Issue(s): Solo Avengers #13
Cover Date: Dec 88

Hawkeye
Title: "Beware the Bullet Biker!!"
Credits:
Ralph Macchio - Script
Tom DeFalco - Plot
Ron Lim - Penciler
Jose Marzan - Inker

Wonder Man
Title:
Credits:
Gregory Wright & Dwayne McDuffie - Writer
Butch Guice - Penciler
Butch Guice - Inker

Gregory Wright - Managing Editor
Mark Gruenwald - Editor

Review/plot:
If you weren't getting enough West Coast Avengers in your West Coast Avengers book, i've got some good news for you. Both stories in this issue feature active West Coast Avengers members.

In the first story, Hawkeye fights a guy on a motorcycle.

The guy, Dillon Zarro, aka the Bullet Biker, used to be a stunt cyclist at the circus where Hawkeye, Swordsman, Trick Shot, and Trickshot (anybody else? Good god.) all hung out. He used to get mad that Hawkeye upstaged him, but in this story he doesn't even know that the Hawkeye from his past is the same as the Hawkeye he's fighting now.

Hawkeye does recognize him, though.

I surmise that Trick Shot is the Bullet Biker's secret employer, so i guess it's not as much of a coincidence as it seems, but we'll see.

Reporter Gayle Rogers also appears in this story, and an attraction is developing.

I had higher hopes for the second story, which is written by Dwayne McDuffie (who i like generally) and Gregory Wright (who, with McDuffie, will later co-write some decent Deathlok stories) and drawn by Butch Guice. It's definitely a zany comedic story similar to McDuffie's Damage Control, but taking on the more cliched subject of Hollywood. Wonder Man has agreed to be a stuntman one last time for a director on the advice of his agent.

And with a Zorp, the actor that Wonder Man is stunting for gets possessed.

The possessor, an alien named Takumer, actually wanted Wonder Man.

It's an ambitious mess, and it does have a giant mutating "bunny"...

...but it's still a mess and not very fun.

Well, ok, it's kind of funny.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP places both stories before West Coast Avengers #40.

References:

• Reporter Gayle Rogers first interviewed Hawkeye in Solo Avengers #9.
  
• While racing against Bullet Biker on his skycycle, Hawkeye makes a reference to Jorge Latham, who helped Hawkeye build it circa Avengers #234.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I don't think we ever found out who Bullet Biker's boss is but in later issues, Trick Shot tries to protect Clint from Bullet Biker, so it almost certainly isn't Trick Shot.

Oh, ok, thanks. I saw the MCP gave Trick Shot a BTS appearance for this issue and made a wrong assumption.

I swear I had an action figure that was virtually identical to Bullet Biker. It was either a later generation Cobra pilot or from one of those generic G.I. Joe knock-offs.

Is there something wrong with the coloring in this issue, or is it just like that because of the scans? Because that biker guy looks like Purple Man in those shots.

Also, I thought these Solo Avengers stories were treated as separate entities?

Bullet Biker looks purple in those scans due to the tinting on the windshield of his van--when he steps out of the van, you see his normal skin tone.

Between the "show me what you've really got in that quiver" line by Gayle, and Black Knight's "polishing the old Ebony Blade" line in the previous issue, SOLO AVENGERS certainly seems to have the most sexual innuendo in the Avengers line!

Anybody else at that circus? I believe Princess Python was for a time, and she was, um, "dating" a teen-aged Clint.

Confirming that the scans are a pretty accurate representation of the colors and Dermie's right that Bullet Biker is only purple because of the tinted glass.

I try to avoid splitting up books whenever possible. It's unfortunately not possible a lot of the time with Solo Avengers, but in this case it was.

@Erik, a Secret Wars of the Carnies oneshot continuity insert seems inevitable.

I have trouble imagining an archer could upstage a motorcycle stunt rider. Dillon Zarro must have been pretty bad.

In the first issue of Iron Man where Hawk-eye appeared, the crowd didn't think much of Hawk-eyes archery. they were calling for the dancing girls. I don't like the idea that Hawk was the star of the show. the whole reason he became a hero was for attention

@Erik, it was not Princess Python that was teen Clint's first lover--it was a woman named Eden (as shown in Fabian Nicieza's short-lived HAWKEYE series). However, Ringmaster was the head of that circus...so I wonder if Clint worked with more than one circus in his career.

@Kveto, audiences can be fickle--perhaps Hawkeye was the star of the show at one time (when he upstaged Bullet Biker), but by the time of his IRON MAN appearance the audience had moved on to newer acts?

I guess that's what I get for going solely off of memory. It probably was a different circus. (Did Eden dress like Princess Python, or did I just pull that completely from nowhere? I think I just assumed that Eden was the Princess's real name.)