Today, we look at the odd mixture of influences that the films and comics had on each other when it came to Hawkeye's costume in the comics, films and television.

In "Follow the Path," I spotlight changes made to comic book characters that are based on outside media, as well as characters who entirely came from outside media. I’m sure you can think of other examples, so feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you want to suggest some other examples for future installments.

The fascinating aspect of this one to me is that it rally is also basically sort of like a "Written in the Book," as well, which is the reverse of Follow the Path, so examples of TV and film adapting specific and less famous comic book stories to other media (so no "Spider-Man lifts up debris" or stuff like that), because in this story, we're seeing how the films took from the comics took from the films took from the comics. It's quite a little ride, really.

Hawkeye debuted in Tales of Suspense #57 and while his costume (presumably designed by Don Heck) has obviously changed a bit over the years, that basic design was used for most of Hawkeye's comic book career...

However, there was a brief period of time in Avengers #98 (by Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith and Sal Buscema) where Hawkeye actually went without a mask, so Hawkeye didn't ALWAYS rock the mask....

Of course, the costume (presumably designed by Windsor-Smith) did not last very long, as Hawkeye was back into basically his original costume in Avengers #109. He went through a few different versions of his costume over the next four decades, but they all involved masks of some sort.

RELATED: How Marvel Changed the Eternals to Match Their MCU Counterparts

THE ULTIMATE HAWKEYE LOOK BECAME THE MOVIE HAWKEYE COSTUME DESIGN

Okay, so many years later, the Ultimates came out and in Ultimates #7 (by Mark Millar, Bryan Hitch, Andrew Currie and Paul Mounts), we met Ultimate Hawkeye and Black Widow...

That costume by Hitch is interesting, as it really looks completely dark, but on the cover to the next issue, it definitely has a bit more color in the design, but the color is more red than purple...

Of course, about a decade after the Ultimates was released, 2011's Thor introduced Hawkeye to the Marvel Cinematic Universe...

It was a small scene shot almost completely in the dark and so we didn't really see his costume in the scene. This led to the Avengers the following year, in 2012, and the designers for the film adopted BASICALLY the Ultimate Hawkeye costume...

although they added more color to the costume, of course, to keep it from being from a typical black outfit and that color was specifically purple instead of the red touches of the Ultimate Hawkeye...

Ryan Meinerding did an early design that very much adopted the Hitch design, complete with a red color motif, and Director of Visual Development for Marvel Studios Andy Park recalled, "I remember liking this design and thinking that it was the right way to go for the MCU… but I did honestly wish I was able to incorporate purple as that was the color I associated with him from the years I read Marvel Comics as a kid."

THE HAWKEYE MOVIE DESIGN LED TO THE HAWKEYE COMIC COSTUME CHANGING

In the comic books, after a brief period where Hawkeye was, well, dead following Avengers Disassembled, he rejoined the Avengers after Civil War, where Hawkeye took the name and costume of Ronin....

In 2010, Marvel finished its Dark Reign era by having the Avengers finally get back together as a cohesive, bright superhero team in Avengers #1 (by Brian Michael Bendis, John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson) and Steve Rogers selected the roster and one of the team members was Hawkeye...

There is a sequence in the issue where Spider-Man questions Clint about how he was now going by Hawkeye again and there's a fun bit where Hawkeye jokes about how he is "declaring himself Hawkeye" again....

That was 2010. Obviously, there was no Avengers movie in 2010. So as you can see, he is back to the classic Hawkeye costume, complete with the dace mask. Even in 2011, Hawkeye was still rocking the masked costume...

However, with the movie now due out in Summer of 2012, Marvel obviously decided that it made sense to adapt Hawkeye's look to the film look, at least in a way.

The first decision was to launch a 2012 series, Avengers Assemble, featuring specifically the movie team on a team together. Hawkeye would then use the Bryan Hitch costume (the comic even specifically credited Hitch for the costume design) in purple, which, of course, also worked as a reference to the film costume (as the film costume was also based on the Hitch costume)...

And then, while technically coming out before the Avengers Assemble series (but after the Avengers Assemble series had been announced so people knew Hawkeye would be wearing a movie-style costume), 2011's Avengers #18 (by Brian Michael Bendis and Daniel Acuna), Hawkeye was now in a variation of the movie costume, complete with no mask...

Here he is when he joins the newly formed Avengers roster in the next issue's cover...

Honestly, it really is a strong design for a mixture between the film design, which is all about practicability and the comic book design, which is, you know, NOT about practicability. It is really kind of funny, honestly, how much the two things really don't overlap very often.

RELATED: Why Shang-Chi's Sister Had to Change for the Marvel Cinematic Universe

THE HAWKEYE TV SERIES EVENTUALLY ADOPTED THE COMIC COSTUME

In any event, later in 2012, the Acuna design was used by David Aja in the amazing Hawkeye ongoing series by Matt Fraction, Aja and Matt Hollingsworth...

And then, amusingly enough, as everything came full circle, in the current Hawkeye TV series on Disney+, the MCU Hawkeye now adopted the Marvel Comics Hawkeye costume...

Of course, that costume was based on the film costume...which was based on the Ultimate comic version....wow, this is some real chicken and egg stuff going on here, right?

That's it for this installment of Follow the Path! If anyone else has a suggestion for a comic book character changing due to TV or movies, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!

KEEP READING: When Agent May Got Her Own Special Airplane in the Comics, Too