Hawkeye #2
Point Blank!
Hawkeye’s entire life has been turned upside down. He had a promising career as head of security at Cross Technological Enterprises. However, this all changed when the adventurer known as Mockingbird uncovered that the company was engaged in developing an illegal mind control device for some nefarious purposes. It also turned out that Sheila Danning — Clint’s girlfriend and the head of CTE’s public relations department — was also in on the whole thing.
Since then, Hawkeye has gone to an abandoned subway tunnel where he has been target practicing non-stop for the past 42 hours. Eventually, the archer collapses from exhaustion, making him a rip target for a gang of crooks who happen to find him passed out. Luckily, Clint manages to wake up in time to fight off his attackers. These thugs gave Clint a will to live, but he is unsure what his next move should be. Not wanting to crawl back to the Avengers on his hands and knees,[1] Hawkeye takes his sky-cycle back to the apartment provided for him by CTE as a starting point.
When he arrives he discovers that his apartment has been entirely cleaned out, including all his possessions, spare costumes, and arrow making gear. That’s when Mockingbird makes her presence known, she had been staking the place out in the hopes Clint would come back and offers to buy him breakfast. Although she isn’t one of his favorite people at that moment, Clint is flat broke and accepts her offer. As the two take off on his sky-cycle they are unaware that they are being observed from the shadows.
Mockingbird takes Hawkeye back to her apartment and when he admits he never heard of her until the night before, she decides to tell him her origins. Mockingbird is really Barbara Morse — Bobbi to her friends — and she was a top student in chemistry at Georgia Tech. When her teacher went on sabbatical to work for SHIELD, Bobbi went with her. They were hired to help recreate the super-soldier serum that created Captain America. However, Morse decided she liked the idea of being a spy better and underwent SHIELD’s field-agent training program. Graduating at the top of her class, she was put on an extended assignment in the Savage Land, where she worked side-by-side with its defender, Ka-Zar. Although the pair shared a romance it never really worked out.[2]
Returning to the United States, Bobbi was informed by a congressman that there was a mole inside SHIELD. She came up with a costumed identity to try and ferret out the spy. Originally calling herself the Huntress, she ended up on the run from the law and had to reinvent herself again, this time as Mockingbird. Although she was able to expose the spy within SHIELD, she was seriously wounded in battle and had to spent six months recovering in the hospital.[3] From there, she continued her crime fighting career, leading to her investigating CTE.
As Bobbi finishes her story she notices that Hawkeye has fallen asleep and decides to step out to get a few things so she can repair Clint’s costume. Moments after she is gone, the man who has been spying on them enters the room and puts a gun to Clint’s head. However, before the assassin can pull the trigger, Hawkeye wakes up and fights back. Unfortunately, he finds himself on the defensive as the assassin is armed with a gun that is completely silent. Luckily, Mockingbird comes back and ambushes the intruder, forcing him to drop his gun and flee. When Clint checks out the gun, he discovers that it is an ordinary weapon and that the silencer must have been built into the killer’s costume somehow.
Bobbi gives Clint the new costume she made for him, its not exactly like his original outfit but they both agree it beats having Clint running around in his underwear. The unlikely pair then head to the one man at Cross that Hawkeye believes they can trust. This is Jorge Latham, the man who helped design Clint’s new sky-cycle. They learn that the staff have been offered a years salary for information leading to Hawkeye’s capture and that there is some secret project on the 17th floor of the main building. As they leave, Hawkeye admits to Mockingbird that he doesn’t fully trust her, saying it’ll be a while before he trusts another woman again.
The pair break into the facility and begin digging through the files to learn about the company’s new project. There, they are attacked by the Silencer again. Hawkeye manages to spoil his ambush and as they fight he discovers that Silencer projects a field around himself that nullifies sound. Their fight takes to the air as the two tussle on Clint’s sky-cycle. However, things come to a quick end when Silencer is dropped down one of the facility’s smoke stacks. When he doubles back to pick up Mockingbird, she has found all the information they have been looking for. When asked if there was any trouble, Bobbi tells him “not really”, not telling him that she had to fight off a room of security guards.
Recurring Characters
Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Jorge Latham
Continuity Notes
At the time of this story, Hawkeye was bumped from the Avengers roster by their NSA liaison, Henry Gyrich, in Avengers #181. This sent him job hunting until he landed the security gig at CTE in issue #189.
This is the first time Mockingbird has gone into her past. It has been expanded upon in Mockingbird #3, West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #11, and Astonishing Tales #12. Her time with Ka-Zar was chronicled in Astonishing Tales #6-20, Ka-Zar (vol. 2) #3-5, Savage Tales #8.
Bobbi became the Huntress in Marvel Super Action #1 and later Mockingbird in Marvel Team-Up #95. The Marvel Team-Up story was published in 1980 and this story in 1983. Measuring up the two stories to the Sliding Timescale, Bobbi’s six month recovery time should be considered factual.
