Hawkeye's New Costume Takes Center Stage In Avengers 2 Pic

More purple! Marvel got my letters! Oh, I know. When Joss Whedon’s The Avengers came out, superheroes (the bulk of them, anyway) still had to conform to the dark, morose tones of Batman’s The Dark Knight template. So yes, while Captain America rocked the stars and bars, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye (and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow) had to mainly wear black.

Not any more, according to this new costume shot shared by Empire Magazine (via ComicBookMovie). Changes are being implemented, and are leading to vast improvements over Hawkeye's dull duds from The Avengers. Remember this?

Hawkeye The Avengers

And the photo at the top? Except anyone who ever picked up a comic book knows that Hawkeye’s awesome costume is predominantly purple. Like, a bold purple! And stripping this hero’s costume of that dominant color was more than a shame. It’s supposed to look like this:

Hawkeye Comics

Mind you, very few characters in superhero movies are allowed to keep their masks (right, Wolverine?), so the new photo of Jeremy Renner in his new Hawkeye costume for The Avengers: Age of Ultron is a little incomplete. But at least there are traces of purple in that costume, more streaks in the sleeves that are part of a longer coat. It ain’t perfect, but it’s getting better. Empire Magazine (via ComicBookMovie) has an Avengers: Age of Ultron feature as part of its upcoming issue… which hopefully will be online soon. We wrote about Joss Whedon’s Hulkbuster comments earlier. And you can see Whedon in action, reminding Renner how to fire an arrow, in the larger Hawkeye picture linked right here. If we were to guess, that photo takes place during a scene that we have seen in set photos, where Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) teams with Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) to stop Ultron and save a building filled with innocent people. We don’t know where it fits into Whedon’s full film. But we’re hoping that a trailer (or even that amazing footage that Marvel showed in San Diego) makes its way online soon, so we can see more of our favorite heroes in action.

For now, Joss Whedon’s The Avengers: Age of Ultron opens in theaters on May 1, 2015.

Sean O'Connell
Managing Editor

Sean O’Connell is a journalist and CinemaBlend’s Managing Editor. Having been with the site since 2011, Sean interviewed myriad directors, actors and producers, and created ReelBlend, which he proudly cohosts with Jake Hamilton and Kevin McCarthy. And he's the author of RELEASE THE SNYDER CUT, the Spider-Man history book WITH GREAT POWER, and an upcoming book about Bruce Willis.