vol. 1
(1998). For a slightly updated version of his introduction to the Avengers, see
Hawkeye: Blindspot
#2 (May 2011), reprinted in
Hawkeye: Blindspot
(2011).

2.
For more on the themes of redemption and rehabilitation, see the chapters titled “Forgivers Assemble?” by Daniel P. Malloy and “Cap’s Kooky Quartet: Is Rehabilitation Possible?” by Andrew Terjesen in this volume.

3.
Hawkeye
, vol. 1, #4 (December 1983), reprinted in the hardcover collection
Avengers: Hawkeye
(2009).

4.
Many scholars now think the
Tao Te Ching
is more likely an anonymous collection of accumulated wisdom than the work of a single man, but for the sake of convenience we will refer to Lao Tzu when discussing it.

5.
Tao Te Ching
, chapter 63. Unless noted otherwise, all translations of Taoist texts are by Thomas Cleary and can be found in
The Taoist Classics
, vol. 1 (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1994).

6.
This concept is also found in the writings of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus (55–135); see Book 4, chapter 4 of his
Discourses
.

7.
Solo Avengers
#2 (January 1988), reprinted in
Avengers: Solo Avengers Classic Vol. 1
(2012).

8.
Hawkeye & Mockingbird
#3 (October 2010), reprinted in
Hawkeye & Mockingbird: Ghosts
(2011), which contains all six issues of the short-lived series. This advice comes in handy when Clint has to fight his brother and Baron Zemo after being blinded (
Hawkeye: Blindspot
#4, July 2011).

9.
Tao Te Ching
, chapters 22 and 24.

10.
Tao Te Ching
, chapter 2.

11.
Chuang Tzu
, chapter 3, 66–67, in
The Taoist Classics
.

12.
Ibid.

13.
However, in
Avengers
, vol. 3, #79 (April 2004), reprinted in
Avengers Vol. 4: Lionheart of Avalon
(2004), Hawkeye tries to take on the entire Wrecking Crew, a trio of powerhouses who have given Thor a run for his money. After he is brutally beaten down, Clint confesses to the Wasp that he did it for her after seeing her ex-husband Hank Pym (who once beat her) manhandle her (
Avengers
, vol. 3, #82, July 2004, reprinted in
Avengers Vol. 5: Once an Invader
, 2004).

14.
Avengers
, vol. 1, #63–64 (April–May 1969), reprinted in
Essential Avengers Vol. 3
(2001).

15.
Avengers: Kree-Skrull War
(2008), reprinting
Avengers
, vol. 1, #89–97 (June 1971–March 1972), also reprinted (in black and white) in
Essential Avengers Vol. 4
(2005). For more on the Kree-Skrull War, see the chapter titled “Fighting the Good Fight: Military Ethics and the Kree-Skrull War” by Christopher Robichaud in this volume.

16.
Avengers
, vol. 1, #99 (May 1972), reprinted in
Essential Avengers Vol. 5
(2006).

17.
Avengers
, vol. 1, #109 (March 1973), reprinted in
Essential Avengers Vol. 5
.

18.
Thunderbolts
#43 (October 2000), reprinted in
Avengers Assemble Vol. 3
(2006).

19.
Avengers
, vol. 1, #20 (September 1965), reprinted in
Essential Avengers Vol. 1
. Some things never change: Clint even picks a fight with Steve Rogers’s successor, Bucky Barnes, over who “should have” taken over the mantle of Captain America after Rogers’s death (
New Avengers: The Reunion
#1, May 2009, reprinted in
New Avengers: The Reunion
, 2010). (Tony Stark offered Clint the title in
Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America
#3, July 2007, reprinted in
Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America
, 2008.)

20.
West Coast Avengers
, vol. 1, #1 (September 1984), reprinted in
Avengers: West Coast Avengers Assemble
(2010).

21.
West Coast Avengers
, vol. 1, #4 (December 1984), reprinted in
Avengers: West Coast Avengers Assemble
.

22.
Tao Te Ching
, chapter 66.

23.
See the flashback scene in
Hawkeye: Blindspot
#2 (May 2011). For a textbook example of tough love from Cap when Clint is particularly down on himself, see
Hawkeye & Mockingbird
#6 (January 2011).

24.
Avengers
, vol. 3, #75 (February 2004), reprinted in
Avengers: The Search for She-Hulk
(2010).

25.
Avengers
, vol. 3, #6 (July 1998), reprinted in
Avengers Assemble Vol. 1
(2004).

26.
Hawkeye: Blindspot
#2. For more on Captain America’s modesty, see my chapter “Captain America and the Virtue of Modesty” in
Superheroes: The Best of Philosophy and Pop Culture
, ed. William Irwin (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2011).