One Avenger’s track record makes him the most successful MCU hero out of all major members of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The MCU’s Avengers were a really unbalanced team of heroes. Avengers like Thor and Hulk are capable of fighting gods by themselves, while Black Widow and Hawkeye don’t have any real superpowers and usually wield rather mundane weapons like handguns and arrows. However, the Avengers have saved the world multiple times, and only a handful of them have died for good.

Curiously, the weakest Avengers aren’t necessarily the ones who get defeated the most, as powerful heroes like Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America have lost more often than Hawkeye. Despite Hawkeye’s fame as “the weakest Avenger”, Clint Barton has proved his worth as an Avengers-level hero several times in the MCU so far. In fact, Hawkeye may have the best Avenger track record in the MCU, having survived major events and outsmarted powerful supervillains that other heroes couldn’t deal with as effectively.

The Avengers Lost Several Times In The MCU As A Team

The Avengers Failed Several Missions Throughout The Years

While the Avengers have saved the world from many threats, they have often struggled to do so. For instance, the Avengers failed to stop Brock Rumlow a.k.a. Crossbones from denotating himself in Lagos and failed to contain a raging Hulk in South Africa in time. Thor and Hulk’s “Revengers” faction failed to stop Hela and Surtur from destroying Asgard and immediately failed to stop Thanos from killing most of the remaining Asgardian survivors. Most notably, the Avengers couldn’t prevent Thanos from gathering the Infinity Stones and snapping away half of all life in the universe.

The events of Captain America: Civil War led to an inconvenient aftermath for both sides of the conflict. Captain America and Bucky Barnes defeated Iron Man, but they were forced to go into hiding — Bucky sought refuge in Wakanda and Steve Rogers became a fugitive alongside Black Widow and Falcon. Wanda Maximoff and Vision also had to flee, and Vision was critically injured shortly afterward. Meanwhile, the “Team Iron Man curse” started: Iron Man, Black Widow, Black Panther, and Vision died, War Machine suffered an injury that left him paraplegic, and Peter Parker was forgotten by the whole world.

Remarkably, Hawkeye Never Lost A Major Battle

Clint Barton Never Met Defeat Like His Fellow Avengers

Hawkeye participated in all of the Avengers’ succesful missions, and he was absent from their biggest failures. Clint Barton earned his place as one of the original six Avengers who thwarted Loki’s invasion in the Battle of New York, stole Vision’s body in the Battle of South Korea, and played a key role in Ultron’s defeat in the Battle of Sokovia. Hawkeye was the only Avenger who escaped Scarlet Witch’s enchanting spell, and he was remarkably absent in the Avengers’ defeat at the hands of Thanos, only to return in the Battle of Earth to help bring everyone back and beat Thanos for good.

Clint Barton always comes out mostly unharmed and prone to fight in another battle

Though exhausted and physically afflicted, Hawkeye came out of the Infinity Saga in one piece. Clint Barton then went on to defeat the Tracksuit Mafia, fight Yelana Belova and Echo, and help Kate Bishop oppose Kingpin — all without planning it. As Hawkeye says to Iron Man in Captain America: Civil War, every time he wants to retire, he gets pulled back into the action. Yet, Clint Barton always comes out mostly unharmed and prone to fight in another battle. While Clint officially passed on the torch to Kate Bishop in the Hawkeye season finale, he’s very likely to return soon.

The Only Time Hawkeye Was Defeated Made Him Stronger

Hawkeye Never Repeated The Same Mistake Twice

Custom image by Nicolas Ayala

In The Avengers: Loki used the Mind Stone embedded in his Scepter to mind-control Hawkeye. Loki was so fast that Hawkeye barely had time to react, and Clint quickly became Loki’s pawn. However, after shaking off the Mind Stone’s influence, Hawkeye displayed an impressive degree of discipling and physical skills, which allowed him to avoid the same situation when Scarlet Witch performed her enchanting spell on all the other Avengers. Since then, Hawkeye has remained undefeated.

It could be said that Hawkeye lost twice after The Avengers, as he couldn’t save Quicksilver and Black Widow. But from a certain perspective, Pietro Maximoff and Natasha Romanoff’s deaths sacrificing themselves to save Hawkeye also count as victories for Clint Barton given how close he was to dying in those moments. Hawkeye made Quicksilver and Black Widow’s deaths count, and he continues to have an impressive streak to this day. If Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye returns in Avengers: Doomsday or Avengers: Secret Wars, his presence might be a good omen for the Avengers.