Namely, the suckitude of Jeremy Renner's superhero character, Hawkeye in the otherwise acceptable Avengers film last year. One of my contentions is that a superhero should be able to take most of his actor's other roles in a straight up fight. Batman could probably take John Connor, a 19th century magician with a secret twin, a newspaper boy, Patrick Bateman, or that kid who was like the only one to get killed by the French at Agincourt (Before you ask, he could also take Mr. Mom, Topper Harley's archrival, and a Hawaiian cuckold). Superman could probably waste an unknown paranormal detective, Charles Brandon: 16th century ass-kisser, and a custodial-dispute-kidnapper, because, I guess, popular actors don't get to play him. Iron Man could take Charlie Chaplin, the Hulk could beat up a minor league baseball player or lesbian sperm donor, and Captain America...hmm, fanboys, help me out. COULD Captain America take the Human Torch? Based on what I saw in the two movies each appeared in, I'd say yes, based solely on badassery, but IDK how their powers and so forth match up.

But then we have Hawkeye. I am not a hundred percent certain Hawkeye could take OTHER people named Hawkeye. Nathaniel Bumpo's other nickname, after all, was Long Rifle, which automatically puts him a long way ahead of an archer. But just looking at Jeremy Renner's other roles, it's hard to find one character he has played who Clint Barton could take when both of them are awake and armed with weapons of choice.

Hansel: The kid whose primary weapon in the fairy tales was a chicken bone, has actually been re-imagined as a Van Helsing-esque slayer of witches. He is superior to Hawkeye in his use of primitive firearms and his immunity to magic. Yes, that's right. If Joss Whedon had replaced Hawkeye and Black Widow on his Avengers roster with HANSEL AND GRETEL, that movie would have been over in like, the first scene, when Loki tries to use magic on Hansel, who then proceeds to kick his ass the way he did the far more masculine Famke Janssen. Instead of becoming his bitch, like Hawkeye did.

Aaron Cross: Of the Bourne Legacy, Cross is an elite, government-trained, pharmaceutically enhanced assassin who can cross inhospitable arctic mountain ranges on foot. He is superior to Hawkeye, because in a theme that will become familiar as we progress further back into Jeremy Renner's C.V., he uses firearms.
William Brandt: A less-steroidy version of Aaron Cross, who demonstrates hand-to-hand competence and uses guns in the latest Mission Impossible movie.

Young Clint Barton: A brief character in "Thor" this is one of the very few contenders who might loses to the character in "Avengers" because while the older version is never explicitly presented with a choice between gun and bow (for all we know, all those other guns seen in the movie were called dibs by other henchpersons), younger Clint has a chance to pick up either a gun or a bow in order to go fight a security breach at the base, because his S.H.I.E.L.D. job title is "Ineffectual Protector of Asgardian Artifacts". Instead he grabs the bow (despite Coulson TELLING him to get a gun), and is shown up by an anonymous guard who actually manages to go toe-to-toe with the god of thunder while Clint has the temerity to snark about all the henchman Thor is beating up. Clint, of course, will later go into the record books as the single worst performance by a SHIELD trooper vs an Asgardian in either film, when he gets converted to the enemy - the other guys might have been ineffectual, but at least they weren't scoring own goals!

So here's a Renner character Hawkeye could take in a fight, except it would create a time travel paradox that would negate his own existence.

James Coughlin: A bank robber in "The Town", he uses automatic firearms AND clever disguises, so Hawkeye would not even know who to put an arrow through before he got riddled with bullets.

Det. Jason Walsh: An NYPD detective in the TV show "The Unusuals" he had a firearm for his service weapon. Also, IIRC, he owned a diner. Still more powerful than being an archer. He could have poisoned Hawkeye after the credits, maybe.

Sam: In the movie "Ingenious, which I have not seen, he plays either "a small time inventor" or "a sharky salesman" according to IMDB. There are no indications of violence in this movie, so we'll give this to Hawkeye as his first clear win so far.

SFC William James: In "The Hurt Locker" he plays a soldier in Iraq, who carries an uses his typical soldier weapons which are like 23 generations removed from archery, AND he has the cojones to disarm booby traps and IEDs. Hawkeye goes down again, especially since the grenades his team uses to attack the helicarrier are shown to fail to seriously injure even a skinny, no-powers Canadian woman when they blow up inches from her face. Sgt James disarms dangerous bombs. He'd barely notice Hawkeye.

Jimmy Quid: A guest character on a "House MD" episode, he was a drug-abusing rocker with some sort of mental ailment that made him like discordant music and crazy behavior. This makes two doable wins for Hawkeye.

Wood Hite: from "The Assassination of Jesse James...", I am assuming this guy was a Western dude. Western dudes are remembered by history as the ones who kicked ass when the other team brought arrows to a gun fight, which is why the population of the West is so much paler these days. Unless someone who watched that film can tell me he was one of those guys with the black ties on their sleeves and green visors who duck behind counters when the gunfights start, I'm gonna go ahead and give Woody the nod over Hawkeye.

Saul Gregor: In "Take" he plays a gambling addict. Not being a fan of Minnie Driver films, I'm not going to watch and see if he is unusually well-armed and trained in hand to hand combat for a gambling addict. The only baseline I have for such characters is a TV movie with Elisha Cuthbert, the only character who managed to outlive Season 8 of 24 without being effective in a gunfight, so I am guessing "no"

Score three for Hawkeye. Three civilians, two of them dysfunctional losers.

Doyle: In "28 Weeks Later" he was a soldier who fought zombies. Even if zombies lack bows, these were infamously the fast kind of zombie, so they're probably almost as dangerous as Hawkeye. Doyle gets the nod, because he has guns.

Skipping a bunch of movies because I have absolutely no clue what Renner did in them, we get to:
Brian Gamble: Renegade SWAT officer in the film "SWAT" and Renner's first attempt at betraying a group led by Samuel L Jackson. That worked out less well for him in this movie, but he defeats multiple people WITH GUNS in this film, so he'd definitely take Hawkeye.

Roger Jennings: A guest star on a episode of "CSI" his character is described as a "hardened violent criminal" and a murder suspect, suggesting, once again, knowledge and experience with firearms. Sorry, Hawkeye.

Remy: In a film called "Fish in a Barrel" Renner is depicted on the poster pointing a gun. I have won again, Clint Barton...

Penn: A guest star on "Angel" he's a vampire who tears up a roomful of LAPD detectives in seconds and has centuries of combat experience, even giving Angel a run for his money. Given that vampires on this show frequently catch higher-velocity crossbow bolts in their bare hands, Hawkeye doesn't have a prayer.

That being the first thing I ever saw Jeremy Renner in, I'm going to stop there. 13 years of watching Jeremy Renner, and Hollywood had managed to find three out of fifteen characters whom Hawkeye could take in a fair fight. The acceptable ratio for a SUPERhero should at least have an above-.500 winning percentage with his actor's other roles, if not able to beat every single one of them. Maybe that gun-kata priest guy from "Equilibrium" could take Bat-Bale, but he's the exception that only highlights how many of his other roles would be defeated by his superhero, as opposed to Hawkeye, who would lose to 80% of Jeremy Renner's characters in even vaguely action-related films!

Whedon et al did a good job of keeping him from dragging down the movie, but I don't see how they are going to do that without marginalizing the character altogether in the sequels.