With last month’s release of Hawkeye on Disney+, Kate Bishop has finally made her MCU debut, portrayed by actress Hailee Steinfeld. Kate Bishop, who also uses the moniker Hawkeye, first appeared in Young Avengers #1 by Allen Heinberg and Jim Cheung in 2005, although she wouldn’t take up the Hawkeye name until Young Avengers #2.
Kate Bishop has stuck around pretty consistently since then, through Young Avengers‘s cancellation, revival maxiseries, revival ongoing series, and cancellation again. She’s even had her own Hawkeye title and a miniseries dedicated to her currently ongoing at the time of writing. However, like many superheroes, Kate Bishop has made her fair share of mistakes, and they’ve cost both her and her friends dearly.
8 Raiding The Gear Of At-The-Time Dead Avengers Members
This one ranks pretty low on the list because, in fairness, Kate did this for the purposes of self-defense. When she and Cassie Lang (aka Stature and the daughter of Ant-Man) tracked the newly-formed Young Avengers team to the then-destroyed Avengers Mansion, they were attacked by Kang the Conqueror.
In order to fight back, Kate found Hawkeye’s bow and quiver, Mockingbird’s mask and battle staves, and the Swordsman’s sword to fight back against Kang. At the time, Clint was recently killed, Mockingbird was thought to be dead, and Swordsman was and is still dead. Again, this was out of self-defense, but it still feels a little ghoulish to raid dead superheroes for supplies.
7 Defying Captain America And Iron Man Along With Her Fellow Young Avengers
The Young Avengers, understandably, wanted the training and blessing of the old guard Avengers. They met up with both Captain America and Iron Man after they’d decided to shut down the Avengers due to the disaster with Scarlet Witch. All Steve and Tony saw were a bunch of kids dressed like themselves and their friends waiting to get killed. Consequently, Steve and Tony told the Young Avengers to get lost.
Despite that, the Young Avengers moved forward. One could argue this was for the best, but no shortage of tragedies awaited the Young Avengers. Stature would later die (and be resurrected), Vision 2.0 (aka Jonas) would perish, and Iron Lad would fulfill his destiny of becoming Kang the Conqueror.
6 Getting Mad At Clint Barton For Trying To Honor His Dead Friend
After Cap’s death during the first Superhuman Civil War, the newly-resurrected Clint Barton would consider taking up the mantle of Captain America. Kate found Clint dressed as Cap and, not knowing that it was Clint, berated him for just dressing up as a dead hero.
In fairness, Kate justified her doing the same by saying she was honoring the dead Hawkeye. It was at this point that Clint took off the mask and cleared things up. This was all a misunderstanding of course, but it was still a pretty cruel thing to do on her part.
5 Betraying Old Man Logan, Even If It Was For A Purpose
Kate Bishop would have a brief team-up with Old Man Logan, the Wolverine of an alternate apocalyptic future. The two would take on Mysterio, but Kate was concerned with how brutally Logan was dealing with their foes.
Logan thought that Earth-616 (the mainstream Marvel Universe) was destined to become his future, and that’s why he was trying to deal with problems like Mysterio before they could do more damage. Kate ended up shooting Logan in the back and helping Cap take him in. Kate and Cap took Logan to the grave of the then-dead Wolverine of Earth-616, and they finally convinced Old Man Logan that this was not his past. They showed him it wasn’t his responsibility to save everyone here.
4 Letting Kid Omega Have A Reality TV Crew Film The West Coast Avengers
When Kate resurrected the West Coast Avengers branch, she found herself lacking funding. To help rectify this, she recruited Kid Omega of the X-Men. He was in the process of having a reality show filmed about his life as a superhero, which helped secure funding for the West Coast Avengers.
Unfortunately, a group of young and relatively inexperienced heroes letting themselves be filmed for reality television has a bad history in Marvel Comics. Previously, the New Warriors allowed themselves to be filmed, and showboating for the camera led the team to take on Nitro the Exploding Man just outside an elementary school in Stanford, Connecticut. Nitro detonated, killing over 600 people. This led to the Registration Act and the first Superhuman Civil War. Thankfully, nothing so dire happened to the West Coast Avengers.
3 Accidentally Leaving Hulking And Prodigy With An Interdimensional Parasite
When the second Young Avengers team formed, they found themselves pursued by an extradimensional parasite called “Mother.” This Young Avengers team tried several times to deal with Mother, but she proved just too powerful for them in their current state.
During one such showdown with Mother, America Chavez kicked open a dimensional portal to help the team escape from Mother. Unfortunately, the team – Kate Bishop included – scurried away without checking that Hulkling and Prodigy made it too. Of course, the team went back to save them, but this could have easily ended with Hulkling and Prodigy dead.
2 Abandoning Clint Barton At A Low Point In His Life
When Team Hawkeye was dealing with a vast and organized mafia intent on pushing Clint and his neighbors out of their apartment complex, a tragedy left Clint Barton at a very low point. An assassin hired by the mafia killed “Grills,” who was a close friend and neighbor of Clint.
Clint was ready to give up, and he was acting more irresponsibly and irrationally than ever. To Kate’s credit, she tried to help Clint out a lot during this point, and her patience was admirable. However, it soon ran out and she left Clint to deal with the problem himself while she went to Los Angeles. In fairness, this proved to be the wakeup call Clint needed, and Kate returned later to help Clint shut the organized crime family down for good. However, it could have easily gone a different way.
1 Letting Hydra Take Back Their Homegrown Child Bioweapons
Later on, Clint and Kate teamed up to raid a Hydra installation. Inside, they found children that Hydra had been experimenting on, giving them vast psionic power. The two Hawkeyes rescued the kids, but they didn’t want to give them over to S.H.I.E.L.D to be poked and prodded some more.
However, when Hydra came knocking again, the children violently killed the Hydra agents. More Hydra reinforcements arrived, and Clint opted to give the kids over this time, as they were “weapons.” Kate just let this happen too. This led to a falling out between Kate and Clint, and the two would later reunite to save the kids from Hydra once and for all. However, this too could have easily gone in a very different direction after they gave the kids back to Hydra.
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