My wife keeps trying to convince me I’m a millennial. I continually resist this classification, but with each month that goes by, I’m more convinced she’s right. You see, I have a lot of the same baggage and problems that millennials have. The same baggage and problems that Kate Bishop, also known as the-very-best-Hawkeye, has.

Regardless of whether or not I’m a millennial, I identify with the struggle. The struggle of finding work within an overcrowded job market where no one ever dies or retires (especially true in the world of superheroes). Of forging real-world friendships in the Netflix and Internet age. Of striking out on our own in far-removed and random locales.
For Kate, that locale’s Los Angeles. After having her world upended near the end of the previous Hawkeye series, Kate did what a lot of us her age are doing these days. She moved on, found a new place to live and work, and began building a new life for herself.
However, and I don’t know if you know this, but building a new life SUCKS at first.

You don’t know anything about your community or your neighborhood. You have no friends. You have no job. Squaring all these things away takes time, effort, and motivation. Oftentimes, it’s easier to just not put in the work.
I know all these things because my wife and I moved cross-country last year. Since the move, I’ve caught myself falling or nearly falling into the “no motivation to do things” trap many a time. I am trying to get better about doing the things. About going out for a post-work beer or exploring a new neighborhood by bike. About making connections. In this, Kate’s a great example to aspire to.
By the end of her first L.A. adventure, Kate’s found a host of new friends, at least somewhat established her new P.I. business, and also beat up a bad guy who had it coming. She tackles the issues involved in building a new life head-on with a sense of spunk and sass that is, I think, millennials’ defining characteristic. We’ve had the Internet since we were pre-teens y’all; we’ve seen it all before. Even incredibly ‘roided out hate-mongering jock bros.

Kate knows what I know, or at least what I’ve been trying to tell myself since my move. Staying still or passive within a new life won’t get you much. Instead, when your world’s upended, it’s better to dive in, draw your bow, and take aim at something new. To take action and make new friends and confront your inevitable problems and mistakes with just a little bit of sass (or a lot of sass, the need for sass varies, really). And if you put in the effort, you’ll eventually find anchor points that make your new life as fulfilling as the old.

So yeah, Kate Bishop: the millennial’s superhero. If you need an Avenger to blame for Applebee’s closing, she’s the one.
[…] Kelly Thompson’s follow-up series starring Kate Bishop (which I wrote a bit about here). […]
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