Practicalmadness

This morning's Wall Street Journal reports that the X-Men are not human, according to a U.S. judge ruling in a dispute between Marvel Comics and the U.S. Customs Service.

Judge Judith Barzilay found the X-Men and their fellow Marvel characters to be 'nonhuman creatures', and the action figures in their image were thereby subject to a lower import duty during the mid-1990s. The comic book giant is seeking massive refunds of prior tariffs that were levied under the assumption that the human-seeming figures, were 'dolls' and not 'toys'.

Judge Barzilay...described in her ruling how she subjected many of the figures to "comprehensive examinations." At times that included "the need to remove the clothes of the figure."

The X-Men, oddly, gave her the least trouble. They are mutants, she declared, who "use their extraordinary and unnatural powers...on the side of good or evil." The judge observed how the character Storm, with her flowing white hair and dark skin, "can summon storms at will," while Pyro has a "mutant ability to control and shape flames."

The Journal quotes current Uncanny X-Men writer Chuck Austen and fansite owner Brian Wilkinson in protest of the decision, both arguing that superheroes are (in Wilkinson's words) "supposed to be as normal as you or I. They live in New York. They have families and go to work. And now they're no longer human?"

Well, sir, you did say they live in New York.

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