Nocturne And Blink

show me, show me, show me how you do that trick

[id: a drawing of dick grayson and joey wilson from new teen titans, done in shades of red. dick is laying on top of joey, smiling into a kiss. joey has a hand on the back of dick's neck with a thumb on his jaw. they're laying in grass, a tree behind them. /end id]

X-Men Unlimited: Infinity Comic #4 (2021)

written by Jonathan Hickman art by Declan Shalvey

mentions of 616 hawkeye’s deafness prior to 2014

see here for my simplified timeline of 616 clint barton’s deafness

clint barton debuted in 1964 as a hearing character. in the last issue of his first solo series, hawkeye vol. 1 #4 (released in december 1983), clint became hard of hearing when he activated his hypersonic arrowhead in his mouth to drown out a mind-control frequency:

clint’s subsequent official marvel handbook entries would note that he was 80% deaf in both ears:

he would remain so up until either 1996 or the end of 1997, after which he was hearing once again (we’ll get to his re-deafening in 2014 later). the following panels will focus on the 1984-1996 period.

clint returned to the avengers after the events of his solo series in avengers #239 (1984), wherein he informed the team of his hearing loss and was given a hearing aid (which he chooses not to wear in the issue because he’s appearing on tv):

he informs cap, who wasn’t present in #239, of his hearing loss (and elopement) in avengers #241 (1984):

his hearing loss isn’t brought up again until over a year later in west coast avengers v2 #1 (1985):

he first mentions that he’s wearing a hearing aid in captain america #317 (1986). this issue was written by mark gruenwald, who also wrote hawkeye v1 where clint was deafened, so he was in a good position to call back to it and remind the reader of this development:

all further acknowledgment of clint’s hearing loss in this period occurred in one series: solo avengers (later renamed to avengers: spotlight). it’s interesting to note that in all but one of these instances, clint is written as either turning down his hearing aid to avoid sound-based attacks, or “turning it up” to hear extraordinarily quiet noises.

the first instance is in solo avengers #9 (1988):

solo avengers #10 (1988) establishes in-comic that clint is 80% deaf in both ears, a specificity which had only previously been mentioned in his marvel handbook entries:

solo avengers #16 (1989) has clint hearing something that would be undetectable by an average hearing person. notably, this is also the only panel i’ve seen from 1984-1996 where clint visibly has a hearing aid. although as you can see, the coloring places it outside of his mask (half the time clint’s mask is portrayed as covering his ears and half not because of coloring):

here’s a sound attack dodge in solo avengers #17 (1989):

in avengers: spotlight #26 (1989), clint disables high-tech devices, and is shown not to hear tony speaking to him once his hearing aid is turned off in the last page:

in avengers: spotlight #28 (1990), clint is immune to the combined sound powers of the issue’s villains–where others perceived a visual illusion of them as other people, clint saw them in their true forms:

from what i’ve observed, there were no mentions of hearing loss or appearances of hearing aids from 1991-1996. so to tally these up, 6/10 of all mentions after hawkeye v1 #4, and all those after 1986, were from the same series.

in 1996, clint was killed in marvel’s onslaught event (along with most marvel heroes). he then appeared in marvel’s briefly rebooted universe, counter-earth (created by young franklin richards and accessible through his toy ball. yeah.). whether counter-earth hawkeye is considered the same person as 616 clint is a whole can of comic worms we’ll not worry ourselves with…

he did appear without a mask on counter-earth in avengers v2 #11 (1997). honestly, with how it’s drawn, i can’t entirely tell if it’s meant to be a hearing aid, some take on a futuristic hospital monitor, or what. in any case:

in 1998, clint is revived/returned, and is no longer deaf. an in-universe explanation for why is given in avengers annual v3 2001:

the editorial reason given for the change is that clint’s hearing loss was treated very inconsistently in-comics, and by ‘98, was largely not known among both writers and readers. this seems plausible; unless they had read hawkeye’s 1983 miniseries, consistently read solo avengers, or scoured what were essentially marvel encyclopedias, there had been little indication that clint was deaf (no visible hearing aids, not brought up in main titles for 12 years…). since it seemed to the writer that clint had continued to be written as if he were a hearing character, he decided to revert him to one.

clint’s period of hearing loss was acknowledged in she-hulk v2 #2 (2006), when jen walters states that clint knows sign language:

in fact, this appears to be the very first mention of clint knowing sign language, as ASL was never referenced in all preceding issues and handbooks.

in 2014, clint would be deafened again in hawkeye v4 #15. currently, the degree of his hearing loss and the type of hearing aids he wears–though usually a BTE when visible, and at times IICs in the form of “stark tech”–is dependent on the writer/series. here’s clint in hawkeye: freefall #6 (2020):

he is, however, shown to be fluent in ASL, as it was retconned in hawkeye v4 #19 that he had temporary hearing loss as a child and learned it with his brother

lines from vox machina that took me out instantly and still live rent-free in my head

"Percival. Sweet Percival."

"your sister lives, Percival"

"do not go far from me"

"Do you think this is what mother saw before she died?"

"It’s going to be all right. Pike is here, it’s going to be all right, it’s going to be all right. Gil?"

"take me instead you raven bitch"

"You are a good person and I have always seen that. Please see it, please. Oh god, my heart is breaking."

"I do not work in wood. I am not brave enough for that. There is a comfort in iron, a promise of safety, a second chance if mistakes are made. But a city is more a forest than a sword. No, it needs more tending than that. Perhaps a city is like a garden, then."

"sometimes breaking is making, even iron can start again, and there are many things that move through fire and find themselves much better for it afterward."

"I love you. If I can find you, I will. If not, stay alive."

I hear the voice of my mother in the morning. “Fuck you.”

"but if he's gone forever I won't be the same"

"I was gonna ask you what your mother’s name is." / "It was Juniper." / "I’m sorry I didn’t know that."

"Well that's just it. I'm a really good liar."

"all we found of her was her leg" / "that means she's still alive"

I think back to Percy's workshop in Greyskull Keep. And I say "I love you too."

"I have a feeling she's pulling our fate strings, anyway. ...mine's connected to yours. Where you go, I go."

"I am here because I have completed my Aramente, and I have come for my blessing." / "Yes, you have. I just wanted to hear it from your lips."

"You look like mother right now. You do."

"And I thought that was it. I had ruined it. But before dawn, she came back, she unrolled her bedding, and she went to sleep, and woke up the next morning and said "what's for breakfast, Dad?"

"Promise me you'll come back with me, no matter what." / "I promise."

Vax is watching, frozen.

"Where's Vax?"

"I thought you died. I watched you die." ... "It's a trick. It's a trick of the feywild."

He's physical. He's cold. But he's there.

"Look. Look at me. Just remember. Whatever happens, remember me. That's all that's important."

"I remember. (softer) I remember. See? It's all up here. So whatever happens, keep me there. All right?"

"She'll probably outlast you, but while you're around, keep her company for me?"

"What if there comes a day when I don't even recognize the name Vox Machina anymore?"

"And you- you're not going anywhere."

"Is that my girl? Is that my baby girl?"

I grab Kaylie by the face and I say to her: "Goodbye."

"Bless. Shaun! It was an honor knowing you."

"Forever and ever and always." I steal what I assume is my last kiss.

I'm going to use a bonus action to look over my shoulder and see everyone that I know. I'm going to see my sister and her husband. I'm going to see the woman that I love. I'm going to see Grog. I'm going to see Arkhan. I'm going to see my friend Scanlan.

You all take a moment to imagine what you've lost, what you've gained. Everything has led to this moment. And in the quiet and the stillness, you hear a new sound. It's thousands and thousands of distant voices cheering from the city of Vasselheim below. Of wyvern and eagle riders above you. But a small example of the hundreds of thousands of lives you may have saved.

I walk to step in between. / In between the two of them? / Yes.

"I'm not ready." / "You're ready for your people." / " Not without you."

"I'm going to go visit my mother, and I'll see all of you again."

"Thank you for trying." / "I wish I could have done more." / "You did everything"

"I never had a greater friend than you."

"I feel like she's taking part of me away." / "I will bring it with me to remind me of you."

"I don't know how to live."

I use the druid cantrip Druidcraft and grow snowdrops out from where I stand, out to all of my family. Out to where they stand. "S.H.I.T.s, thank you. How lucky I have been to have had all of you. How lucky, indeed. Thank you."

In the darkness of her cloak, you see a brief light, and it's brighter for you. As you walk forward, you see reaching from the light the dark hair, the fair skin, and the wide smile of your mother, Elaina. As she greets you, she says, “I'm so proud.”

"I still count you as my sister." / "As I count you as mine. Going to have to look out for each other now." / "Yes."

"I think I really miss my family."

"I think we're all broken, Percy." / "I'm so tired of hurting people."

"The brightest and the darkest. To Vax."

"I think the most free I've ever been is with you."

"I think we should rebuild the families that we've lost." / "There's so many names."

"I don't have to appreciate this. Especially not after what I've seen. But I do." / "You need to." / "Only because of what I've seen."

i like to think that batman didnt “strictly forbid” robin from telling anyone his name he just decided that bc what kind of fuckin name is dick

Happy 2015 everybody

Something very familiar and heartbreaking about Ashton saying that what you do for family is let them go when they don't want to stick around anymore. When you're no longer useful.

"I would have done the same" was just him trying to say "I'm not better than them" but those are not the same messages. They think themselves harsher and more pragmatic than they are.

🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼