I KEEP PITCHIN' 'EM

...and he keeps droppin' 'em.

(This title was drawn from a classic line delivered by Foghorn Leghorn and so has nothing whatever to do with current slang interpretations of the words "pitchers" and "catchers.")

I refer to BEAT employee Steven R. Stahl, who posted the following in a discussion with me on 2/13/09:

"Gene, you seem to be taking the position that there generally aren’t bad ideas, only bad execution of ideas. Character concepts, however, can be fundamentally flawed. One example on the list is Hawkeye (Kate Bishop). She has no powers, only combat skills, and her primary weapon is a bow that’s used with conventional arrows. Other weapons include a sword “similar to” (Wikipedia) the one used by the Swordsman and staves like Mockingbird’s. Whatever one might think of her personality, or whether the Young Avengers is a legitimate concept, this Hawkeye has no reason to exist. Using conventional arrows against supervillains is laughable; her fighting skills would be limited by her muscle mass and total body mass; her other weapons are copies. The character is so derivative as to be offensive, and probably wouldn’t exist outside of the Marvel Universe."

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2009/02/12/deep-thoughts-21208/#comments

I draw the reader's attention to this phrase:

"her fighting skills would be limited by her muscle mass and total body mass"

To which I replied:

"This sounds like an unintentional blanket indictment against all female heroes who don’t have superpowers, not just those that are derivative. Black Canary doesn’t have the muscle mass of Batman, so she’s inherently not as good as Batman, right?
I presume the majority of female fans would disagree."

As yet Mr. Stahl has not replied, but I must say that in addition to the objection I posted at THE BEAT, I would also add that the matter of lesser muscle mass is key to my potential discussion of the action-heroine as symbol of the Schopenhaurean Will.

Now let's see if I get two links out of WHEN FANGIRLS ATTACK.