There’s a great cycle, a metaphorical circle of life to be found in the pages of our favorite comic books, especially as it comes to characters influencing one another. While initially positioned as little more than a Batman clone, Green Arrow developed as a (you should excuse the expression) straight-arrow rich guy stick-in-the-mud throughout the fifties. When Stan Lee created Hawkeye The Marksman in the early 60s, he gave him a loose-cannon loudmouthed personality to differentiate him from his predecessor, but by the early 1970s, Denny O’Neil followed suit by making Green Arrow an outspoken hothead as well. These days, both men have diverged from that characterization as well, but both still get major points for standing alongside gods and monsters with only a bow and arrow and a smart mouth, with leads us to today’s pointed query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) has always thought that Black Canary could have done better than either, but most comic romances have that element, asking: Who would YOU choose to save you with the one-in-a-million bullseye shot; Hawkeye or Green Arrow?
8 Comments
Green Arrow, but preferably Connor Hawke (from before they changed him and long before the New 52 made him Earth 2’s Red Arrow) over Oliver Queen unless it is either Batman: The Brave and The Bold or DCAU Ollie.
I’d go with Ollie. I mean, he did make that shot in Dark Knight Returns with one arm. It’s hard to use a bow with only one arm.
Not only that, but several times he lost his bow and was able to use Elongated Man as a weapon… one time he used Elongated Man as the bow and Red Tornado as the arrow. Who needs a “fastball special”?
Cant argue against that.
I’d have to go with Green Arrow because Hawkeye is just Marvel’s Cheap Knock-off of the original – only they made him purple instead of green. And even if you don’t credit Green Arrow as the inspiration for Hawkeye, Green Arrow has been around since 1941 and Hawkeye is a Johnny Come Lately only dating back to 1964, so Oliver Queen has a 23 years of archery experience over Hawkeye. On the downside, GA had all those stupid gimmicks like Boxing Glove arrows and Net Arrows and Anvil Arrows etc. that, in the real world, would never fly in more ways than one. To take away from Hawkeye, on the other hand, he started out as a Marvel villain. But, in reality, if the two characters ever met they wouldn’t be able to finish the fight – they’d both start spewing out their angst all over the place and depress each other so badly that they’d each cut their own throats. I can’t stack up their TV and movie personas against each other because I haven’t seen The Arrow yet, but since I thought both Black Widow and Hawkeye were totally out of place in the Avengers movie – bordering on Mary Sue and Gary Stu characters – I’d probably lean towards the TV GA just because those two characters annoyed me so much in the movie.
Hawkeye. Cuz I like how he poses…
theHawkeyeinitiative.com
How about if I just cheat and say Robin Hood?
Gotta also go with GA. While I was always more a fan of Marvel growing up and thus read tons more Hawkeye adventures over my 50 years than I did Green Arrow, I have always been more fond of the look and personality of the Green Archer. I know (like you have written) that both seem to follow the other in some manner, but I always enjoyed Ollie more. Maybe it was those great GL/GA issues or maybe it was that fact he had Canary … but yeah, when it comes to the two hot-head archers, I think I would save Ollie.
Besides, Hawkeye always seemed more like a baby than a hothead. Always whining about Cap being the leader of the Avengers or something like that. Very low self esteem I think..