Fighting alongside an older Marvel hero and sharing their codename can be both an inspiring and disappointing experience, especially if your mentor figure is as flawed as Clint Barton, AKA the original Hawkeye. For a time, Kate Bishop worked side by side with Clint and saw first hand his inspiring qualities, as well as his more infuriating ones. Last year, the younger Hawkeye decided to strike out on her own, complete with an all-new series by writer Kelly Thompson and artist Leonardo Romero, which follows Kate's exploits as a Los Angeles based superhero and private detective.

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That doesn't mean she hasn't thought about Clint, though. In fact, in the recent Generations: Hawkeye & Hawkeye one-shot by Thompson and artist Stefano Raffaele, she came face to face with a younger version of him and was inspired by her mentor all over again. In December's Hawkeye #13 Thompson and Romero kick off a new Marvel Legacy arc, titled “Family Reunion” that will reunite Kate and Clint in present day Los Angeless. Thompson spoke with CBR exclusively about the arc, the issues leading up to it, how Clint views Kate, and the cases that will bring them together.

CBR: So Kelly, the big news is Clint Barton is coming to the pages of Hawkeye with December's #13! But before he gets there, Kate will have a big showdown with Madame Masque and a team-up with the All-New Wolverine. What can you tell us about these two issues? How do they set the stage for Kate's reunion with Clint?

Yes! Clint! And in fact, Clint is actually going to show up in Hawkeye 12, so we’re really hitting the ground running with that new arc. But first, Hawkeye 11 wraps up our current arc and like any good detective case it brings to a close some elements of Kate’s story and also introduces some new threads, which Kate decides – in part thanks to her Generations story with Clint – that she could really use his help with. So we’ll be exploring those threads, with Clint’s help in the “Family Reunion” arc.

Hawkeye #12 is sort of an interlude - that brings the excellent Michael Walsh back on art duties - as Wolverine and Gabby are following a lead in Los Angeles that happens to overlap with a lead Kate is following. Hi-jinx and much slicing, dicing, and shooting follows. And yes, to answer the burning question on everyone’s minds, Lucky and Jonathan the Wolverine WILL meet.

In your recent Generations one-shot we found out a lot of what Clint meant to Kate as she teamed up with a younger version of him and came to appreciate how he handled a villainous father figure, but what's your sense of what Kate means to Clint?

I think Kate is Clint’s greatest hope in the world. I think he sees Kate and it gives him hope for a better world. She’s a Hawkeye that hasn’t “messed everything up” yet. And she’s the one thing he’s absolutely certain he hasn’t screwed up. My personal take on Fraction/Aja/Wu/Hollingsworth’s excellent Hawkeye run is that there are two very different takes on Kate within that book. In the Clint-focused stories, we see an almost flawless Kate; she’s better than Clint in every way, and I think that’s because it’s how Clint sees Kate, not because it’s necessarily true. In the Kate-focused LA stories Clint is absent and so we get more of Kate’s view of herself, which is, quite naturally I think, more flawed and scattered and still figuring things out. Because Kate is our lead, our stories trend a bit more toward those latter stories, but it’s exciting to see them together again and to see what does and doesn’t change as a result of Clint’s presence.

Clint Barton has been through a lot in the past few months, especially in the pages of Secret Empire where he helped lead a resistance against Hydra and one of his first and greatest loves was murdered. So what can you tell us about the emotional shape Clint is in when he arrives in Los Angeles in Hawkeye #13? What does that mean for his initial dynamic with Kate?

Clint is Clint! While he may be on the ropes emotionally, and our arc has him very literally on the run, Clint is a survivor. It’s one of my favorite qualities that Clint and Kate share – and something that’s become quintessential to the Hawkeye name, I think: The ability to stay standing no matter what gets thrown at you. Kate and Clint are often far less technically powerful than their teammates and enemies, and yet they never give up, and they survive, they persevere, they remain heroes, against all odds. So expect Clint to do what it takes to get the job done, regardless of what he’s been through.

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What Do Hawkeyes Investigate When They Reunite?

What can you tell us about the cases Kate and Clint get involved in during this arc? What sort of foes are they're up against?

Both cases are very personal, which is why they need one another. Kate’s case springs out of our previous stories – new developments with her family and Madame Masque, while Clint is being hunted by someone that has him on the run and needing a fellow Hawkeye and maybe a detective too. If you’ve been reading my Hawkeye stories then you’ve met this person that’s hunting Clint…but you haven’t quite seen them this way before.

Will Kate's friends have a role in the story? What's it like bouncing them off of Clint?

As always when you have a guest star as big as Clint in a relatively small amount of pages, it’s hard to fit in everything you want to do, but I’m excited for readers to see how Clint reacts to Kate’s new friends and how her friends react to Clint. Clint is obviously the more famous Hawkeye to the world at large, so there’s some serious starstruck going on, but they love Kate fiercely and are protective of her. It’s certainly going to be interesting.

We've seen the amazing kind of action Leonardo Romero brings to life with just one Hawkeye. What can we expect from him when both hit Los Angeles together?

It’s impossible to know! Every time I think I’ve seen everything Leo and Jordie Bellaire (our colorist) can do, they surprise me, ascending new heights of greatness. They take every challenge I throw at them and just crush it. I’m so lucky to have such an incredible team, and I feel we’re in wonderful sync. It makes for the absolute best comics in my incredibly biased opinion.

Finally, how big of an arc is "Family Reunion" to the overall story you're telling in Hawkeye? What kind of shape might Kate's world be in 2018 when this arc ends?

This is a four-issue arc (issues 13 through 16) so it’s not our biggest in terms of page count, but I think it’s going to deliver the most in terms of emotional impact, high stakes, and changing Kate’s outlook. The stuff Kate is dealing with has been building for a long time and is necessarily emotional and when you add Clint to the mix it only gets more intense, exciting, and important I think.

Hawkeye is getting a lot of love from reviewers and fans, but we can’t quite crack that sort of “cult book” status and we need MORE love! I’d say that if you enjoyed Hawkeye Generations, and I know a lot of people did (thank you, everyone!) that you should definitely check us out, even before Clint comes on to guest star!