In the poster for The Avengers, inescapable this past spring, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow was the only superhero whose assets were displayed as perhaps they would be on the poster for a porno parody version of the movie. Everyone else got to look like ass-kicking saviors ready for battle; she looked like Cirque Du Soleil: After Hours. The poster was sent up in a widely Reddit-circulated image of all the Avengers posed in a likewise fashion, ridiculing this disparity. Now a new project called The Hawkeye Initiative is drawing even more attention to it… with drawings.
During The Avengers, Jeremy Renner’s arrow-happy Hawkeye spends some screen time topless, showing way more skin than Black Widow ever does, and yet the poster doesn’t represent as much. When the two shared a comic book cover in 2011, their poses provided a similar contrast. Now, graphic artists Blue and Ginger Haze have apparently decided that perhaps Hawkeye should be the one striking sultry poses. The two got the ball rolling with a call for other artists to re-envision Hawkeye in the ass-hugging outfits and stripper twirls of not just Black Widow, but all of the comic book universe’s so-called “Strong Female Characters.” If the resulting images look a little ridiculous on Hawkeye, well, perhaps they’re a little ridiculous on them too.
Look through some of the best side-by-side comparison images from The Hawkeye Initiative in the slide show above.
