When the Hawkeye for his own benefit. Clint Barton became a member of the Avengers thanks to his near unparalleled skills in archery. But to be a truly effective member of the team, he needed to be a better fighter without the bow and arrow. He painfully learned that skill through the tutelage of Captain America, and it helped Barton once he took on the mantle of the Ronin.
Fan are given a glimpse of Captain America training the other Avengers in New Avengers #33 by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Yu. In the wake of the superhuman Civil War and the dawn of the Skrulls’ secret invasion of Earth, a new team of Avengers has formed with a few classic sticking around - though with some dark updates. Clint Barton was one of those , having given up the Hawkeye name and now going by the deadly Ronin. Even though Barton was an expert marksman, he rarely used the bow and arrow while fighting as Ronin, a style he adopted from the training given to him by Captain America.
In the book, when Barton was complimented on his previously fighting skills, he gave credit to Captain America, who was no longer part of the team. Clint thinks back to Captain America’s training, when he was still Hawkeye, and when Captain America utterly humiliated him. While standing in line preparing for their training to begin, Hawkeye and the other Avengers were listening to Captain America as he explained that superhuman or extraordinary abilities are no excuse for not knowing how to fight. Hawkeye comments to Captain America that he would put his archery skills against Cap’s fighting skills any day. Captain America responds by breaking Hawkeye’s bow and pinning him to the ground.
Hawkeye’s humiliating training was initially disheartening, but it ended up making him a better fighter, just as Captain America intended. In the early days of Hawkeye’s tenure on the Avengers, he would more often than not rely fully on his archery skills, barely using any fighting techniques when battling a potentially world-ending foe. After the training, Hawkeye used the skills he learned to become Ronin, arguably one of the greatest hand-to-hand combatants of his time.
First and foremost, Captain America was a leader, one that was painfully serious about the improvement of every member of the Avengers. While his methods may have been brutal and humiliating, Captain America got the results he was after, with Hawkeye as a perfect example of Cap’s training paying off. Captain America’s training deliberately humiliated Hawkeye, and in the end, it made him a better fighter.
