The Ringer-Verse - Discussing 'Hawkeye' With Matt Fraction

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

Joanna Robinson is joined by Charles Holmes to give some history and background about Matt Fraction's comic run of 'Hawkeye' that inspired and influenced the upcoming Disney+ show (01:33). Later Joanna is joined by Fraction to talk about his involvement in the upcoming show, the latest 'Dune' film, and consulting with Disney (22:09). Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Charles Holmes Guest: Matt Fraction Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: TD St. Matthew-Daniel and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, I'm Shay Serrano. And I'm Brandon Jinks Jenkins. We have a new show called No Skips with Jinks and Shea. In it, we discuss the most unskippable albums in hip-hop history. New episodes drop on Thursdays, only on Spotify. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Trimfaya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Trimfaya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through.

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This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need weather tech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream, drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Hey, look, that one's you. No, it's Katness Everdeen. Let's go. Your problem is branding. No, my problem is you. And this ninja suit and that people are trying to kill you because of this ninja suit.

The whole thing's a problem I'm going to solve today so I can go home to my family. No, it's branding. Welcome into the Ringerverse. The Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. This is a special Monday edition of House of R with special guest, a midnight boy, Charles Holmes. Pugh! Welcome, Charles. I'm Joanna Robinson.

And we are here to talk about. about an incredible comic, The Hawkeye Run, Matt Fraction Hockey Run, and then we'll have a long chat with Matt Fraction himself. A great chat. I just listened to it. It's amazing. But Mojo Jojo, Jojo's Bazaar Adventor, Robinson Crusoe.

How are you doing? I'm doing so, but I love this comic. And I'm so excited for you and I to talk about how great this comic is. Convince everyone to read it before the Hawkeye show starts, the world will be a better place if everyone reads this comic, don't you agree? Absolutely. When I was a, if I, if me now present me could go into the past and tell my past high school self, be like, you're going to be talking about Hawkeye and Spotify's going to be paying you a lot of money to do it. I'd be like, bullshit, dude.

Whoa. Bro? No way, bro. Bro, no way. All right. So before we get into all that, some quick programming reminders, of course, the Midnight Boys will return on Wednesday to give us the first ever edition of Midnight Misses. Put a pull out to the listeners to see which. Which Spider-Boy?

Which problematic Spider-Boy movie they most want to talk about? And if you have a fondness deep in your heart for Toby McGuire bogeying down a sidewalk, then if I have joyful news for you, Spider-Man 3 is on the menu this week. So if you want to give that one a quick re-watch, if you don't have it sort of engraved on your heart, then you might want to do that before Wednesday before you hear the boys pick it to pieces. House of Var, working title will be back next Friday with a check-in on Amazon's expensive. Very splashy new fantasy series Wheel of Time. We've got some special guests for that episode as well.

Should I watch that? Is it good? Where are you on like high fantasy? How do you feel about... I'm there. It can get one episode out of me. And I read the great Zach Barron's GQ profile. And I was just like, oh, I kind of want to watch this.

But Joe, you told me to watch the heart of they fall. Your wreck was 100% Willow. We're going to see if you're two for two. And if you tell me to watch this, you might be three for three. Okay. How about you tell me what you think about Willow? Okay. And then we'll discuss whether or not you should watch it all the time.

Does that sound good? Sounds perfect. All right. So the comic book in question, and listen, the reason we're going kind of hard on this particular comic book, which we don't normally do necessarily when we're talking about the MCU is that as we talked about last week on on last Friday's episode of Ring Reverse, this is a Marvel show that is based very closely on a Marvel comic, sort of for the first time. in the MCU.

It's kind of surprising, but also not because this comic was such a smash hit. It ran from 2012, 2015. It's Matt Fraction, Davita Ha, and Annie Wu were the artists on that. And it's just going to help us prep for this six-episode run of the Disney Plus series that we're getting this holiday season. So let's start at the very beginning for folks before we get to our Fraction interview. Charles, what is this comic about? That is a tough question because I think the great thing. about Matt Fraction's Hawkeye is that it's kind of like an episode of Seinfeld. It's about

everything, but it's about nothing. This was supposed to be a loser comic book. Like, I remember when it dropped, going to the comic book store, be like, Hawkeye, what? And you open it and it's something different. The art is some of the most beautiful comic book art of the last 20 years. And what it ends up doing is that from the whole Hawkeye's whole existence, he was always kind of like the Thorne in the side of Captain America. That's how he's introduced to people on Cap's Cookey Quartet. He's just like this little dipshit that Cap's like, oh, God, why can't you fall in line? And throughout his whole career, he kind of has that chip on his shoulder.

But he like, Joe, is it fair to say Hawkeye wasn't the most well-characterized character out of all the Avengers for all those years? Yeah, absolutely, of course. And then Matt Fraction comes along. and the dude, like, gives him a entire personality. And what Hawkeye is essentially about is, like, this first comic book is Hawkeye is talking with the other Hawkeye, Kate Bishop, and he's living in this big brownstone, and these bros, this gag, this Russian gang,

I believe the Russian, are trying, his landlords are trying to kick him out. And it's essentially this whole story, it's this very small story of, like, Hawkeye trying to keep all of like all of these people in this gentrified neighborhood that this neighborhood that's becoming gentrified in this brownstone. But he's also learning his limitations as as a hero and what he can do. And it's about more than that. And I think the reason it kind of changed the way we think about comic books in the early 2010s is because you realize that you could go small.

This isn't like a civil war type of event. this isn't a house of them type of event. This is Hawkeye realizing like every single time he gets punched, there's a bandage on him. Every time he falls, he has to go to the doctor. There's real consequences for him. And that's something that you didn't always see about, see in comics. What, like, I want to ask you, Joe, when did you read this comic and what about it made you fall in love? I started towards the end of its run.

So I think it was like 2014, probably, something like that. It was like coming to an end. And I read it because someone recommended it to me. I, it took me a long time to get into comic books in general, and I sort of tried to make up for lost time. But, like, it was a medium that didn't really hook me in, not because I thought I was like, not, you know, I was better than it or whatever. It was just like reading the panels. I didn't start young. And so I just wasn't trained on how to do it.

And someone had, among some other things like Sandman and a couple other things, like someone had me Hawkeye and was like, I think the thing that I love about Hawkeye and I talked a fraction about that. this a bit is that it feels like watching a TV show. I don't know if you agree with me, but each issue feels like an episode, and then you've got like seasons also on top of that. You know, you've got like sort of villains of the week on an episode of an issue. It's really funny. It's really witty. The art is really witty. Like what Davida Ha does, and then Annie Wu is one of my favorites of all time, like what she does with Cape Bishop in California. All that stuff is amazing. But I think it just comes down to the character. One of the, the log line of this, This book is like, this is what Clint does when he's not being an Avenger, right?

So he goes off and he like saves Socovia or whatever. And we should say in the comic book, he doesn't have a family. He's like a bachelor in New York or whatever. But he goes off and he does these big things. But like sometimes you got to go home. Sometimes you got to do the laundry. Sometimes you got to, you know, whatever it is. Sometimes you got to save a little cute dog, pizza dog.

Sometimes you got to save a dog. So that's what this Hawkeye comic is. They get into like bigger adventures, of course. But like the bandage thing is so important because like, you talk about Clint in the comic book's not being a really developed character and all that's true, but also like he's the guy who has no superpowers. Yeah. He's the guy with just a bow and arrow and everyone else is like can recover from these wounds.

And he is just like covered in bandages and ice packs and stuff like that. So what's interesting about this show is that they're taking the MCU Clint, the family man with the farm, Jeremy Renner, and they're sort of pulled. pulling him over into this storyline. He's in New York with his kids as the show kicks off. This is all based on the trailer. No spoilers, right? But he's in New York and he meets Cape Bishop.

What, Charles, can you tell me about Kate Bishop? Kate Bishop, when she hit the scene, I was in high school for this as well. And there was a book by Allen Heimberg and Jimmy Chung, I believe his name is Young Avengers that came out. That everyone's like, Young Avengers, fuck that. What do they think there are? The Teen Titans. and the book ended up being way more than people thought it would be.

It's an amazing, amazing book. One of the breakout stars of the book was Kate Bishop, because at this point, Hawkeye was dead and House of Them, and he had been brought back and all this other bullshit. And Kate Bishop, you're like,

who is this rich girl who's hanging around in can only shoot bow and arrows? But I think why people really lashed on to Kate Bishop is that not only was she a strong female character, but she wasn't like strong, in the way that Black Widow was strong,

which is just like, who is Black Widow dating today? That's how most white bros were writing Black Widow. Like, Kate Bishop was like a kickass all on her own. Even what Matt Fraction does is Hawkeye for years had been,

a lot of his characterization was like, who was Hawkeye sleeping with now? Is it Black Widow? Is it Mockingbird? All these people. And it's kind of funny because Kate Bishop's this teenager who's calling out Clint on his shit.

And you realize like Clint is growing as a person because he has respect for this other hawkeye. She's not hot girl. She's not his sidekick. She's not lady hawkeye. She's just hawkye.

There's inside jokes about like, no, there's two hawk eyes. It's confusing, but there's two hawk eyes. And I think Kate Bishop in the comics is such a well-rounded character that nobody was like, well, a lot of people were like this, misogynistic people. But most fans now are just like, no, of course there's two hawkies. There will always be two hawk eyes. If there's ever one hawk-eye again, I will absolutely destroy every kid. We've got, there's also, you mentioned Lucky the Pizza Dog.

Lucky is a dog that Clint adopts in the books, in the show. It's Kate who has the dog, but, you know, we're getting a, this is a dog show. Mallory has been losing her mind in anticipation of Lucky the Pizza Dog. There's a famous Hawkeye issue, Issue 11, that is just from Lucky's point of view. So you don't get any real dialogue. It's all in like smells and like basically like, wah, wah, won't, wall. And it's like perfect comment. It was a great comment.

And the thing I do want to touch on this for everybody, I would say, Joe's not wrong. You should read this comic book before you watch the show because you were comparing it to a TV show. Even if you like look at the panels, a lot of times when you're new to comic books, you're just like, oh, panels, I guess cool. I've read the peanuts before. But Hawkeye is so beautiful and what they do with panel layouts, what they do with design. It's one of the easiest reading experiences you'll have if you've never read a comic before. But even if you have read a comic book before, it'll change your opinion of what the medium can do,

what layouts can do. This was happening around the same time of peak TV. And I would say Hawkeye is kind of peak comic books. Like there was a lot of other comic books like Sagan, everything that would come along as well during this time. But Hawkeye is one of those where he's just like, oh, comic books can still be like interesting and do new things with the format.

So please read the comic book. It's worth your time. Read the first six issues. and I guarantee you're going to want to read the rest. I completely agree. We should mention there's just like a whole bunch of villains in this comic and in the show. The running throughout, this is a hilarious comic. Matter of fact, it's a funny guy.

All of his stuff is funny. This is a hilarious comic. Running throughout are the track suit mafia or the track suit Dracula's vaguely Slavic, maybe Russian, but like mostly just like unidentified. I had Lyslavic. And they say bro. They say bro. They're just like, hey, bro. It's great.

It's great. So that's, and fraction talks about the tracksuits in the interview. So just so you guys know what that. When he says, I was supposed to be, when he says track suit, you'll know what he means. We've also got Echo, who's getting her own spinoff series from this. We've got Swordsman. We've got the clown. We've got Yelena.

Whether or not we want to call her a villain, friend or foe, we don't know. And then maybe the rumor He's in the comic Could Kingpin? What do you think? Over under Vincent DiNofrio's Kingpin. There's a reason this is dropping right next to Spider-Man No Way Home.

Kingpin is in this shit. And actually that's also the fun thing about Hawkeye the comic is that the comic really isn't about any one villain. It's about a lot of villains. Yeah. And what they do with the villains is just so funny. It's,

I actually am really, really excited that you just named all of those, all of those characters. I'm like, no, that's true to the story. It's not about like Spider-Man facing off against the Green Goblin or like Iron Man against the Mandarin. It's like, no, Hawkeye against... All of these villains who are some of them are very dastardly and some of them are just idiots. And Hawkeye, I have not seen the show, but like Hawkeye in this book is an idiot. And that's also what I love about him. He's a lovable cook. Hawkeye and you know that you're like how closely does that match Renner we'll find out but like I think it's like the vibe of the Hawkeye comic is Hawkeye covered in bandages from his last fight is just sort of wearily like who's next you know what I mean like that's kind of like around every corner there's another track suit there's another villain like ready to Can I defend Jeremy why I think he might actually be good in this Matt fraction as show?

I think he's great but go ahead go ahead yeah Hawkeye is not a likable person in the comic books. And I think one of the things that makes the Hawkeye, the comic they're basing it off of so good, is that Hawkeye is down on his luck. Nobody likes him. He has to do everything himself, and he's constantly messing up.

Kate Bishop is kind of the straight woman of it where she's just like, click, dude. Like, come on, man. And I actually think Jeremy Renner plays that very well where you're just like, you're the least likable adventure here. Yeah, I'm here. I'm here for this. I'm here for the show.

I'm really into it. A couple of things we should mention. Fraction mentions Barney Barton. He's not in the show as far as we know. But that's Clint's brother who shows up as like a sort of friend or foe thing towards the end. And then the ASL hearing loss aspect of it, this is like a long time thing that is associated with Hawkeye with Clint in the comics. and in the fraction run, he loses his hearing

towards the end of the story and there's some ASL stuff in the story. We know that Renner is wearing hearing aids. From the trailer, we know that he's wearing hearing aids in the show. So this is an element

that they're bringing into all of this. What do you make of that part of this story? I think it's going to be fascinating. I think it's fascinating not only for Renner, but I think it's fascinating for Echo, if you know anything about that character who debuted in Daredevil. And famously Daredevil is blind,

but Echo can't hear. Hence, why she's name Echo. And for those, this is just like a nerdy thing. When everybody's like, oh, my God, Hawkeyes Ronin in Endgame, the original Ronin was Echo. So I'm totally cool to see, I want to see Renner in this.

I want to see Echo. I want to see how they play with that because in the comic books, it's played with very, very well. So I really want to see, like, visually, how do you demonstrate not being able to hear and what can you do visually with that? I think it's going to be so excited. Yeah, and we just came off Eternals

where Lauren Ridloff plays, you know, the first non-hearing superhero. And I just think, I don't know, there's a lot of potential here. I'm really excited for Echo. And in the trailer, the shot we get of her in the trailer, she's in that, like, people are really excited because she's bathed in red light.

and it looks very daredevil. That's, I think another reason why people think Kingpin is coming. It just feels like we're doing Daredevil Jason and this. And the thing, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the two comics that are most often described as street level are like Daredevil and Matt Fractions run on Hawkeye. Like, this is the definition of a street-level comic.

Do you agree? It's funny because when people say street-level, there's obviously Daredevil, like he's swinging from buildings. Same thing with Spider-Man. But when you call Hawkeye Street Level, you're like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, this is like a dude paying his rent to, like, a scummy landlord street level. This is just Hawkeye doing his laundry. And that sounds like the most boring comic.

But, no, it's street level in the best way. You're like, oh, what do these heroes do when they're not fighting things? Before we go talk to Fraction, I just want to say in terms of what to expect from the show, in terms of tone. Like, first of all, they're doing a whole holiday thing, which I'm really excited about. about. Love it. Love it.

New York Christmas vibe. But also, the head writer on this is Jonathan Igla, who's a madman writer. The directors they've gotten are Reese Thomas and Burton Birdie, all of whom are comedy directors. Reese does a lot of SNL. Burton Bird and Bert and Bertie did that Viola Davis, Amazon movies, Troop Zero, that came out, I think, last year. So that makes me hopeful for that comedic tone that we like so much.

Like, you don't want a serious Hawkeye. No. You want a weird and wacky hawkye. That's what you want, right? And I will say that the reason I'm excited about this problem, like everybody when the Hawkeye trailer came out in the, in the Ring or Verse fan was like, oh, Hawkeye Show.

And I'm just like, no, I actually think that this is the perfect palate cleanser because Eternals was kind of heavy. Loki, Wanda Vision, Falcon, and the Winter Soldier, all dealing with very heavy themes, which is fine. But I just kind of want to go back to a nice Christmas story, a nice street level, just good old time, just like funny. And everything you're saying about this makes me,

really, really excited. I think at the end of such a tumultuous year, I just want to laugh at Clint Barton and Kate Bishop. Running around New York, cause in trouble. So we're going to talk to Mad Fraction. Just really quickly, some background in him if folks aren't familiar. His wife is Kelly Codaconic,

another incredible comic creator. Legendary. She was, you know, is perhaps best known for making Carol Danvers as popular as she was in the recent run. And so she, like, helped, she consulted on the Captain Marvel movie. She has a cameo in that movie, all that sort of stuff. So, like, this is a powerful comics family, Kelly Sue and Matt Fraction.

Legends, legends. He wrote on Iron Man, a great Iron Fist run. The immortal Iron Fist is perfection. Like, if you want to read, like, a Matt Fraction comic book, most people will give you sex criminals. I'm saying, go read the Immortal Iron Fist. It is fantastic, okay? A running joke that I love in the Hawkeye comic. is like occasionally people are like, are you Iron Fist?

Because he looked, because he, because Davida Ha ha also drew on Immortal Iron Fist. So like he looks a lot like the Danny Rand. It's two blonde dudes and they kind of look alike. And I'm going to tell you, like, if you're trying to binge anything on like Marvel Unlimited, spend the weekend doing an immortal Iron Fist Hawkeye like double feature. You will not be disappointed. Love it. Sex Criminals, as you mentioned, is a wild comic that I, that I suggest people, you know,

Mature content warning, but... Very mature. Don't give it to your kids, unless they are very mature and still probably don't give it to them. But if you're an adult and you're just like, I'm a little tired of superheroes, but I'm feeling frisky. Read some sex criminals. Sex criminals. And last not at least something that Fraction said after we stopped recording is he was like, but it wasn't really off the record. Is he was just like, the Hawkeye thing is so wild to him because he was like, they were trying to fire me.

Like, Hawkeye is the character you give someone you're trying to get rid of. He was like, they saddled me with Hawkeye. They were trying to get rid of me. It's a loser comic. As you said, Charles. And he turned it into gold. And gold that keeps like paying out and paying out. But isn't that funny when you look at like the best comic books of like the last 15, 20 years?

I'm just like when people look at the ones we all talk about like Hawkeye or Moral Iron Fist or like Mr. Miracle or Vision. Oh, Mr. Mercury. Yeah. It's always like the characters that nobody gives a fuck about that are the books that everybody's like, oh, you finally did. something interesting. Wow. So it's, I actually am not surprised Fraction turned Hawkeye into such a hit because that's, that's the Marvel way. When they just give you the shit cupcake, you're just like, hey, guys, I just made one of the best comp books in the last decade. Jokes on you. Tom King's like, I'm on a wild out. No, you have nothing to lose, right? Like, there's no stakes around this.

So you're like, you know what? Let's get weird. You want to get nuts? Let's get nuts. So that's all the background you need to know. I did talk to Matt Fraction for Dune for a while at the start of because I knew he was a huge June fan. I promise we don't talk about Dune the whole time. But I will say, no spoilers, but I have one, I have somebody, I got beat up for my Dune takes. And when Matt Fraction goes in, I'm just like, oh, shit, my boy, I knew Maddie Fraction was a smart fellow.

He's got your back. All right, let us listen to Matt Fraction. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I try. Trust Spectrum business to keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 US-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more.

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So I wanted to start by asking you because I looked around and I couldn't find a definitive answer for this. So let me start by asking you. How much, if at all, are you involved in this production? I am, I think, credited as consulting producer, though I'd have to check with my agent and probably just read the credits. But it's the best because I get to take all the credit and I get to cast glory on David and Annie

and hold none of the blame. I read scripts and offered thoughts. and that was and sort of throughout the process and sort of read through I think three or four kind of big rounds of that kind of through that I think there's three or four rounds of that kind of reading everything I was supposed to be a track suit

I was going to put between kind of COVID and sort of it was it was before shots were really happening and my immunocompromise mother lives with us So traveling was kind of a thing. And we got a pandemic puppy. So between not quite feeling cool to travel and a puppy, I didn't get to be a track suit.

So it's this close to being a track suit other than that consultant producer. I was going to ask you about a cameo because I know that I spoke to your lovely wife, Kelly Seedonic, about her consulting work on Captain Marvel. And she got to do a little, a little cameo. So I was hoping you'd get one. So when my son, I took my son to see Avengers, Infinity War. he lost his mind with the Captain Marvel pager at the end. So much so he then ran to the exit and apologized to everyone as they left the theater

for his oversized reaction. And like, I'm sorry, I hope my yelling didn't, I'm sorry, my mom. So we didn't tell our kids that Kel was in Captain Marvel and we brought them with us to the premiere. I'm like, oh, this will be funny. They're going to lose their minds. and the big fancy with all the stars

and they're gonna, and they were so transfixed by Brue Larson, they did not notice their own mother walk by her. It was other people in the theater did. Other people laughed at it. But my own children were like, keep it down. She's going to a train.

Be quiet. I was going to ask you about that. How much have your kids engaged with your work at all? And is this an opportunity to like show them something where, or are they not going to watch this to? Oh, they love Cal. They love. mom. That was great.

Yeah. I don't think we've read a little. I think Henry, Henry's read a little. Henry's read, I think he read Jim Eelson and Bitson, and they remember Fantastic Four, because they knew they were the kids of Fantastic Four. And like it's kind of reading Fantastic Four to them, like the old stuff when it come out so they have some, but like, I'm, they're more familiar with moms work than mine. Maybe this will be cool enough to make them check it out.

But like, my thing with my kids is like, I don't. push stuff. I try really hard push stuff that I'm into because I can imagine no better way to guarantee your children have no interest in it,

which is really hard for me with Dune, for example. It was really hard for me with Dune. And I don't think I passed the test. I think I kind of believe it with Dune. I'm so thrilled

that you brought up Dune this early because it was like my last question I was going to ask you. It was not going to let you go without talking to you about Dune because I know that you're a huge spice head, as we like to say over here at the ringer. I'm a spice boy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what was your take on the, on the recent Dune film? I did not care for it. Okay. That's disappointing for you, right? It was really, here's why I didn't care for it. It was a movie made for me. It was a movie made for people who read the book annually. It was a movie made for people who know what the Ben, Jester, Litany against Fear is by heart. It was, you know, written, it was a movie made for people who know. know how difficult it is to break school programming.

But like in its attempt to circumvent the ostentatious novelishness of the novel, it was just too opaque. And the sound mix was obliterating. So like, like my, like I watched it with Henry and his best friend and they were like, wait, who did she kill? Who did she kill with her mind? I'm like, no, no, no, no. A fear is the mind.

Like, oh, I couldn't hear it. They literally couldn't. I wanted a movie that was that celebrated, and as flawed as the lynch is, like, it gets the weirdness of the book. Provocative and intriguing and mysterious. And like, whoa, what was that? Even if it means every now and again,

you know, somebody comes out as a monologue happens, and then they walk off screen or whatever. And this was just like, it was great. If you knew the book in the war, there was a banquet. it for you. But as a, there's nothing about it

that invites anyone into that world. It's cold and it's gatekeeping. It's very like, oh, if you get it, you get it. That's interesting. This is a dune.

No, no, this is the biggest of all the dunes. Like, this is the place to like evangelize. And it wasn't even consistent though in that determination of like, oh, we're going to keep the cool stuff back.

We're like, no, we're going to get glimpse of a guy on a worm. Like, I know that was a studio note. I know that was a studio note. There's our condition. Come back to see if somebody on a worm. Like, my kids got so excited when when Dr. Kines whips the wormstick. What was that? I'm like, oh, buddy, just wait. Just wait for the sequel. It's going to be amazing. And then they get it at the end. They're like, oh, well, why do we just? What? I support you and all of your feelings about Dune. Do you think that part of it was you were really excited to share this with Henry?

yeah, yeah, yeah, and too little. Like, look, it's a... Yeah, yeah. But, like, did you see the, um, the interview with lady who plays Lady Jessica on... Rebecca Ferguson? Yeah, yeah. On Colbert. Yeah.

And she hadn't read the book. Yeah. And he had to tell her how important her part is. Like, it's like, it's a book about these women. It's a, it's a world about these women. These women are all are the big players in this. Yeah. And like, the women are the most important characters.

and like your lead actress was so disinterested in your screenplay. She didn't bother to read the book to find out, oh, I'm the most important character in this. Right. And like I think that sets a tonne. I think that explains everything you need to know about like how bubbly and how like, man, maybe don't give the nerds $200 million sometimes to make whatever they want. They're not going to be cool to you. You weren't fool of them.

We're not going to be cool to you. I don't know. I wanted something that was more intrigued. being, it would appeal to my daughter. Nothing about that would be appealed to my daughter. Oh, what about my. That's so bad. And Timothy Chalemette without a shirt on, made a young lady I don't get up and leave

the room. And not like in a, she was having feelings way, but in a lot of what was that pile of sticks doing? I'm out. Not for me. She said, not for me. Not today, sir. I am so psyched to be here on your Dune podcast.

This is all I wanted to do for like six weeks. Listen, I love a Dune podcast. I would do it all day long. I love Dune. but I respect your feelings about it. All I wanted was a movie that made my kids want to read that book, and I didn't get that movie. Exactly, exactly. And I get that.

And, like, I think that to elegantly swerve back to Hawkeye, I think that's one thing, obviously that a lot of people respond to about the comic run that you did, is that I've given it to a lot of people who aren't into comics, haven't read comics, don't think comics are for them, are overwhelmed by continuity that they have to track. and the beauty of Hawkeyes, that it is so standalone-ish. But it was really interesting. I was listening to talk to my pal Mo Ryan many a year ago about something I didn't know, didn't realize, is that the whole section of the comic

where Kate Bishop goes off to California was sort of by inspire, or by virtue of the new Avengers, the new Avengers, and what was happening with her in that book and she had to leave New York. That's at least sweet. you said at the time, that that was part of what was going on.

Oh, that might have been some, I don't even remember. Maybe. But anyway, the point being, like, when it comes to a show like this, show like Hawkeye and the interconnectedness of the MCU, like, what kind of thoughts do you have about this show needing to stand on its own in sort of isolation for people to get excited about it and connecting to the larger MCU? I think, I've seen nothing that anyone else is. seen, except I've read the scripts, but like I haven't seen any of the shows, so what it finally is

a month. I don't know, but like, I think there's something brilliant in marketing it as a holiday event, because it's not a Marvel movie. It's not a Marvel show. It's a Christmas show. I love that. Yeah. Right. And so, oh, everybody gets that in there. Right. Oh, right, it's crazy. Yeah, am I getting a home Christmas? I don't know what that movie is, right? We've all had the crazy. I got too much to do before I get it home for Christmas, right? That's the whole, that's the, I get that. which is kind of a great entree into it. And I don't need to know. And I think you'll be covered.

I think it will kind of explain what you need to know will be, you'll be invited into. But it's about the toll that life took on a regular dude. And we're finding him after the Avengers and kind of in his retirement, you know, and sort of reintegrated back into a normal world into his kind of home life for this life and stuff. And sort of like,

it's, that's the kind of story you get. Like, I don't think it, you need to know the specifics other than, oh, you were in the Avengers. Like, I bet that really messed you up if you weren't a god or a super soldier,

you know, $3 billion war suit or whatever. You're just a guy. Which is like one of our favorite things about Hawkeye. And I really love that. Like, to your earlier point about Dune, like, the reason I love Wanda Vision so much

is it was a show that I could invite my friends who aren't in Tomorrow into a show and they could hook into it and get excited about it. And that, you know, I just love that. I love sharing things that I love. And oftentimes with like geek nerd properties, people feel this barrier of entry, that gatekeeping thing that you said, where they have to ingest so much lore in order to even start. I remember somebody saying to me about Game of Thrones at one point.

So if you just give it through the first three seasons. Yikes. You just give it 30 hours of your life. Yikes. No. Sort of like, or not. yeah um like i think i think that's a thing it's like hey there's a there's a cultural there's what 21 22 movies and four shows like it's a it's a i think to kevin fagy's great credit

somebody who kind of innately sees the balance and what's the difference between red meat and easter egg and continuity and consistency and how do you make yeah we're my mom loved Wanda Vision. My mom, I think last saw Iron Man 2. You know what I mean? And she, you know, so like that was interesting to see it. Oh, okay. It isn't so key.

And in fact, then the kind of thing was then to keep my son from, you know, that was getting so excited by all the Easter eggs and red meat. And sort of like, hey, but when you shout, we can't hear the talking. Gramicus lost. So, yeah, I mean, I think, and it's the great virtue of anybody working on the character is that they're the regular people, and it's sort of an excuse to frame everything

through the regular person lens. I don't know that Hawkeye understands everything he has been through, right? Like, that's kind of the charm of the character, right? But it's a, it's all, you know, there's a little bit of, there's, there's, everything you need to know is covered and explained. I think and organically as a part of why the show exists even better. So it's not like, oh, we're going to just happen to bring this up,

but rather the reason these things are happening. You know, it's all part and parcel with the journey that you go on over those six episodes. Over the, you know, since I first read the run and I've reread it a couple times since, I've been trying to figure out why it gives me the vibes, the positive vibes of like a 2010's FX drama that I love. That's what it feels like, or like a dromedy, right? Like, it feels like a TV show to me more than a lot of other comic books do and more than even other comic books that you've done have. Part of it is that whole, you know, there's an arc for an issue and then a larger arc that we're going through, right? So it's like episodic and season arcs sort of to it. But, you know, I'm wondering if that's

something you had consciously in your mind of like structuring it in a TV-friendly kind of way. not TV-friendly, but, you know, I had come off a maybe six-year run on Iron Man, or it was a very long, long, it was the longest run anybody's ever had on Iron Man consecutively. I had a long run on Thor, and just a lot of runs, a lot of long-term kind of thing. So trying to look for new projects, and what was good part of my thinking and what became the book that we made together was that done in one self-conpitched, the chance. challenge of it. Like writing, can you write a self-contained issue that is satisfying and feels like a meal and has a beginning? It's just a craft challenge. It was really hard.

So, yeah, I think part of it was just a rejection of what I've been doing was wanting to keep things interesting and challenging. And at some point, I remember as it had kind of come up into a Marvel editorial retreat, but this was a possible book that three people talked about, well, Hawkeyes here and Hawkeyes there, and he's over in this book. And he wants to go home to do laundry on Thursdays. This is what happens when he goes home to do laundry.

And having to convince everyone that, and even if that meant Kate was going to the West or whatever it was, which I don't even like remember now. But like, okay, I'm everything about this book bends in the breeze. Like this is a, do you have two and a half hours to go burn an errand? I can do a hawk-eye issue in that two and a half hours. Just accept that. Because it was all small ball.

It was all small stories. It was all self-convary. There's one and two-part issue, right? And it's all two-part issues, one in the very beginning and what the very end. But yeah, so it was all these kind of little tiny moments. And then, too, it gets fragmentary. Well, we're telling there's issues. There aren't Hawkeye adventures.

So it doesn't matter where he was on the moon that day, whatever. He was, okay, the dog has an issue. You mentioned your Iron Man Run, which is so interesting because I was looking at your timeline. And I think it's interesting how in a way you were tracking the MCU, right? You started your Iron Man, your Iron Man run debuted 2008. It came out the Wednesday after the movie opened. Yeah. And I know that there was like a separation of church and state, a sort of East Coast, West Coast.

Especially in those days. In those early days. But I'm curious how much that changed over time or, you know, if, by the time you're making Hawkeye how much you're thinking about the MCU or not at all, maybe. I can't speak that. It's almost been 10 years

since I've been gone from the East, from Marvel East from the publishing. So I don't know what it's like now. All I knew about the Avengers movie was Hawkeye was falling in a building room. So that's where that first page came from. I was like, let's hope that seems cool

because maybe people will recognize him. Like that was as that was as much as I got. There was a separation of state for sure. but I was always looking for opportunities to be either the dog or the tail. You know, what's the related? Like, he is really, like, the reason, there was another Iron Man book when ours started.

We were the other Iron Man book. We were the movie tie-in book, right? And it was like, hey, should there be an Iron Man number one on the stands when the movie's out? In case people come into stores looking for Iron Man, like that was literally it. So just tell a clean Iron Man story. I was supposed to last six issues, right?

Mokkeye was supposed to last six issues. But yeah, no, I mean, I think he'd be silly not to, look, it's nice when they make quarter billion dollar commercials for your comic book. Like you should take advantage of it. I don't know if there's editorial marching orders now or what. But when I was there, it was just kind of an awareness of what was happening and what was coming,

but like special information or, you know, anything like that. But there'd be things were like, you could guess, you know, like, oh, why would they hire that guy? Why is Marvel reprinting these things? That's the biggest thing. If you wonder what's going to happen in the Marvel universe, like, look at what books are getting reprinted. I'm like, hmm, that's weird.

We're these Kang books coming out. There was never wisdom that was shared with me particularly. Yeah, so there's not a ton of connected tissue between your Clint and Reiner's Clint to a certain degree. Even, even, I think people who loved your book and wanted to maybe see your book, either turned into a Netflix show when they were doing shows at Netflix or, you know, something like that, had their dreams dashed when Hawkeye gets a family in age of old. and they're like, we can never do the fraction run now, you know?

I feel kind of strongly about that. Like, I guess strong we disagree. And I think the show's proof, right? Yeah. I thought, like, oh, that's the best way to reconcile. Like, like, like, the Avengers too is kind of derided. But, like, as the guy writing Hawkeye,

when that movie came out, they took the kind of, you know, because he was sort of the Ultimates Hawkeye. You know, he was the badass super killer who could assassinate anybody and then, but like, you can't undo that, but they made him real. They gave him a family and a heart that ran around outside of his body,

a wife, like they made him the real guy on the team. And that movie entirely functions because Hawkeye says, I think I saw a couple more people out there, and he gets up and starts moving before Capp and Thor do. And then Cap and Thor show a look and like, you know, if he's going, we got to go. And that was the most, like, like, I think the spirit of the character was honored incredibly while trying to also reconcile these other movies and stuff.

Like, I thought that the spirit of the character was earnest and honest, if not the continuity. But, like, it's consistency that's more important, more interesting to me. So, yeah, and then that's cool now to see this movie, which really is about those two. Zoom just thought I was about to my hand. I just thought a message came up. You're about to raise your hand. I've never seen that before. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I think I dug it. I felt, I felt seen and honored. They felt like, oh, they're making an effort to make him the human pivot of this team. And that was really cool to me. Yeah, I didn't, I guess I didn't, I wasn't saying that like Ultron was like a betrayal or anything like that. But that. I have heard that before from Hawkeye fans. Oh, okay.

You're like, I don't want to, I don't want to yumb anybody's yuck. But, like, I don't know. You're like, I'm here for Linda Cardell eating. I was so disappointed. on her in Mad Men, like my freaks and geeks feelings, I was so like, Lindsay Weir, no, I could not get over that, sorry.

So never not be like Lindsey Weir to me. Completely. I bought an Army jacket just to be like Lindsay Weir. But I think that just logistically, people were like, how are we going to get Hawkeye into the city if he's got a family and a farm in Iowa or whatever? And so, I

think I'm kind of dazzled by the logistics of this show wrangling this plot through somehow anyway with the I gotta be home for Christmas sort of vibe, you know? Yeah, no, Clint lives in Iowa, but you know who doesn't? Kate Bishop.

No, spoilers, Kate lives in New York, I hope. Let's talk about Kate. Let's do it. Let's do it. You know, a major thing that I love about this, your run on this comic is, of course, the Kate and Clint relationship. Like, right from the start,

just the fact that he calls her Hawkeye, she calls him Hawkeye makes me really happy. All of that stuff. I love it. When you decided to put Clinton and Kate, or whoever decided to put Clinton and Kate together in this comic book, what was your inspiration for that relationship?

What was the vibe you were going for? What about that relationship mattered to you? There was a period where Hawkeye was dead and that wasn't dead. And while he was dead, Alan Einberg and Jimmy Chung started a series called Young Avengers. And we're seeing this kind of start to bubble up in the extended Marvel content verse now.

And there was a mini series called Young Avengers Presents. And it was a kind of six-issue thing where each issue focused on one of the adventures and different teams wrote and drew different books based on one of the characters. Again, Brue Baker did, wrote an Elijah Bradley issue. I can't remember everybody, but I did the last one.

the last one was Kate Bishop. And I, and it was interested in what, I wrote a, I wrote a story about a mentorship, which I liked. I liked that relationship. I like the kind of teacher-student relationship. And I wrote that as a kind of, and it was really about, it's just,

as a Hawkeye fan, I could never imagine Clint Barton giving a shit. I think Clint Barton would care if you called yourself Hawkeye and you sucked. He wouldn't care. You know what I mean? That would bum him out, not that you're not that you call him. And so that was it about like that you're going to call yourself Hawkeye.

Right. And so it was fun to write that mentor-menti relationship. And I hadn't quite found the tone or the book yet. I hadn't found the characters yet, but the core of that relationship of like, I'm not very together, but I know two or three things better than anybody. And those are the two or three things you want to learn,

youngster. So let me tell you, ignore, you know, that was the kind of, that, you know, it stuck with me, the core of that. Like, oh, that's not a relationship you see very much. as a centerpiece kind of thing. You know, it's always, it's always in a side character. It's always an Obi-Wan.

It's always a Dumbledore, right? But as sort of a mentor-mente, that's the focus of the thing. I don't know. I just couldn't, in comics it was especially rare. And so that was just there. That was just in my head. And then when the opportunity to write, the book came and I kind of danced around it and danced away from it.

And when I finally figured it out, she was just a part of it. It was about the two of them. It was just about the two regular people and how different they were and how length they were and that mentor-mentee relationship. And when she was teaching him and when he was teaching her and the dog was teaching them things, it just became that sort of the place where the broken people who were really good at two

or three things come together to, you know, I don't know. So that was the, it was handed to me as a here, right of the thing about young Hawkeye. What does she do when Hawkeye comes back because he's not dead and how do they meet? Maybe that was it. Maybe they hadn't met yet. Maybe I got to write that shit. I don't remember.

I don't go back and read my own stuff, so I don't remember. I think they hadn't met, but what I like about the comic is that you drop in into their relationship already established. Do you know what I mean? I think they technically hadn't met on the page, but we drop in on them and they've already, you know, been. Oh, and that was the setup with the bow. That was the thing about she was using his bow. She was using his bow. Yeah.

And him proving that's not the bow that matters. He shows up to give it to her. one of the issues. It's her birthday. I've never said that it's her birthday, but he shows up with his bow, and it's a couple days before Christmas, and she's like, you suck, because he's giving it to her because you're equipped on leaving the worst, and she gets furious at him. And I've never said that was her birthday, but it was... Oh, a scoop.

And out there you go, dropping news all over the case. A scoop. What's interesting about those mentor, mentee, or different people assuming the same mantle in comic book, because usually it's about a passing of the torch. What I like about your comic is that it's just like, no two Hawkeyes can exist. It's fine. But so much, I'm not digging for scoops or anything like this on this question, but so much of the MC right now does feel about passing torches. You've got like...

In that phase, in the transitional phase right now. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned this is like Hawkeye and his post-Avendor's life in this show. Does this feel more like a passing-in-the-torch story to you in that way? It feels like a sharing of the torch story. Okay. To me, it feels, but like at the same time, this is a character who literally can't, like, gets up before Captain America and Thor because he saw a guy. I know. There's a song, one more guy out there. We've got to go.

Like, I think as long as Jeremy Runner's knees hold out, there's always a reason for a hot guy to get up to some kind of business, you know. I'm not sure where spoilers end and interpretation begins, and if I'm inflicting my interpretation on other people, I don't know, it's about the price you pay to be an Avenger and, like, scoring up your bill at the end of the day. How, what that means is a choice. and as a as a parent who's trying to like suddenly Clint has his other daughter, you know,

and like, I don't know that I want you to get into the family business and Kate can't stop getting into the family business and she's got her own thing and all of it kind of built around just keeping, you know, I guess keeping your electric clean, right? Keeping your balance at zero or whatever, your karma balance. So it's, you know, it's a kind of, you know, make sure that you understand the good and the bad. it's not all cool arrows and trick shots, right? There's a, there's a karmic bet that you implied. But the thing they haven't come is they can't stop helping people.

It's interesting. I reread your run yesterday, and I never sat down and read it all together in one go. But I did that yesterday, and something that I never noticed before is how often Clint says, if this happens, I'll never forgive myself. I'll never forgive myself. It's something he says over and over again. very like Matt Murdoch Catholic guilt of him or whatever. But it's worse. It's Protestant guilt. There's no redemption for Protestants.

You just have to work harder. That's it. That's it for you. Catholics get to say you're sorry. Protestants. Oh, man. Get back in the field. Let me ask you a question I should have asked you at the beginning, which is like what was your reaction when you found out that they were not only doing a Hawkeye show. They were doing a Hawkeye show that hewed so closely to the book that you and David made. And Annie. I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I mean, it's such a visual medium. Annie Wu is like my favorite comics.

Yeah. And the thing was really great. Aside from seeing that like some poor CG artists is, is having to CG out that poor dog's eye. Seeing some of the faces that Haley Stanfeld was like doing and like, oh, that's it. That's a Annie Wu face. She's doing any faces. That was sort of as much as the costume and the color on the logo or whatever. Like, like, like, I'm not just speaking with the beat.

I mean, it's cool. It's amazing. It's great. Holy shit. It's the craziest. It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. Um, especially because like, like I said, it was supposed to last five issues, six

issues, you know, like it was a dog. It was a loser from the get-go. Like, everything about this book has defied every expectation. So, um, it's, it's also kind of touched by magic and coincidence in a, in a way. way that like I'm not I'm not like a you know woohoo kind of guy so when I encounter woohoo kind of things I tend to give them more gravity than maybe

they need because I'm so it's not about my thing what a coincidence this has never happened before to me but like I had a friend who wrote her thesis about comics and visual

language and representations of ASL and she wrote about sign language use and Hawkeye as part of her book. And she was a lovely and gifted incredibly bright person. And she was on her train going home. Like she was tired. And I think it was right around this time last year.

It was into the holidays, right? And she was like nodding at that place on the subway where you're kind of awake and kind of asleep. And she opens her eyes. And she sees Clint Barton come down the subway station. And then Kate and Lucky follow him. and she's holding a bow and a purple coat. She's like, oh, I'm dreaming. No, I'm at the fact.

And she realizes then that they are filming in her, and she gets her camera out and just takes, as the train starts to move. So the day that there's set league photos, it wasn't her. Because like I said, she only just got a little. Oh, yeah, yeah. The weirdest thing of all the people in all the world

and all the subway stations and all the trains and all the cars, all the moments. It was her. So that was kind of how I found out it was happening. was somebody's, look, they're making it. It's real, right? Wait, you didn't know before that? No, I knew, but I didn't know when they were, who knows, right? I'm not going to believe it until next week when I'm there at the thing with everybody.

I'm like, I'm still not going to believe it, right? But it was so, what? Of all the people in the world to wake up from a nap to find the thing she spent this year of her life studying happening, right? So it's little moments like that kind of happen all over. It's pretty cool. That's wild. Speaking of Lucky, I'm speaking now on behalf of my co-host, Mallory Rubin, who is like the world's number one Lucky fan. His name is Jolt.

Yes. Lucky is, you know, obviously there's the famous issue number 11, but like in general, Lucky has so much, I was just listening to you, talk to Mo Ryan, about how you thought of Lucky is like the animus of Clint and all the sorts of like that. that is so much harder to do with the real dog on a on a show you know like so what what are your hopes and dreams for lucky and how he comes across in the show versus on the page he's a good dog joanna i don't know what to say a very good dog he's a good boy um i just hope he just like i just hope he stays grounded i hope he has good people around him to give him good choices and i hope he's got people that he loves and trusts to tell him no you know i just want the best for him um i here he's reading for a part in Dune too.

I'm really excited. Is he shy hallood or like? Yes, he's the big worm. He's the big worm. It's going to be really good. It's going to be great. Yeah, that's like it was my, he was my dog. I don't know if you know that, if you know that story.

But like, I literally, I wrote the issue, the first, like, it was written all out of order. Like, the initial pitch was what was issues four and five. and then for issue two and you know like oh this is really more like an issue one okay and then I didn't know what to do

for the first issue and then my dog died and then I had it and wrote it like it's this continuing communion I think with this anima right with this the Numbi right it just keeps talking to me

and I keep listening and now look now it's going to be an action figure it's great my anima has an action figure beat that Carl Jung Let me ask you about this Disney Plus era of Marvel Because something that I think is interesting Something that Feigy once said to me is that I was asking him

If you thought of his movies as like a TV series Like each movie being sort of an episode And it comes together in like a season finale With an Avengers movie or something like that And he was like, no, my guiding principle are the comics Like we're trying to tell the stories like they tell them in the comics because we feel like that's the best way, you know, that's the tried and true way that these characters have hit with people over the years. But something I think that's interesting with the TV shows is that we're moving even closer with the medium of TV to how people have ingested comic book narrative.

So I'm wondering if you agree with that. What do you think about the form of television as a way to do a comic book style story? I mean, I think it's great. I think it certainly allows for a more traditional serial narrative kind of experience. I think we're loosening up around models, you know, a little bit, which is exciting. It's not quite like true BBC style yet, but I think the real revolutionary commoner, you know what, it's only seven episodes, or it's 11 episodes, or it's 13, or it's nine, or it's six instead of these are all 13. I mean, I think all of those Marvel Netflix shows suffered for their episode order, right?

This sort of like, oh, there's a unnecessary. SAG. Yeah. What's interesting to me is how, like, with the start of things like, whether it's Shang Chi and this reminder that there's a whole other half of the world, right? And also, not only that he's young, like, he's kind of the most demonstratively young. I get Peter Parker. He's probably even younger than Peter Parker, though.

You know what I mean? Like that, well, high school, why? Probably not. But that's that kind of like, oh, there's youth here and, you know, Asia. But then sort of like Eternals introducing the idea that not all of us are wrapped up in all the same stuff. We're doing our thing and you're doing your thing. And that's the most comic book idea of like, oh, no, there were seven apocelopses last week. Just because the Avengers were at this one, there was one over here and one over there.

that's sort of the most ethereal and anti-media, anti-broadcast media. I don't know that that's ever going to sync, but that's something about Eternals, like, oh, you know, we're here the whole time doing our shit. It's a whole other thing you don't even know about it. Like, that's the most comic book, which kind of makes sense, because Eternals is like the most comic book, comic book, comic book. So I have the most comic book movie in that. And sort of, yeah, it's all happening in parallel.

Like I said, he's on the moon tomorrow. He's doing his laundry on Thursday. And then he's, you know, fighting Hydra on Friday. but Thursdays he does his laundry. Wednesday we fight space comics. It is, I mean, it is a challenge that I think, you know, when Faggy at all at Marvel had the idea to make this a bigger interconnected universe

to do something that other comic book adaptations hadn't done before, you know, that's considered one of Marvel's most brilliant ideas, the Marvel Studios' most brilliant ideas, and I agree with it. But then I think maybe a challenge they didn't anticipate is too much interconnectedness means, we have to explain why Carol Danvers wasn't here for the last couple decades. She fucked off to space.

That's what she was doing. You know, or like why the Eternals weren't fighting and stuff like that. So I think this is a time of trying to move back to a space where it's okay that Thor doesn't show up to every fight. Or it's okay. You know what I mean? And like... That was my biggest problem with whatever the first solo movie was after Avengers,

was I remember feeling like, well, why don't you just call the Avengers? It's like, oh, right, right, that's not this. That's not what this is about, right? And it takes a minute to kind of, it's going to have to be repeated is basically what Kevin does, right? Like, we're going to, like, you know, I worked on Iron Man 2 for a week. I remember sitting in his office one time.

I'm like, he's going to say, like, how do you get to Avengers? And he, like, there's 9,000 bad ways, and there's, like, maybe two good ways. And, like, he was always when, like, working with him and Jeremy Lacham and other guy from Marvel and Sean Fabro, Justin Thoreau and me and Thoreau and Fabro would all kind of start to bark up nerd trees and like, oh, you could, and Kevin was always like the red light guy because he was like, too much is too much that you can't make people feel like you can't punish him for missing out on things.

But he had this like, he kind of saw like Thor gets us to Cap and Cap gets us to there. and we've got this and like he kind of had this balance that he saw the very very very a precepts heterogeneous kind of branching narratives and what possible futures you wanted to narrow down and like we're in a place now of that that kind of all right remind everybody not everything's happening all at once I'm over here you're over there we're all dealing with it and aware of it but it's not all there's more than 30 people there are 30 stars you know the world is bigger than them right so sort of like a good yeah yeah and i think then seem to go from something like eternals that's so to hawkeye that is so small like that's a lesson in scale and scalability you know and that's that's

i think the kind of the brilliance of wanda vision was this is an incredibly intimate story and i think that was the challenge and has been in many cases the victory of phase four is sort of like how are you going to keep them down on the farm after they've seen thanos right like how How are we going to care about anything when something as big as Thanos has happened? And the answer seems to have been make it so incredibly personal. Make it a love story between Wanda and Vision. Make it a sister story between Natasha and Helena. Make it a father's son story in Shung Chi.

Like, make it so, so personal. Put Tony Lung in it. Just slap Tony Lung and everything. That's my vote for everything from now. It's like, can you put Tony Lung in it? Come on. Great. What was Wendoo doing with the Eternals?

Let's find out. You have you see Geline and Jolie smolder? It's smoldering Tony Lung. Come on. It's right there.

Wow. That's the only movie I want to see now. Jesus. Okay. Yeah, but yeah, but that's the best

the Marvel stuff always does. It's the characters. It's the human scale of the Marvel universe. It's always about Peter Parker has to get those pills

home to hand. A. Yeah, Green Goblin, yada, yada. I gotta get these pills home. Like, I got a set test

instead of four. That's this goddamn dog. I got to keep care of. The dog And like, as you said before, I mean, I just think that, I mean, obviously, like, I mean, I love the joke in the comic where Clint refers to Cadus as Ward. So, like, obviously, like, you've had Batman and Robin exist before, et cetera. But, like, that found family sort of beautiful connection between these two characters, which I'm excited to see play out in the show is something that's so special about it. Yeah.

Yeah. their energy is just pretty tight like this. It's going to be fun. This is not a spoiler because casting news has been announced like that, but there's a million and one villains in your run. There's like a council of villains. There's all kinds of villainy happening. And there's a tons of villains have been cast for this six-episode run.

You know, without spoiling anything, like, can you say, like, is there a villain you're most excited for people to get to see? Yeah, but he's not in it. I don't know if that's, can I answer a question with the negative? Like, I don't know if Barney Barton exists in the Marvel Cinematic Extended Universe. If there's a reason for a Hawkeye 2, it's your brother comes home for Christmas, man. Give me the National Amphoons Christmas vacation Hawkeye story where Barney comes to crash in Iowa and brings all hell with them. Like, there's your sequel show right there.

That's so funny. Bad news shows up on the doorstep and it's your brother and you got to let him in. And like, that's, Barney, I'm psyched to see. I want, I want Barney to happen. I want that one thing. Oh, shit, did I just pitch Hawkeye too? I did. Well, there's also Hawkeye, too.

Kate goes to California. Or maybe that's... I think that's Hawkeye. I think that's West Coast Hawkeye. I think you called them both Hawkeye and let there be confusion in the marketplace. That's the joke. It worked great for us. Let them fight.

I love that. Is it California, Hockey? I don't know. Is it sunny or snowy? Snowy. Okay, it's not California. I think she's only referred to as Lady a Hawkeye once and Lady Bro also. But like that made me really happy because I'm like, she's just Hawkeye.

It's just fine. Lady Hawkeye. Yeah. Although my son, that was, that was a direct conversation with my son, the Hawk guy with the G. My son thought he was Hawk guy. And I just bit for bit took that transcription of a conversation. Instead of me being with a 50-year-old man, it was with my. at the time, six-year-old son.

That's one of my favorite jokes. You've already touched on a bunch of things that's important to you in the story or what you think is sort of vital to the story that you and David and Annie told. But like, when you're consulting producer on the show, when you're looking at these scripts, obviously you're not, you don't have like full control over this. But when you're giving feedback, you know, what was the most important thing for you to preserve in this? Well, you know, it's, I could only offer counsel based on where I had come from. I mean, I could offer my own thoughts just as a writer, you know, just as a observer. I could hear what about this, whatever, I'd have a question or a logic ping or whatever, just kind of workshoppy stuff.

But like the thing of value, aside from my fucking unassailable soundtrack recommends, I don't know what music is in the show. I made a pretty tight Spotify, let me tell you. Are you going to make that public? Do we get to access the Hawkeye Spotify? Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I thought David for a long time had his run of,

David made a playlist for every issue. No, I mean, I would sort of just talk about what my take and read and interpretations on the characters were. And it was just that. everything was just sort of about being character forward and how I saw them and how I viewed them but even that is different than

than who they are on the show right so it's not quite one to one or I talked a lot about trauma and and complex living with complex PTSD and I talked about depression or I talked about how just what my approaches were

maybe you will find value this guy you know it's kind of like let me give you a menu of things that may or may not help listen don't listen um an opinion is sort of ways to like how i interpreted what the characters were and who the characters were and why um but but it was all very like they they everyone was so loving and respectful and effusive in their praise for deviate and annie and haviere and steve and jesse and like and and and and francesco like everybody was so upfront about even even the Chris Eliopolis issue

Reese was trying really are to get winter friends in there. Like even the Chris Eliopolis issue, the Reese was fighting that may happen. I don't know if you wanted,

but again, a sequel. So yeah, all I could kind of do is like, here's how I always read it and here's how I played it and here's how I view them

and here's how I view her or here's how I view him or this or that the other and kind of, you know, uh, Oprah DeBest. Were you dealing,

were you like in communication mostly with Reese or with Jonathan? Or like who were you talking to? I was in the room. Jonathan sort of did the show for me like as an extended monologue. And then it was all. Then I was just reading and giving notes. And then once shooting started, yeah,

I was kind of like they were, I just wanted to stay out of the way. I don't want to be, you know what I mean? So I was like, I help, put me and coach, you know, one of the producers,

Trin-Tren with, uh, come to me with notes and or questions or specific things or recent, you know, like it's all kind of,

yeah, how can I help, right? You guys have a show to make. So let me stay the hell out of your way. Yeah. Like, yeah,

I don't remember my, just, yeah, let me help. Let me help, let me help, let me help, I have just a couple more minutes and then I will let you go.

So thank you so much. Seriously for this time. It made me really happy. Rogers, the musical. Any thoughts or feelings? I think it's hilarious. I was a fan from the minute it happened

and just couldn't believe I couldn't believe they gave it away in the trailer It seems to me so good I can't believe they'd have made a meal out of that But all right That's how confident they are They put that shit in the trailer Yeah

I'm like I'm I'm not Blowing Smoke up your ass right now Like I am so excited For this show I'm so excited for the show For Rogers a Musical For Hawkeye this is the thing that I am really most hyped about.

There's a core of like Hawkeye super fans that I came to know who were also Hamilton, like OG Hamilton Trash and like pre-Roggers theater, you know, like it was at the public? Where was it at? It was in the public, yeah. And like there's a world where those are the people who then actually make a fan-produced Rogers the musical just because they're the kind of industrious crafty superfans

that do things like that. I don't know. It's fascinated to see what the life of Rogers, the musical is going to be outside of the show. I feel like that Venn diagram is a circle between Hamilton Trash and Hawkeye Superfans. This is one of the main for sure. A target of bull's eye, if you were.

Well, bringing it all together right here at the end. Thank you so much for the shot. I really appreciate it. Yeah, this has been great. So that's a wrap on this episode of The Ringerverse. Thank you so much again to Matt Fraction. The Midnight Boys will be on Wednesday's first ever edition of the Midnight Misses. Do you like sand?

Do you feel like it's rough and gets everywhere? Or do you just love when it gets everywhere? Well, if you love sand everywhere and you love the great Thomas Aden Church, then have I got great news for you, pull one out, people were. were asked, people answered, Spider-Man 3 will be the subject of the first Midnight Boys, Midnight Misses episode. So give that one a rewatch and then come back on Wednesday. And here Van and Charles and Steve and Jomey pull it to bits and pieces or perhaps defend it.

We'll see. We'll find out on Wednesday. House of Our Working Title will be back on Friday with our Wheel of Time, Deep dive. Follow at the Ringerverse on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. You can join. Send your questions. Send your thoughts. I want to send some thanks as ever to our chief bros, our very own track suit mafia, Steve Allman for producing this episode, our Gina Ramtapal and TD St. Matthew Daniels

for their additional production work. And of course, our social bro. Show me a dinner on. Thank you so much. And Charles, anything else before we go? Brough, this has been amazing. Bro, thank you. What's the difference between butter

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