With Rumors and Speculation ramping up on what we’ll see from Avengers 4 and Phase 4 as a whole, there’s a lot to things to think about. One thing that’s worth noting is the prospect of a Kate Bishop led Hawkeye film, which may rub some Clint Barton fans the wrong way since the first Hawkeye Solo film may not go to him. But there is a way to do it that may please both audiences, make Kate Bishop Clint’s daughter in the MCU.
This is a theory that’s gotten some play around the internet, but its one that’s worth giving some time to. In Avengers Age of Ultron, we’re introduced to Clint Barton’s family, his wife Laura, his sons Cooper and Nathaniel, and his daughter Lila. Now while Clint in the mainstream Marvel Universe never had kids, this version of his family is based on his Ultimate Comics counterpart, though his children had different names there. In that universe, Clint’s family was killed when a mole inside of Ultimates led a black-ops team to kill them and capture Clint for torture and question. This traitor turned out to be the Ultimate Version of the Black Widow, who was later taken out by Iron Man and killed by Hawkeye.
Obviously, it’s not going to go down exactly that way in the MCU. Not only would having a traitor on the team now seem superfluous in the wake of Infinity War, but it’s definitely not going to be Black Widow if it does happen. So, what can you do with Clint’s family? Well, honestly, you could still kill them, either by the snap or directly as the result of Avengers 4. But what if Lila survived this time? If both Clint and Lila survived, and the Time Skip happens that’s been rumored, the set up could be pretty similar to Clint and Kate’s relationship in Matt Fraction’s run of Hawkeye, with the two of them living in the Brooklyn apartment building. Kate was already Clint’s protégé at the time, so giving them a more direct father/daughter relationship wouldn’t change much.
But why would here name by Kate Bishop? Well any number of reasons really. Maybe after Clint took the pardon that was mentioned in Infinity War, he changed his and his family’s identities from the Bartons to the Bishops to try to keep them hidden again so that he could try to keep them safe. Or maybe after the events of Avengers 4, Clint changes his and Lila’s identities to the Bishops because he just wants to be left alone, but then Lila/Kate wants to become a hero later.
A third option there is that Lila is the only surviving member of the Barton family, meaning Clint dies in Avengers 4 and she’s adopted by the real Bishop family to give her a more similar backstory to her comics counterpart. In this case, they could reveal that either Katherine is her middle name or real first name and her parents just called her by her middle name before to get Kate out of her name. Then she becomes the new Hawkeye to honor her real dad. I’m sure fans of the comics probably think this is pretty similar to what happened with Cassie Lang in the comics. That’s true to an extent, but likely if she does become Stature in Phase 4, she won’t have the dead dad angle like in the comics. Marvel likes to do trilogies with their characters, so Scott likely has one more film in him before they can kill him off. So why not give that angle to someone else?
In this scenario, Clint could actually survive Avengers 4 and just fake his death, allowing his daughter to be adopted by someone else to keep her safe from the constant fighting he put himself through. Then he could reenter her life later, maybe as Ronin, once its clear that she’s putting herself in danger. Either to convince her to stop, or train her so she has a better chance of survival and that could give us the Clint and Kate relationship from the comics, or at least close to it.
