When the first few Avengers: Infinity War posters and teasers started coming out, we noticed a pattern: Hawkeye is completely absent from all of it. Not only that, it’s like he never existed — no one says anything, there’s no explanation for why he’s gone, he’s just gone. Last time we saw him was in Civil War, when Captain America freed him from the Raft and he was allowed to go back into retirement, like he’s been trying to do for three movies. But Hawkeye’s an Avenger, which means he’ll answer their call when they need him… right?

Kevin Feige, for his part, loves that everyone’s worried about Hawkeye now. He told io9 he’s so glad that, finally, everyone is giving Clint Barton the attention he’s always deserved.

I think it’s one of the best things that ever happened to Hawkeye. We [at Marvel] love Hawkeye. There are big, big story things coming up for Hawkeye and Jeremy Renner is as strong an actor as anyone in the MCU and awesome as this character. But ‘The guy with the bow and arrow jokes’, right? There are a lot of ‘Guy with bow and arrow jokes.’ He even makes ‘Guy with a bow and arrow’ jokes in some of the movies. So I love that people go from ‘Oh, Hawkeye is just lucky to be there’ to ‘Oh where is he? He’s not there? What’s going to happen? We need Hawkeye. We want more Hawkeye.’ I love it. It’s the best.

Co-director Joe Russo said, if you’re worried about what’s in store for Hawkeye in Infinity War and its sequel, you’ll just have to wait. As he’s mentioned before, there’s a specific story planned for Hawkeye.

As we were working on both films, we were thinking about story real estate. We had the luxury of cracking both scripts at the same time and we wanted to give each character, especially the original Avengers, their moments. It led us to certain choices, especially considering the events of Civil War where [Hawkeye’s] included in this group of insurgents and has to deal with the ramifications of siding against the U.S. government. So that led us to a very specific story with him that, as I’ve said before is a long play, not a short play. Audiences just need to be patient.

So, the good news is he’s not dead, probably. The bad news is we won’t know until we’re watching the movie when he’ll show up, if he’ll show up, and how much of a help he’s going to be.

Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters April 27.

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