Hawkeye has finally hit Disney Plus like and, like with other Marvel Phase 4 TV series, and fan theories have already started to bubble away. The newest of these outlandish suppositions concerns Vera Farmiga’s character Eleanor, the mother of Kate Bishop – Hawkeye’s unwanted protege. We warn you now; this is a weird one but still potential spoilers ahead.
People think that Eleanor might be a vampire. No, we don’t mean in a metaphorical way. We mean, in a literal, she could star in a monster movie, kind of way. What’s the evidence for this? Well, since when do you need evidence for a fan theory? OK, that’s a bit unfair. There is some very circumstantial evidence to support this.
The first supporting argument is that vampires do exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We’ve not met one yet, but we know Blade exists, and he wouldn’t be much of a vampire hunter if he didn’t have something fanged to hunt at night. The second is that – in the comic books at least – Eleanor is a vampire.
In a recent Hawkeye storyline, we learn that Eleanor met her end when Katie was just a teenager at the hands of her husband, Derek Bishop. There were, however, some teases that Eleanor may, in fact, still be alive.
This turned out to be true when Eleanor rescued Kate from an attacking team of supervillains. Bewildered by her mother’s survival, Eleanor explained that she had been working with Kate’s nemesis Madame Masque to get close to Derek so she could take her revenge.
Eleanor returns in a later issue where it’s revealed that, yes, she survived by becoming a vampire, and she now wants to drink the blood of Kate’s teammate America Chavez (who’ll be introduced in Doctor Strange 2). The Bishop matriarch believes that by drinking Chavez’s blood she’ll become a “daywalker”, but Kate stops her before she can test this theory.
Yeah, comics are weird.
i srsly have no idea about this hawkeye but vera farmiga as a vampire in it i will defo watch it
— jo an 🍑 (@missspaulson) December 4, 2020
if vera farmiga doesn’t turn into a vampire i’m suing marvel trust me in this
— kata,, hawkeye era (@verafrmg) November 19, 2021
Liz Mitchell 🤝 Vera Farmiga
playing vampires in
upcoming projects pic.twitter.com/2PEqVFH6Iz— becca (@aloeverafarmiga) May 28, 2021
Anyway, what’s the likelihood of Farmiga becoming a vampire? Well, as Kevin Feige says, never say never with the MCU, but we’d be surprised if it happened in Hawkeye. The story has already diverged from the source material, with Derek not being a villain instead of dying during the Chitauri invasion.
Unless Eleanor killed him off-screen? They were arguing, after all, you don’t think? I mean, you don’t get The Conjuring star and horror movie icon Vera Farmiga to just play Kate Bishop’s mum, do you? I guess we’ll have to watch to find out.
Hawkeye continues every Wednesday until December 22. If you need more Avengers news, check out our guide on Black Panther 2.