‘Avengers: Age Of Ultron:’ Marvel Snubs Its Female Superheroes And Hawkeye Gets His Groove Back

Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye isn’t exactly the most super of the Marvel Avengers’ superhero team. He’s a killer archer, but there his talents kind of end. Avengers: Age of Ultron is his chance to finally prove himself.

Hawkeye didn’t have the best part in the first Avengers film, where he could’ve kicked plenty of can, but spent the film hypnotized by Loki into a villain, MovieFone reported.

But in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Renner said his character finally gets to prove that he’s not the lesser member of the superhero team. How so? His humanity becomes a super power.

Before the Avengers sequel opens this weekend, Jeremy hit The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to hype his character. He sat down at a piano and unleashed his impressive pipes in a humorous rendition of Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud.” In it, he tries to remind fans that he’s awesome, Rolling Stone reported.

“But listen I’ve got powers too, they’re pretty sweet
I promise I can do so much more than just archery
I kick ass at Mario Kart
This year I played an extra in Paul Blart
I can open a pickle jar
I’m friggin’ Hawkeye
Maybe I’m as super as they are.”

But after seeing Avengers: Age of Ultron, fans may already be convinced that Hawkeye is the star. The best parts of the film are the scenes between his character and the Scarlet Witch; she hypnotizes the rest of the Avengers in Ultron — but Hawkeye is impervious.

“That was another sort of, for lack of a better word, ‘f*ck you moment.’ That was amazing. I really loved that moment in the movie. It was like, Yes! He might only be a human with a bow and arrow, but that doesn’t mean that I’m the weakest guy in the thing.”

Not only does the “weakest” guy on the Avengers team get his awesome back in Age of Ultron, he gets his own an action figure, which Renner calls “touch myself dolls … I don’t want it. Maybe somebody else does. But I don’t know what they’d want to do with it.”

You know who may want her own action figure? Black Widow. But for some reason, Marvel has decided not to give its female Avengers the same benefits as the guys, and for that Mark Ruffalo — aka the Hulk — is decidedly peeved, Mashable reported.

.@Marvel we need more #BlackWidow merchandise for my daughters and nieces. Pretty please.

— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) April 29, 2015

The Scarlet Witch has also been ignored; merchandise featuring both female characters is pretty sparse, even though they are pretty critical elements in Age of Ultron. Marvel also excluded Gamora, from Guardians of the Galaxy, from its T-shirts, toys and other merchandise.

So what gives? Mashable’s Yohanna Desta isn’t mincing words with Marvel: It simply isn’t fair.

“Fans have made it clear that excluding female characters is, frankly, sexist. In addition, it alienates a variety of potential customers. In these particular franchises, female characters make up the DNA of the films. When it comes to merchandise, studios simply can’t pretend they don’t exist.”

[Photo Courtesy YouTube Screengrab]