The first trailer for Hawkeye finally revealed Hailee Steinfeld's Kate Bishop and, from this first glimpse, she could turn out to be the best replacement Avenger yet. Throughout Phase 4 of the MCU, Marvel has been replacing many of its major heroes as the characters either die, retire, or move on from the MCU. The first was Captain America Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), who retired as part of the plot to return the Infinity Stones to their origins in the timeline, ing the shield to Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), via John Walker (Wyatt Russell), to become the new Cap.
Marvel also introduce a potential successor for Black Widow Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) in Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), who first appeared in the Black Widow film. The replacements certainly aren't like-for-like, with both Sam and Yelena being markedly different in their characters, history, and approaches than their original Avenger templates. Going forward, it appears the MCU will continue to replace their original line up of Avengers, either with "dark" versions of the characters or with new characters bearing the same title – just as with Jane Foster/Mighty Thor (Natalie Portman) in Thor: Love and Thunder, and She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany) and/or Emil Blonsky, aka Abomination (Tim Roth), as replacements for Hulk/Bruce Banner in the another Disney+ series – She-Hulk.
Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) is the other Avenger with a replacement coming to the MCU. Clint Barton has attempted to retire in the MCU before, being pulled out of his family time by the threat of Thanos. It looks like he may finally get a chance to do that properly (presuming he isn't killed in action) in the Hawkeye Disney+ TV show, with much of the action in the trailer indicating that Hailee Steinfeld's Kate Bishop will be trained by Clint and take up the bow in his stead, while taking on the criminal underworld of New York City.
From the scenes in which she's featured in the trailer, Hailee Steinfeld was an inspired pick to take up the role of Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
While the already-introduced Avengers certainly show promise – with Sam Wilson's Cap already having feature film Captain America 4 in the works, and Yelena Belova confirmed to also appear in Hawkeye, Steinfeld's charisma and impact in the Hawkeye trailer can't be understated. The young yet experienced actress has more than proven her ability to channel humor, gravitas, and pathos into any role she takes on, as well as having proved her ability to lead action blockbusters. The only question left is if Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop will have a chance to show off her other talent of singing for Hawkeye, like she did for the Dickinson season 2 finale credits song.
