One of the best comic series in recent history is Matt Fraction & David Aja’s ‘Hawkeye.’ When the book debuted in 2012, it won instant acclaim among fans and critics alike. The unexpected hit starring avenging archers Clint Barton and Kate Bishop won award after award during its run, but it was set to end earlier this year with issue twenty-two before the duo moved onto ‘All-New Hawkeye’ by Jeff Lemire and Ramon Perez. However, due to a number of unexplained delays tracing back to issue twenty-one of ‘Hawkeye,’ issue one of the new run has been on shelves for a few weeks without the previous one wrapping things up with their final issue. Now, it appears that the popular Marvel comic has been delayed yet again.
According to io9, the release of ‘Hawkeye’ #22 has been pushed from this week to June 10th. This follows similar delays with the prior issue where it was scheduled for a December 2014 release, but it actually came out on February 4th, which was the original release date for the series finale. Because of these scheduling problems, the second trade ‘Hawkeye Volume 2’ has been pushed from September to November.
If you’re looking for some sort of explanation for the massive setbacks plaguing one of the House of Ideas’ most popular comics, it’ll certainly be hard to find. The publisher is keeping quiet about these problems and shows no sign of comments any time soon. After all, they’re almost in full on hype mode for ‘Secret Wars’, the next company-wide crossover event that extends to multiple facets of the company beyond just comics. As for the creators, Aja notes on his Twitter that he is as in the dark about the release of the final issue as we are. Fraction is quite busy with his creator-owned books at Image Comics like ‘Sex Criminals,’ ‘Satellite Sam,’ and ‘ODY-C.’ On top of that, he and wife Kelly Sue DeConnick have recently ventured into the television business thanks to their deal with Universal that will see the comic book power couple develop their work as original TV shows under the banner of Milkfed Criminal Masterminds. Basically, it doesn’t sound like we’ll be hearing from the people behind the scenes for the time being.
With two months to go until the supposed release of ‘Hawkeye’ #22, are you still excited to see the end of this incredible comic book series? Do you have any theories about why it has been delayed so many times? Let us know in the comments below.
