Hi ! I was sent your way by @clintbartoncomics ,regarding a comics question. I’ve read everything Hawkeye that I know of,and anything I could find with Clint & Bobbi, and now am trying to find comics where Clint and Natasha are together/dating. I know how they started out,but can’t seem to find much else,other than them being together in the beginning of Old Man Hawkeye. Would you be able to recommend anything? Thanks !😁
ok, let’s try to break this down-
clint and natasha meet in his first ever appearance, tales of suspense #57. nat pulls up in her car as clint flees a robbery he tried to stop. clint thinks “sweet! free getaway-wait i’m in love,” and nat thinks, “sweet! free lackey!”
they spend tales of suspense #60 & 64 fighting iron man; natasha bc her soviet handlers ordered her too, and clint bc natasha told him to. sure, he started out trying to be a hero, but it’s been a whole 5 minutes with nat since then, so he loves her. and when clint falls in love, he falls hard. he feels morally conflicted, but what’s a little treason for your poor gf when you are but a simultaneously overconfident and insecure carny?
unfortunately for nat, clint sucks at being a villain’s lackey, and joins the avengers. natasha pops back into clint’s life in avengers #29. it’s here that i should make it abundantly clear that clint is one of comics’ most hopeless romantics:
she shows up periodically through the range of avengers #29-76, during which time they’re dating. natasha’s a hero now, too! but she’s working with SHIELD, so things get complicated, as spywork does--at one point she rejects the avengers’ offer of membership, an idea championed only by clint, bc SHIELD says it’ll ruin her cover. hurdles like that meant sometimes they’d discuss a drive to the beach and sometimes they’d be held hostage in test tubes. clint spent many an issue moping about as the other avengers went “is...is hawkeye ok?”
due to increasing complications, natasha breaks up with clint in avengers #76 by telling him she never loved him:
while thinking over her tragic love life and all the guilt therein, she sneaks a check-up on him in amazing adventures v2 #7:
some time later, clint very suddenly confesses his love to wanda maximoff, a pining that only ever occurred in his thought bubbles, but gets rejected as she’s engaged to a robot. again, hopeless romantic. he laments both tragic outcomes in avengers #109:
now doubly rejected, clint goes across the country in daredevil #99 to tell nat he still loves her and fight matt murdock, her new flame. nat isn’t impressed by his show of jealousy, and more importantly, the destruction of her beautiful bay window:
clint, obviously, sulks about her relationship with matt in typical hawkeye fashion in avengers #111:
after that, however, there was no tension whatsoever once clint returned to the avengers after his long absence. natasha and clint were now good friends. things went smoothly when clint introduced natasha to bobbi (who you know he married after knowing for 9 days, what with his propensity to fall deeply in love so very, very quickly) in avengers #239:
they basically remained broken up since that fateful issue in 1970. some series revisited the dynamics of that relationship, though-- whether it be in their reminiscing, like in thunderbolts #43, or hawkeye v3 #7-8, or in flashback form, like here in black widow: deadly origin #2:
nat, bobbi, and clint even work together, with clint now broken up with both of them, in widowmaker (2010)
at this point you’re probably thinking “geez, they’ve been broken up for 40+ years. where did this talk of dating again come from?” well, a movie happened.
as with most sudden marvel comics changes and additions around 2012 (clint’s costume turning bland, phil coulson suddenly existing in 616, hulk being a full avenger for the first time since 1963), natasha and clint’s place in 616 was shuffled around a little in an attempt to draw in new readers from those who had only seen the movie. cue avengers assemble (2012) #5:
them making out was the cover of the issue, i’m sure to draw in some movie folks, but they stop immediately because clint has a girlfriend: jessica drew. i feel like at this point clint’s relationship with jess, which was never really fleshed out/developed to the extent of his previous relationships, became another casualty with the new 616 status quo. remember, clint has always been fiercely loyal to whoever he’s dating at the time--but then there’s this kiss, and penny in hawkeye v4 (2012). by then, no one was really sure about the status of clint and jess’ relationship in any series.
anyways! clint and jess break up at some point. clint and natasha proceed to pop up in each other’s respective series, like clint did in a few issues of black widow v6, and frequently work alongside each other in other avengers titles. then, secret empire (2017) finally ends their newfound will-they-won’t-they tension:
and because of their own storied histories after all those decades, it’s an evolved dynamic, so it’s all very interesting--but oops, natasha gets immediately killed. comics!
clint breaks down sobbing at her funeral. and then, once again because comics, natasha comes back and clint teams up with bucky to find/stop her in tales of suspense (where it all started!) #100-104
most recently, natasha had an appearance in hawkeye: freefall for one issue, and clint is currently showing up in black widow v8. no, they aren’t currently dating--it’s, as always, complicated.
