Perhaps Dark Reign could have worked as a three or six-issue story-arc, where Norman was given power, things went horribly wrong, the government and the public realized the mistake, and things went back to normal.  As a line-wide event spanning nearly a hundred comics it comes across as palpably stupid, and full of awkward and unseemly moments.  In Dark Reign: Hawkeye we see yet another of many examples where the villains-turned-heroes publicly kill numerous civilians and try to pin their actions on others, in an obvious and unbelievable manner that no reasonable person could possibly accept.  Remember Civil War and the public mistrust of super-powered persons that enabled that story to happen?  Remember the end of Secret Invasion and the public outcry against the failing of its government-sanctioned heroes that allowed Dark Reign to begin?  Now take all of that story logic, throw it out the window and then take the Marvel public in the totally opposite direction and you’ll come close to achieving the necessary story conditions to allow this, and many of the other, Dark Reign stories to even come close to making sense.  It’s very disappointing, and once again I have to say that Dark Reign can’t end soon enough.

I can only assume that this entire story is meant to set up a final confrontation between Clint Barton and Bullseye, where Barton attempts to clear his good name.

The writing is pro forma and uninspired, the plot is unnecessarily brutal and riddled with nauseating anti-hero moments that do nothing to advance the characters (I already knew Bullseye was a really bad guy) and only cheapens the heroes (will none of Marvel’s “real” heroes come to the public’s rescue, or do they just figure the public is getting the fate that it deserves?), and the art…  well, at least the art was decent to look at.