Hawkeye: What’s hidden in plain sight in episode 1

Lucky the Pizza Dog

Being that Hawkeye the television series takes inspiration from Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye comic, you can’t do an adaptation of that comic series without including the third member of the archer duo, the one-eyed dog with a fondness for pizza known as Lucky. Although he was originally called “Arrow,” but that’s besides the point.

In any case, like much about Hawkeye, “Never Meet Your Heroes” plays fast and loose with the original source material even with regards to this. In the first place, Lucky didn’t start off as a stray but was actually the personal guard dog of one Ivan Banionis, an enforcer for the “Tracksuit Draculas.” It’s only when Clint fed him a slice of pizza that Lucky turned on his former masters. That’s also how Lucky lost his left eye, and Clint had to bring Lucky to a vet in order to save the dog’s life. Likewise, the scene in which Kate rescues Lucky from being run over? Clint was the one who did that in the comics, too.

This also means that Clint, not Kate, was the one who adopted Lucky in the comics. It was only after Kate moved to Los Angeles that Lucky became her dog. Seems as though the series is skipping the back-and-forth of Lucky between Clint and Kate and just having him be Kate’s dog from the outset.

A couple of other interesting facts about Lucky. First is that he was actually based off of Matt Fraction’s own dog. Second, is that the main story in Hawkeye Vol. 4 #11, “Pizza Is My Business,” is told entirely from Pizza’s point-of-view. It was that particular issue which earned the comic the Eisner Award for “Best Single Issue of 2014.”