Clint Barton’s characterization in Hawkeye makes him the opposite of Iron Man while simultaneously tying the two heroes together, thematically. Barton’s MCU family was revealed in Avengers: Age of Ultron, giving the founding Avengers member additional humanization and building off his foundation in its 2012 predecessor. The same film also showed the lengths that Tony Stark is willing to go to protect the world from existential threats, leading to well-intentioned yet misguided actions that can backfire with disastrous consequences.
In Hawkeye, Clint Barton ends his Christmas vacation with his children early for their safety and the safety of Kate Bishop, all of whom are endangered by the repercussions of Barton’s stint as the vigilante Ronin following Thanos’ snap. Tony Stark, still traumatized by the Chitauri invasion in 2012, initiates his Ultron program to prevent another cataclysm, only for his AI to go rogue and attempt to destroy humanity. Unsurprisingly, given that they’re both superheroes, Hawkeye and Iron Man are both motivated by a need to protect others, among other things.
In Hawkeye episode 4, “Partners, Am I Right?,” a rather dark moment demonstrates that Barton is willing to go to any lengths to protect his family. Upon discovering that Maya Lopez is aware of his family, he indirectly threatens her - which is both an unexpected move, and one that strikes a decidedly different tone to the relatively comedic show. This is the inverse of Tony Stark’s behavior in earlier MCU installments, where his desire to “put a suit of armor around the world” is similarly desperate, leading to catastrophic mistakes like Ultron.
As one of SHIELD’s best agents, Hawkeye is no stranger to killing, and he used lethal force against numerous Chitauri and Hydra soldiers in the first two Avengers films, but he only did so out of necessity on the battlefield. Threatening Maya Lopez’s life proves that Barton’s family means everything to him. Barton’s grief at losing his entire family to Thanos via the snap led him to become Ronin and kill countless criminals, feeling enraged that they survived while his family didn’t.
Tony Stark’s mistakes throughout the MCU mirror Barton’s actions, but on a far larger scale. Barton is primarily motivated by keeping his family safe while Tony Stark’s vast wealth and resources allow him to operate on a global scale, with far greater ramifications. Stark went behind the backs of most of his teammates and created Ultron, who went on to destroy Sokovia. In Captain America: Civil War, he supported a similarly wrongheaded law that would have put the Avengers under the command of potentially corrupt actors. After cataclysms, Stark often builds numerous additional armors, such as Iron Legion after the Chitauri invasion and thirty-five new suits after the snap.
In many ways, Hawkeye and Iron Man are the inverts of one another. Tony Stark is the most well-known and famous Avenger, both in-universe and in real life, while Clint Barton is the most underrated. Iron Man is ostentatious, while Hawkeye is discrete (a running gag in his TV series). Despite this, both superheroes share a sense of altruism and desperation to protect those they care about, even if it means crossing certain lines, and Barton demonstrated in Hawkeye.
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