Looking at how Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is shaping up, there’s every reason to believe that Disney Plus series Hawkeye could mark the end of the line for Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton. After all, Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff are dead, Steve Rogers is retired and Bruce Banner isn’t legally allowed to be more than a supporting player, leaving Clint and Thor as the only two of the original Avengers still able to play major roles in the franchise.
The fact that Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop is set to debut in the show also increases the chances that we’re looking at the latest instance of a mantle being passed down, following Sam Wilson becoming the new Captain America in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, while Yelena Belova is set to return in Hawkeye having been sent on a revenge mission during Black Widow‘s post-credits scene.
In a new interview, Renner teased how Kate comes into Clint’s orbit, and it sounds as though it starts off as hero worship before morphing into the standard mentorship arc we’ve all been expecting.
“Kate is a 22 year-old kid and she’s a big Hawkeye fan. She has a wonderfully annoying and equally charming manner about her, because she’s such a fangirl of Hawkeye. The relationship grows from that, but the biggest problem for Clint is Kate Bishop and the onslaught of problems that she brings into his life.”
No offense to Renner, but Kate might be the only person out there who’d call Hawkeye her favorite Avenger, even if there’s clearly going to be much more to the story than that, especially with The Conjuring‘s Vera Farmiga cast as her mother Eleanor, who has ties to both criminal and supervillain organizations in the comic books.
It’s an interesting dynamic to say the least, especially when Clint will still be dealing with the emotional fallout of Avengers: Endgame, and things will get real complicated real quick in Hawkeye once Yelena shows up on the scene.