Is Hawkeye in Avengers: Infinity War?

We knew Clint Barton wasn’t going to have a huge role in Avengers: Infinity War, though we weren’t exactly prepared for the way it played out.

Note: This article contains Avengers: Infinity War spoilers, though we’d consider them of the mild variety. We still warned you, though.

So what was the deal with Hawkeye anyway? Marvel Cinematic Universe fans have been wondering for months now why the Avenging Archer wasn’t on any of the promotional materials, Jeremy Renner’s name wasn’t on the movie poster, and why one of the founding members of the movie version of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes was nowhere to be found.

Turns out it was the simplest possible explanation: Hawkeye isn’t in Infinity War at all. There are zero seconds of screen time for Clint Barton.

Poor Clint does at least get mentioned, explaining to fans why he’s not around. When Bruce Banner, who returns to the Earth for the first time in years in Infinity War, inquires about Clint, he;s told that both he and Scott — that’d be Scott Lang, better known as Ant-Man — need to lie low because of their status as fugitives at the end of Captain America: Civil War. Bruce is also in the dark about the events of that movie, seeing as he was off-world at the time.

It’s a perfectly logical in-story reason for Hawkeye not to take part in the new movie, but it’s still a bit disappointing simply because he’s been given so little to do relative to all five of his teammates. Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Thor and Hulk have all been through an awful lot, while Hawkeye was brainwashed for a big chunk of The Avengers and had to sit out this movie entirely. The only Avengers flick he was a full participant in was Age of Ultron, the movie most fans like he least.

Jeremy Renner is listed as part of the cast for Avengers 4, and it’s probably not a coincidence that all of the original team members make it out of Infinity War in one piece. Considering how the final act of the current movie turns whatever comes next into an all hands on deck situation, we’d be shocked if Clint Barton doesn’t get a call now — unless, of course, he was snapped out of existence.

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If that’s the case, we hope he at least gets an on-screen mention again. What we’d really like, though, is to actually see Hawkeye again, especially if Avengers 4 really is the end of an era, which definitely seems like case now.