DrAwkward

November 30, 2012 12:17 pm As updated in the source article, Allan Heinberg and Geoff Johns have tweets blatantly suggesting Iris is just a production codename for Diana.

February 28, 2012 9:13 pm @Paul You know, that venom hose used to be strapped right against Bane's skin in his first appearances, minimizing its relevance as a weak point... but every portrayal afterwards has presented it as this big glowing videogame-like structural weakness that ALWAYS takes Bane out. I hope Rises doesn't fall into that trope that is easily designed around. re: Doom. I got to see it at the Paley Center and loved it then (and the panel afterwards, particularly the panelists sharing their MacDuffie stories with his wife present in the audience) and just got my Blu-Ray in the mail today, looking forwards to the extras. It's not the greatest or deepest or most emotional story... but considering the source material and the scope of the cast and the time limitations, it's pretty incredible. It would be so easy to turn it into a confusing trainwreck and instead it comes off clear, coherent, and classy- honoring all the heroes rather than deconstructing them. If you miss JL/JLU or pre-New52DCU, this is a welcome reunion.

January 12, 2012 10:06 am Excited by what a new-comer can do with Dial H, the 2003 series was pretty interesting (too bad only the first six were collected, but you can find the entire run at conventions easily).

January 11, 2012 6:58 pm It's hard to take science seriously when it complicates a matter rather than acts as a useful tool. As Ryan illustrates: "I’m nervous for the day a company makes a doll that they try to import as a toy because the doll has sickle cell anemia, technically making her a mutant, thus making her not human." That would be the result IF science, technical taxonomies of mutant and inhumanity, and in-story distinctions mattered legally. Rather, instead of complicating the taxation of a figure by needing to know its back story and "scientific" classification of a fictional entity while worrying about the greater philosophical implications, judges can simply LOOK at the figure while keeping in mind the interests behind the statute. A functional approach that gets to the point and doesn't bleed messy precedent. Science is a tool and meant to deal with repeatable / provable phenomena... even if it was relevant to toy taxation, it wouldn't help us in dealing with hypothetical beings like Martha, Danger, Krakoa, or GLaDOS (whose "facts" can literally be retconned, like all Ultimate Marvel Mutants have been!)... there, philosophy is more useful, but not by much when, ultimately, you're just trying to figure out the tariff on a container of figures. When your "facts" are fiction it isn't science or useful.

January 11, 2012 6:29 pm Thanks Burritoclock, but I know the article isn't serious... that's the essence of the source material- NPR juxtaposing real-world actions and fictional intentions- but at the same time all the surrounding talk and cross-posting of the podcast has been about those winking non-legal humanity questions raised but NOT the actual case... so my analysis is meant to bring it back to the original case and provide insight into that. Conor's essentially saying, "Ryan's positions aren't real, why the legal analysis unless you couldn't tell they weren't real (jokes/non-literal)?" I'm saying, "Marvel 'mutants' aren't real, why the scientific analysis unless reality is irrelevant? Analysis is independent of perceived reality." I can- and do- perceive the article as farcical, but it doesn't stop applied analysis. You could say, "Why legally parse a joke? That's out of scope!" But then, "Why scientifically parse a legal case jokingly?" Scope is not a limitation on analysis. In any case, I'm glad you enjoyed the analysis.

January 11, 2012 5:07 pm I'm not writing an entertainment piece so why does my analysis- or indeed my reply- need to be funny? Facts aside, Ryan's genetics and taxonomy analysis was straight-faced, thus my legal analysis was too. It has no bearing on literal interpretation or not. The only time I engage his "facts" are when they affect my analysis, such as incorrectly stating what the ruling was or things like "[defining a species] seems like something legislation may have just plain botched." If literal interpretation was the issue then I would have legally parsed the pineapple joke.

January 11, 2012 4:28 pm No, I got that. Certainly from the original podcast where it's a sly smirk at the case. But I don't see how Ryan parsing the case through genetics, taxonomy, story, & ethics, and what not in jest and me doing it legally has anything to do with literal interpretation. Ryan took the legal story with the pop-culture wink and parsed it with science, I took the questions raised and parsed it back through the law. Literal interpretation has no bearing.

January 11, 2012 4:12 pm He says, "But it does also kind set a weird precedent for what a 'human' is." I'm saying, "No, it doesn't." I'm not sure where the literal interpretation of anything enters the picture. The article ends with an invitation to share what we think... this is what I think: A statutory tax classification case no more undermines the future civil rights of sentient beings than taxing a tomato as a vegetable unravels scientific classification.

January 11, 2012 3:59 pm Nah, I'm saying "The facts don't matter when it comes to reporting." You discuss genetics, civil rights, and outrage but I'm saying none of those are relevant to this case. For example: "The court ruled that any superhero character Marvel sells doesn’t qualify as human. / Just disgusting. / This was what perplexed me the most. Sure, I get that The Beast and Gambit are obvious monstrosities, but the entire Marvel U? I refuse to accept that Captain America isn’t human." Except that's not the ruling! This was a retroactive tax case deeming everything in the Toy Biz containers was over-taxed as human dolls instead of toys, Marvel met their burden by proving many of the items were visually toys, then as a matter of administration the containers were deemed toys... once the burden was on the State, parsing each figure and fighting classification item by item wasn't in the government's interest. The ruling does not deem Captain America as inhuman henceforth and forever more... just that any other figures that happened to be in the same containers as the ones declared toys as also toys for the sake of easily reimbursing the tax refund.

January 11, 2012 3:06 pm "This led to Marvel, a company that every week publishes books about the struggle for mutants to be treated like people, arguing in a court of law that mutants are not in fact people." Equivocation. The stories highlight treatment of sentient humanoid (usually) Marvel-styled "mutants" as it relates to similarly situated humans. The court case is about the taxation of containers of figures which either run afoul domestic statutory protection of human-like dolls or not as less-human toys. In other words, the case does nothing to answer "what is a human for the purposes of civil rights" but addresses "whether this inanimate figure invades the space of domestic dolls." That doesn't turn on in-story humanity, treatment, etc... merely whether the overall visual characteristics more closely resemble the industry protected or not. The determination of the entire licensed line was toys was not a declaration of inhumanity of Marvel characters on a story level, but one of administrative convenience... you tax by the container and so long as Marvel could prove the container was classified wrong with enough examples, they win. Highly technical, scientific, philosophical, etc. definitions and debates about what is "human" aren't legally relevant. The oft quoted case is Nix v. Hedden (whether tomatoes constituted fruit for the purposes of avoiding vegetable taxation), where the basic rule is that functional lay usage of words control (because that's what law makers and abiders are) and if more technical definitions are required, then the drafters can include it in the statute. So in-story, taxonomic, philosophical, etc. definitions of "human" are no more relevant than the botanical definition of "fruit"... instead, the definition that most serves the common understanding and function of the statute is applied (so culinary / common usage of tomato as veg; characteristics which makes a figure a human doll which would negatively impact the domestic industry being protected vs visual characteristics which make the figure more like other toy lines which don't directly compete with the protected industry). Bottom line: Saying the intent or outcome of this case has any impact on the civil rights / classification / or moral treatment of sentient beings is like saying the outcome of Nix warped all of botany, taxonomy, and science... that's not the scope of either case and they don't set any kind of relevant precedent.