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With the Snap and its after-effects well covered territory for the MCU, Hawkeye refocuses on the other big event in its recent history.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Hawkeye, now streaming on Disney+.
The consequences of the Blip in the Marvel Cinematic Universe were so deep that the event came to define the timeline. Everything in the MCU can now be codified into taking place before the Blip or after it. That was echoed in the real world, to an extent, by the 12-month wait between the release of Avengers: Infinity War — which ended with the Snap — and Avengers: Endgame which finally undid it. Marvel fans got to live with it for a time just as the surviving onscreen heroes did.
Hawkeye refocuses the attention back to the MCU’s previous big event. The Battle of New York from 2012’s The Avengers played a similarly outside role as the Snap, both within the franchise’s universe itself and in its impact on real-world pop culture. It’s an understandable move, given the show’s placement on the MCU’s timeline two years after the events of Endgame. It also puts the fallout from the Battle of New York in better context, something it hasn’t done as much of as it did with the Blip.
Thanos’ instant murder of half of all life in the galaxy has touched nearly every MCU project since Endgame in one way or another. Spider-Man: Far from Home opened with the comedic fallout of the missing people’s return, while WandaVision explored Scarlet Witch’s grief and rage at the loss it incurred, and the Falcon and the Winter Soldier revealed the practical problems an event like the Blip would cause on a global scale. It even played a key role in Loki which revealed that the Snap had to happen in order for the ”sacred” MCU timeline to exist.
All of that provided ample opportunity for the franchise to flesh out the effects of such an event, from the level of individuals and nations alike. But with Phase 4 rapidly moving on, and topics such as the Multiverse quickly moving into the forefront, continued exploration of the Blip is beginning to repeat itself. When Loki reduced the infinity Stones to literal paperweights in Season 1, Episode 1, “Glorious Purpose,” it appeared to close the book on the topic for good.
The Battle of New York, on the other hand, has left a much smaller footprint; at least as far as the amount of screen time devoted to it. Unlike the Blip, it’s considered a major victory, as the newly formed Avengers repelled a sudden and seemingly overwhelming assault from alien invaders for the first time. The Avengers closed with a grateful world saying “thank you” to its heroes in myriad different ways, but beyond that and the subsequent appearance of Chitauri technology in projects like No Way Home and Agents of SHIELD, little direct mention has been made of it.
Hawkeye, however, steps directly up to the plate, starting with its long-promised in-universe Steve Rogers musical, which reimagines the battle as a show-stopping tune called “Save the City.” It’s part of a larger pattern, as Barton attempts to enjoy a night in New York City with his kids and is constantly reminded of his role in saving humanity that day. That ranges from the owner of a restaurant tearing up his bill – which he’s not entirely comfortable with – to Kate Bishop herself, who witnessed the attack as a small girl and saw Hawkeye save her and her mother from a group of Chitauri.
The idea began with the vaunted Marvels comic line by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross, which reimagined canonical battles from the POV of often terrified civilians. Bishop’s experience matches that tone, suggesting than New Yorkers suffered a good deal of trauma from the incident and view the Avengers in a manner not dissimilar to 9/11’s responders. That creates a much different tone than the loss of the Blip, as well as setting the heroes on pedestals in a way they weren’t with Thanos’ attack. Hawkeye and the other Avengers lost friends and loved ones to the Blip as well as everyone else, a far cry from their more detached role as saviors in the Battle of New York. Hawkeye clearly believes it can do better digging into those issues than rehashing the same event again. Though only two episodes in, the decision has already helped it stand out.
To see how the Battle of New York’s after-effects are examined, the first two episodes of Hawkeye are now streaming on Disney+.
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