West Coast Avengers (1984) #4

[iamrman]

And now, the thrilling conclusion!

Comments

[mazway_75]

I always enjoyed Clint adjusting to going from rebel to team leader.

[scorntx]

"And it would be hoped that after this experience that Hawkeye finally understood what a pain he'd been to the other Avengers all these years, and changed his attitude.
And he did.
For about five minutes."

This whole thing with Rhodes taking Tony's place and no-one suspecting anything is a little sus.
Assuming the armour disguises the voice, Rhodey doesn't talk like Tony.
... though I can easily believe Hawkeye is unobservant enough to never notice anything different.
He'll just claim afterwards he was suspicious.

[michael_ellis_day]

It's especially odd given that Iron Man was Hawkeye's first foe; in fact he originally took on the identity due to jealousy of Iron Man, though I expect that may have been retconned later. Clint really should have known this was a different guy immediately. It would have made a better story: Clint dropping references to the past that Rhodes has to bluff his way through, Rhodey getting more and more anxious about pulling this off, and then when he finally unmasks Clint saying "Man, I clocked you right away. I was just waiting to see what your deal was!"

[beyondthefringe]

There's always the issue that for the longest time, Avengers' private lives were kind of off-limits for the most part, and some kept their identities secret from the rest of the team for quite a while. Tony and Thor-as-Don Blake were two of the longest holdouts; while some folks knew who they were, others didn't. (The team circa 215-216 learned who each other was the hard way when Molecule Man zapped their special doodads, thus exposing Tony and Thor to Steve, Tigra, and the Silver Surfer.)

I don't even remember when/if Hawkeye even learned that Tony was Iron Man, or how long he bought into the "Iron Man is just a Stark International employee/Tony's bodyguard" explanation... though its true Rhodey has a much different speech pattern and vocabulary despite the suit's voice modulator or whatever, which should have been more of a giveaway. (Kind of like Eric Masterson trying to pass himself off as Thor not too much later on!)

But then again, Hawkeye's not exactly noted for being the most observant clown in the car. HOWEVER, Tigra, who KNEW who Tony was Iron Man without a shadow of a doubt, and who was a COP before she was a cat, should have picked up on this quickly. Though she also quit the team at the end of 216, so maybe she didn't get accustomed to his mannerisms that quickly.

(Mockingbird, while a trained spy who could have noticed these things, clearly didn't know Iron Man all that well. And Simon, despite being a smart guy at one point, has historically been a neurotic chowderhead since his ionic resurrection.)

It's all kind of redundant since when the ongoing WCA started, Tony was back in the Silver Centurion version of the armor.

[michael_ellis_day]

I take your point, but my issue here isn't that Hawkeye doesn't realize this guy isn't Tony Stark; it's that he doesn't realize this isn't the Iron Man he knows. Because that Iron Man is someone he has such a complicated history with, and would have had reason to be wary of. So yeah, even if it was a thought balloon of Clint thinking "Why's Iron Man talking so oddly?" that would have worked. And then later on when the mask comes off: "I knew there was something weird about you!" Some actual depth of characterization reflecting a history, rather than this kind of generic scene.