Judge Decides X-Men Aren't Human

An anonymous reader points to this Wall Street Journal article, writing "According to the U.S. Court of International Trade, the X-Men (along with other figures from the Marvel universe) aren't human. The presiding judge subjected the figures to "comprehensive examinations" which included "the need to remove the clothes of the figure." Ironically, the X-Men, whose struggle for human acceptance has been a key theme in the series, were more easily classified as non-human than Kraven and Mole Man.

Comments

Deeply, deeply ironic...

[Malfourmed]

...that the X-Men fight to have themselves accepted as human in their principle-driven comic book world, while their owners and masters fight to have the opposite declared in the dollar-uber-alles real world.

<comic geek pedant mode>

It's Spider-Man, not Spiderman

</cgpm>

And Superman was never human - he was always Kryptonian!

Overfuckinglawyered.

[Tackhead]

Overlawyered. Overfuckingregulated.

OK kids. A 32-page ruling on whether or not the X-Men are human or non-human, due to a 6.8% vs 12% import duty differential charged seven years ago, a duty that isn't even in effect anymore.

How many hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dollars got spent on lawyers - both from Marvel's shareholders for their lawyers and our tax dollars being spent on the Government's lawyers - in the case leading up to this ruling - a ruling that took seven years after the initial dispute hit the courts?

In the world of the X-Men, something would have broken by now, but the real world has no superheroes to save us.

Isn't it time we called our Congressmen/women and demanded, on pain of our voting for third parties, that they put the tax law genie back in the bottle?

Anyone? Bueller?

Re:Non human?

[nucal]

and did the Judge need to perform a "comprehensive examination" of her including removing her clothes?

I think that Ken and Barbie would be non-human by this criterion ...

what about barbie?

[gmack]

"The judge found that Kraven exhibited "highly exaggerated muscle tone in arms and legs.""

This begs the question .. if exaggerated musles make craven nonhuman than what about Barbie's extremely small waist size?

Superman is not SUPPOSED to be human!

[Andy_R]

According to the plot of Superman, he shares no DNA with us, he just happens to be roughly the same shape because evolution on Kryton followed a Parallel path.

On the other hand, Spider-man IS human, in fact according to the plot of the comic, he was a perfectly normal person up to the point in the story that he was bitten. Peter Parker dolls definitely should have been subject to the tax, according to the (admittedly very dumb) rules.

Re:It's not a big deal

[ndogg]

Firstly, Magneto has it wrong, Mutants are humans since they can interbreed with any Homo-sapien on the Marvel earth. They would be better classified as the only other race of Homo-sapiens (NB "races" such as Caucasian, Indian, Hispanic, etc. don't really exist because there isn't enough differences in the genetics for such races to exist within the definition of biology.)

Secondly, you're right, in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter all that much, but it's still something to be upset about. The X-Men, for many people, aren't merely characters in a great piece of fiction, but also a metaphor for those in humanity who have felt the sting of oppression by fellow human beings.

This comic also shows that oppressed people are still human. Being oppressed does not necessarily provide justification for all actions used to break that oppression. The comic shows the complexity of human nature and its affairs, rather than trying to make clear distinctions between good and evil.