Dive with me into the world of Hawkeye and his new tattoo sleeve. For those unaware, the most recent trailer for Avengers: Endgame shows our favorite bow-toting man with a full sleeve, and I have a lot of questions. Mainly why, but also how, and why not throw in a “who let this happen” for good measure.
First, I’d like to point out that this is an image of Clint Barton is a previous trailer for Avengers: Endgame. Note that he doesn’t have a giant, colorful tattoo taking over his arm.
So the above is likely a flashback to Happy Hawkeye Home on the Range before the Snap. Now, if you look at this image from the latest trailer for Avengers: Endgame, Clint went full Travis Barker at some point and decided that he wanted to be the drummer for Blink 182.
Why? As Comicbook.com points out, that appears to be a … Samurai … skull? on the bicep. So this is presumably all Ronin-related. At least the Samurai skull part is. Lest we forget, Ronin is the identity Clint takes on in his vigilante “no gods no masters” phase, which we assume comes post-Snap with the loss of his family. Perhaps other segments of the tattoo are symbolic of different stages of this emotionally fraught journey.
Comicbook’s Charlie Ridgely absolutely nails how the sleeve’s deeper meaning might be introduced into the MCU:
If I had to guess, I’d bet there is a scene in Endgame where someone asks Clint about his tattoo, and he goes through a very depressing speech about the history of the ronin warriors in Japan and why losing his family made him one in the same. Just a hunch.
I can see the scene in my mind’s eye already, exactly so.
The tattoo is showcased prominently in the trailer, so it’s here for us to speculate upon and meme to our heart’s content. And Twitter seems to all be having the same crisis that I’ve been suffering about his full arm sleeve.
no more mr. nice hawkeye pic.twitter.com/7m1DrNyWPb
— Leah Marilla Thomas (@leahmarilla) April 2, 2019
“Well the skull represents my late wife and the two lizard tails wrapped around my arm are my kids.” pic.twitter.com/yHNYa0m2dU
— Marika Brownlee (@marikaelon) April 2, 2019
Doesn’t Hawkeye’s sleeve tattoo prove that his family is alive and he’s just going through a divorce?
— Tom Reynolds (@tomreynolds) April 2, 2019
After his whole family died, Hawkeye got really into esports, playing Soul Calibur and eventually getting a sick tattoo of his main, Yoshimitsu pic.twitter.com/JRCjBLOA6t
— James Grebey (@jgrebes) April 2, 2019
Avengers: Endgame is gonna be the culmination of like 10 years worth of movies, but I’m totally hung up on Hawkeye’s sad man haircut and his ELABORATE RONIN TATTOO that he got because he family died. pic.twitter.com/MDdD0ZMzmU
— Christian Hoffer (@CHofferCBus) April 2, 2019
Hawkeye, trailer 1, starts using a sword: okay?
Hawkeye, trailer 2, has buzz cut on one side of his head: uhhhh
Hawkeye, trailer 3, has full sleeve tattoo: … pic.twitter.com/Wt8HAI8JHE
— Alex Zalben (@azalben) April 2, 2019
Or maybe this hurts me because I realize that I’d be Clint Barton in this scenario. I’d be excited about a raccoon and covered with a whole bunch of angsty tattoos.
clint’s eyeline lmfao “does everyone else realize there’s a FUCKING RACCOON IN HERE?” pic.twitter.com/Hduqao7NDl
— world of garbage (@deansnuggles) April 2, 2019
Are we going to get a real backstory to the tattoos? Is this a Jack from Lost situation? Someone help me, I think the Avengers: Endgame trailer has broken me.
(image: Marvel Entertainment)
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