The minute-long trailer announcing advanced ticket sales for Avengers: Endgame showcases new footage of the surviving heroes as they regroup to take the fight to Thanos and avenge those lost in Avengers: Infinity War. Among those assembled is Clint Barton, shown without his new Ronin costume, and sporting a massive tattoo on his left arm.
The sleeve is a new addition to the archer and S.H.I.E.L.D. operative formerly known as Hawkeye, and, along with the Ronin persona and mohawk hairstyle, marks a visible shift for Jeremy Renner's character. With this darker side to his identity, what exactly does Clint Barton's evocative new tattoo signify other than a potential midlife crisis?
Upon closer inspection, the tattoo depicts a skeletal samurai warrior, or a ronin, which is of course a nod to Clint's new alter ego. Ronin roughly translates from Japanese as a samurai without a shogun or master, reflecting Clint operating outside of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers when he is presumably reintroduced in Endgame.
Below the ronin is a serpent wrapped around a tree, which has biblical undertones: The serpent deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden into eating fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Perhaps symbolizing the end of innocence that came with Thanos' finger-snap, which wiped out half of all life in the universe, the tree features what resembles faces in its trunk. Those may very well represent the faces of Clint's family, widely theorized to have been among the victims of the so-called Decimation.
In the previous trailer, which depicted happier times, Clint doesn't have the tattoo as he coaches his daughter in archery at the family farm. That further strengthens the theory that Clint's physical change is a direct result of losing his family, resulting in the adoption of the Ronin persona: The skeletal warrior symbolizing death and the faces on the tree are a memorial to those he seeks to avenge.
Everyone left alive at the end of Infinity War has lost someone close to them, propelling them toward the inevitable showdown with Thanos in Endgame. The ones Clint Barton loves most are his wife and three children, as revealed in Avengers: Age of Ultron. It's his devotion to his family that led him to temporarily retire from the Avengers and sign a deal with the U.S. government following the events of Captain America: Civil War. With his family presumably gone, Clint will go into darker areas, psychologically, than his peers, as he has nothing left to lose.
Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, Avengers: Endgame stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira, Benedict Wong, Jon Favreau and Bradley Cooper, with Gwyneth Paltrow and Josh Brolin. The film arrives April 26.