Superhero comics is a fantastical world full of larger-than-life characters and stories, but as many critics in comics culture have noted, its art often depicts female characters in unusually ridiculous poses that push the limits of credulity – even in a world where people shoot lasers from their eyes and constantly come back from the dead.

On a Tumblr called The Hawkeye Initiative, a group of comics fans and artists have taken a fresh look at the issue, and the often spine-wrenching drawings of superheroines, by simply substituting a new character in their place: the bow-wielding superhero and Avenger Hawkeye.

The meme originally kicked off with a post by Tumblr user Hoursago, who noted the discrepancy in how Hawkeye and Black Widow were posed on the cover of a Marvel Adventure Super-Heroes comics, and tried her hand at a piece of original art that swapped their poses. Inspired, webcomic artist Noelle Stevenson proposed a hypothesis: The way to fix all the inexplicable stances of female characters – so ubiquitous in superhero comics that they often go unnoticed – is simply to "replace the character with Hawkeye doing the same thing."

Soon the Hawkeye Initiative was off and running, with dozens of contributions pouring in from fans and artists to help her test the theory.

“It started off as only a bit of fun and I had no idea that it would blow up the way it did,” Stevenson told Wired. “I thought that it was a really interesting way to make people pay attention to the way that female superheroes were posed in comparison to male superheroes. But mostly it was just silly. It's amazing that so many people were inspired to contribute!”

The Tumblr has had its supporters, which include prominent DC Comics writer Gail Simone, who called it "the best thing in the history of historical anything ever in the universe or elsewhere," and its detractors, which include people who really want to keep looking at pictures of superheroines with curiously elastic skeletons.

Stevenson remains unfazed by the complaints. “My favorite part is the people who are getting mad and freaking out about it, because we haven't done anything but take the poses that were already drawn and replace them with a character that already exists, and the only difference is gender.”