Marvel Comics’ ‘The Ultimates’ Writer Confirms New Ultimate Hawkeye Uses They/Them Pronouns In Honor Of The “Queer And ‘Two Spirit’ Organizers” Who Protested The Dakota Access Pipeline
Marvel Comics writer Deniz Camp has confirmed that not only does his newly-introduced incarnation of ‘Ultimate Hawkeye’ use they/them pronouns, but also that this aspect of the purple-clad archer was inspired by the “queer and ‘two spirit’ organizers” who organized protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Making their debut in the fifth and latest issue of Camp’s The Ultimates, this new incarnation of Hawkeye is not Clint Barton but rather a young Native American named Charli Ramsey, who rather than being explicitly gifted the bow by Tony Stark as part of his plan to kickstart Earth-6160’s superhuman population, instead picked up and the weapon and title after the Clint of Earth-6160 rejected the offer and tossed the equipment in the trash.
Drawing The Ultimates’ attention due to his continued attacks on Roxxon’s various oil operations, Hawkeye’s explosive activism eventually lands him a one-on-one meeting with Captain America, who intercepts the hero immediately after they’ve completed blowing up one of said company’s refinery sites.
Following a brief exchanging of blows and ideals, Cap eventually reveals to Hawkeye that the reason he approached them was not to take back the weapons or shut down their mission, but rather make sure that the bow had ended up in the hands of a true hero.
To this end, before departing back for The Ultimates’ HQ, Cap and Hawkeye team-up to both fight back against and escape from a Roxxon security team.
In honor of the issue’s hitting shelves this week, the aforementioned Camp took to his personal Twitter account on October 9th to promote the fact that “Issue 5 of Ultimates is out today!”
“First appearance of our Hawkeye,” he noted. “We worked hard to make them cool, different, and yet undeniably ‘Hawkeye’.”
Soon after this tweet’s publication, a number of readers noticed Camp’s use of the pronoun “them” to refer to Hawkeye, to which they responded by inquiring with the author regarding the hero’s gender identity.
In turn, Camp explained, “There have been a lot of questions about Charli’s gender and I’m wary to talk about this stuff outside the book itself. It feels a bit like cheating. But I know it means a lot to people, so I wanted to make a comment.”
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“When I did my research into the water protectors/Standing Rock,” he continued, “something that was emphasized again and again was the importance of queer and ‘two spirit’ organizers to the movement. I wanted to put that into the book.”
(For those unfamiliar, in 2016, local members of the surrounding Native American tribes organized numerous protests against the rerouting of the Dakota Access Pipeline oil line through the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, their main concern being the pipeline’s threatening of their local water supply.
Ultimately, while the pipeline was completed and is currently operational, its continued existence on the Reservation’s land remains the subject of an ongoing court battle.)
“So, yes, Charli’s pronouns are they/them,” concluded Camp. “I didn’t want to make a big deal of it, because it’s not in the book itself, and because I don’t think Charli would make a big deal out of it in that context. But we’ll make this explicit when it’s natural to the narrative.”
The next issue of Camp’s The Ultimates officially hits shelves on November 6th.
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