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Kate Bishop and Clint Barton just can’t seem to catch a break. What should have been an intimate reunion between two friends recently became all-out chaos when a villain named Eden tried to shoot, stab, and bomb the heroes out of existence. Having first appeared in the pages of GENERATIONS: THE ARCHERS, the villain will continue to terrorize Kate and Clint on January 3 in writer Kelly Thompson and artist Leonardo Romero’s HAWKEYE #14! We caught up with Thompson to talk about playing the long game with Eden, developing the character’s design, and taking the story to new heights. Marvel.com: How long has the character of Eden been brewing in your head? Has she developed as you’ve worked on the book? Kelly Thompson: Eden was definitely born of the Hawkeye GENERATIONS story—that’s what I created her for, but there ended up being so much happening in that book that I felt like we’d only scratched the surface of her potential. So I felt really excited when I saw a great, natural way to bring her back, this time as a bigger adversary. Marvel.com: How did artists Stefano Raffaele and Leonardo Romero help develop the character, first in GENERATIONS and then in the ongoing? Kelly Thompson: The original idea for Eden had her looking a lot like the ‘60s and ‘70s Black Widow, right down to the long red hair, for a couple story reasons we ended up jettisoning. But that’s such a great look that Stefano and I stuck with that design concept and just tweaked it a little bit, most notably her hair color to make sure she’d be easily recognizable if I brought her back. And when I brought her back I told HAWKEYE series artist Leonardo Romero that he was free to do what he liked so long as he maintained the pale blue hair and kept her powers in mind. And I just love what he did. That white with the badass futuristic asymmetrical armor? So cool. 
Marvel.com: What can you tell us about her motivation for coming at the Hawkeyes so hard in “Family Reunion”? Kelly Thompson: Eden finds her motivations in grief and obsession. She’s lost someone she can’t live without and, rather than dealing with that, she’s looking for someone to blame. And super heroes make an easy target. Especially Clint, since he became the face of the resistance that got her city—and everything she loved—destroyed. Marvel.com: Later on in the arc, Eden will join forces with Madame Masque. What brings them together besides having a shared enemy? Kelly Thompson: The shared enemies thing will definitely be a big motivator—enemy of my enemy is my friend kind of thing—there’s a certain amount of convenience in there too. But I think they both have trauma in their pasts that’s causing them to lash out. But of everything Eden will do and face in this story, Masque’s presence may turn out to be the most…educational. Marvel.com: How does it feel to add this new toy to the HAWKEYE sandbox? Kelly Thompson: It’s always fun to get to add a cool character to the Marvel world. And Eden has a ton of potential. One of my favorite things about her is that she brings the best of both worlds with her—thanks to her power set you get a new character in Eden but also a whole bunch of classic characters. And playing with those two together, classic and new, is the most fun. On January 3, get in on the “Family Reunion” fun with Kelly Thompson and artist Leonardo Romero’s HAWKEYE #14!
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