Were Hawkeye and Green Arrow to go head-to-head, allowing for abilities, Green Arrow's greater experience facing archers would be a huge asset.

Between the upcoming Hawkeye featuring Jeremy Renner, and Stephen Amell's run on Arrow, archers have proven to be very successful as superheroes - but if those two archers were to fight, who would be the winner? While such superheroic match-ups usually resolve this question with the answer 'whomever the writers want', there are some comparable abilities between the characters that could help to determine the likely winner. By comparing the two heroes at their most similar, it seems likely that Hawkeye would win in an asymmetric assassination, but that Green Arrow would win in an archer's duel.

It is hard to ignore that the varied abilities and equipment available to each archer through the course of their depictions in media introduces difficulty in direct head-to-head comparisons. To compare the two archers, Hawkeye is not bringing the full wrath of S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers, and Green Arrow is not in the role of the Spectre; the comparison is most interesting between the two solo human archers. In these roles, Hawkeye has more experience as a targeted killer with a ruthless streak, as described in the recent Black Widow film. Green Arrow has more experience in fights against other archers, however - giving him a distinct advantage if the combat is symmetrical.

A great number of the villains in Arrow are also archers, knife-fighters, and swordsmen; Green Arrow's rivalry with Prometheus, Merlyn, and Deathstroke would prepare him extremely well for a fight to the death with Hawkeye.  In contrast, while Hawkeye has extensive experience fighting non-human foes or disabling human enemies who are not near peers, there are fewer enemies in his sphere who use a comparable arsenal. The advantage in an archer's duel, therefore, favors Green Arrow, with more extensive experience fighting such duels - Prometheus, a villain from Green Arrow comics, was a principal antagonist for much of the fourth season, for example.

In asymmetrical combat, the advantage slightly favors Hawkeye. While his principal skills definitely shine in his talents as a prodigious archer, Hawkeye does not rely on intimidation tactics or apparently feel any strong impulse to introduce himself to a target. In the flashback to the Budapest Operation in Black Widow, it is revealed that Hawkeye and Natasha Romanoff collapsed a five-story office building to kill one person, with Hawkeye relying upon Nat as a spotter before committing the detonation himself from a third location. There was explicitly no warning given, and even allowing for the possibility that Black Widow's memory of what happened in Budapest was skewed, it shows a distinct cold-bloodedness that would advantage Hawkeye in an assassination scenario.

Taken together, the overall advantage goes to Green Arrow, even before considering his flirtations with superpowers and Spectre abilities. Hawkeye has fought other assassins, and has fought superpowered individuals, but has little experience fighting someone with skills so similar to his own - a trope that Arrow embraced repeatedly. In contrast, while Oliver Queen could be taken by surprise in asymmetric combat, he does have considerable experience with assassination tactics which would make Hawkeye's use of such a strategy a not insurmountable advantage. At present, the balance, therefore, seems to lie with Stephen Amell's Arrow - but the upcoming Hawkeye series could reveal more to skew that probability.

Next: Scarlet Witch Failing To Hypnotize Hawkeye Proves He Isn't The Worst Avenger