Law and the Multiverse

An anonymous reader writes "jwz posted a link to this intensely nerdy blog co-authored by two attorneys who write about applying real-world law to comic books. Example topics include Mutants and Anti-Discrimination Laws (a three part series!), Is Batman a State Actor?, and Federalism and the Keene Act."

How is this not idle?

[Culture20]

posting this in yro./. is like posting someone's pet theories on Hyper/Sub space in science./.

Attorneys wrote this?

[vux984]

This presents two problems. The first is with anonymity, i.e. creating and maintaining a fictional person who is really one of the richest people in the world just doesn’t work.

Say what now? An immortal fictional person who is one of the richest people in the world doesn't work? Have they not heard of Exxon Mobil?

A privately held corporation, and a few shell corporations, holding companies, scattered internationally... maintaining an immortal fictional entity with stupid amounts of wealth is essentially a solved problem.

I'd say their immortals just need some better lawyers. :p

It may sound silly.....

[Creepy Crawler]

But these laws need to be figured out, as our fellow humans in Tibet have already done so, to an interesting extent.

In the Tibetan region, reincarnation isn't some religious lofty newage crap: it's true and obvious to their culture. It's well known that you are born, live, and die, and when you die, you'll find a new place to be reborn in. Almost always, unless otherwise needed, you will be reborn somewhere on your family tree, just as the ancient Celts also believed.

Understanding that: Tibetans and Ancient Celts alike form contracts that are binding between lives. Now admittedly, these contracts aren't in the usual that some property is transferred, but instead promising protection or other services one can do themselves.

Wrong mix

[gmuslera]

In a world where superpowers, immortality and such exists, and are known in the open, laws should take them into account. Laws are meant to adapt to a changing world, what if we did that in a world where noone could go faster than 40km/h, and suddently someone with a modern car jump in? Our world hadnt laws regarding fast cars before, but somehow the legal system acknowledged that something changed and added laws for them. The alternative is acknowledge that something weird and unique is there, and do nothing about it because you can't do nothing, and probably shouldnt. Would you give an speeding ticket to Superman or try to put him in prison? In the other hand, if those superpowers are unknown for almost people, you can be breaking the law (in some cases, of physics), but as noone knows that, it could happen. More than the comics world, there are several sci-fi stories about immortal people, or that are around since a lot of time ago, you have from the dumb soldier that were around since middle century (that wasnt very bright, so all the money he won usually got lost in poker games and such things), or the time traveler that deposited money in compound interest 500 years ago, making in the present just enough accomulated money to build the time machine that enable him do the back in time trip, nothing in the law forbids any of both cases, even if there is an exploit to the system in the second one.

Comics and the law at Yale Law School

[phiz187]

Yale Law Library has also delved into this subject, putting together a video and exhibit about the law's depiction in comic books. I don't know to what extent the library is open to the public, but if you are near New Haven, the exhibit closes 16 Dec. 2010.

http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/rarebooks/archive/2010/10/18/video-of-quot-superheroes-in-court-quot-talk-is-now-available.aspx [yale.edu]

Re:How is this not idle?

[TheRaven64]

I don't think that donating drugs to countries on the condition that they sign strong patent-protection treaties with the USA, crippling their local industry for a generation and meaning that they can't locally produce the same drugs and so are dependent on more 'donations' from the west actually counts as 'very good purposes'. But maybe your definitions are different.