Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige is explaining Hawkeye's absence from Avengers: Infinity War promotional materials, calling the supposed snub “one of the best things that ever happened to Hawkeye.”

“We [at Marvel] love Hawkeye. There are big, big story things coming up for Hawkeye and Jeremy Renner is as strong an actor as anyone in the MCU and awesome as this character,” Feige told io9.

“But ‘The guy with the bow and arrow jokes’, right? There are a lot of ‘Guy with bow and arrow jokes,’” Feige said. "He even makes ‘Guy with a bow and arrow’ jokes in some of the movies. So I love that people go from ‘Oh, Hawkeye is just lucky to be there,’ to ‘Oh, where is he? He’s not there? What's going to happen? We need Hawkeye. We want more Hawkeye.’”

“I love it,” the producer added. “It’s the best.”

Hawkeye and actor Jeremy Renner being MIA is all part of the plan, according to Infinity War directors Anthony and Joe Russo, who say audiences “just need to be patient.”

“As we were working on both films, we were thinking about story real estate,” Joe Russo said.

“We had the luxury of cracking both scripts at the same time and we wanted to give each character, especially the original Avengers, their moments. It led us to certain choices, especially considering the events of Civil War where [Hawkeye’s] included in this group of insurgents and has to deal with the ramifications of siding against the U.S. government. So that led us to a very specific story with him that, as I’ve said before is a long play, not a short play. Audiences just need to be patient.”

Speaking to press on the set of the Marvel blockbuster last year, the Russo brothers revealed Hawkeye would be “on his own journey” come Infinity War.

“Hawkeye coming out of Civil War is in the same position that the Cap and Falcon are in at the end of that movie. And Ant Man,” Joe said.

“And coming into this movie, the characters who are on Cap's side coming out of Civil War, some made certain decisions and others made other decisions that led to different paths and them dealing with oversight in this movie in a different way.”

“Yeah, he has a unique reaction to the Civil War situation that puts him in a special spot this film,” Anthony added.

The bow-wielding Avenger has famously been excluded from all Infinity War trailers and TV spots, and Renner is not credited on the billing in any of the main posters released since the first San Diego Comic Con poster released last July.

In that poster, Renner's Clint Barton is situated just above Spider-Man and between Bucky and the Hulk.

Avengers: Infinity War opens April 27. Its sequel, the still untitled Avengers 4, opens May 3, 2019.