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THE LAW IS A ASS for 01/23/2001
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment # 79
Originally written as installment # 68 and published in Comics Buyer's Guide issue # 631, December 20, 1985 issue
Your first question--"Who is Jack Smith"--I can answer easily. There used to be a TV show, circa the late 50s, called You Asked For It. Viewers would send in questions and each week the show would choose some of the questions and provide the answers to those questions. Jack Smith was the host of the show. He'd read the question, something like, " 'Why does Taco Bell offer so many different menu items, when everything they serve is made from the same four ingredients?' signed Ronnie MacD.' " They he'd introduce the segment the show had prepared to answer the question by looking at the camera and saying, "Well, Ronnie, you asked for it ..."
Your second question--"Why did I think anyone would remember him and get that joke?" --I can't begin to answer.
******
"The Law is a Ass"
Installment # 79
by
Bob Ingersoll
I'm not exactly Jack Smith, but here goes... Julie Evans of Winchester, Kentucky, you asked for it! (Why do I constantly date myself with these arcane TV references?)
Ms. Evans asked me, in the Oh So column of CBG # 613, why I didn't write about the events of Daredevil # 220, wherein certain members of the criminal persuasion broke into Heather Glenn's apartment in order to steal her father's patents. As Ms. Evans points out in her letter, it is ridiculously easy to obtain patents legally by requesting them from the U.S. government, scanning data bases, or reading technical journals. Why, then, would anyone go to all the bother of aggravated burglary in order to steal that which could be obtained far more easily?
Good question that. How about this for an answer? Because they're criminals.
Okay, then try this one: they didn't want anyone to know about their interest in Glenn's patents, because their intended use was criminal, and availing themselves of one of the legal alternatives would let someone know about their interest.
Aw, give me a break! I never promised you a rose garden or good explanations.
Why didn't I write about this apparent error? I have an answer for that as well. I didn't think of it. I had assumed that the reason I gave above applied so didn't bother with it.
All of which brings up a point I'd like to get across. I'm getting old and my attention span ain't what it used to be. (And considering what it used to be, it's a wonder that I can even pay attention to breathing.) I don't always see the all the legal stuff in comics which might perplex other people. So in the future, Julie or anyone else out there, if you have a question, don't wait for me to answer it, I might miss it. If you have a question, send it to me at P.O. Box 24314, Lyndhurst, OH 44124-0314 or use my E-mail address, law@wfcomics.com, or even follow the "About Bob Ingersoll" hyperlink to the E-mail address hyperlink. Any of those will work and that way you are sure that I won't miss your question. I'll even get around to answering it some time.
My having missed Julie's question brings up another question: how do I go about deciding what stuff I will put into my columns? The first thing I do is read the comics. All the comics. Well, almost all. There are some comics which never yield any column material and which I do not like at all. These I ignore. I can always find someone who has read them, and who can tell me if I've missed anything important. Are you listening, Isabella? You can't stop reading all the books now, you're performing a vital service. (Besides, you're even a bigger junkie than I am.)
As I read I look for things. First I look for things which are obviously wrong, like the two most recent issues of Vigilante. (This process isn't as easy as it once was. They went and cancelled Flash.) When I find something that is obviously wrong, I write a column about it. There, wasn't that easy?
If I can't find something that is obviously wrong, I'll fix on something which is probably wrong. Perfect example: Captain America # 312. In this issue we're told that the army has sent Steve Rogers almost a million dollars in back pay, which he didn't want, dating to sometime in 1945, because Steve Rogers was never declared legally dead.
I suppose that's possible, so it's not obviously wrong. But it's so unlikely, that it's probably wrong. Why is it unlikely? Look at Cap's explanation. The Army never declared him dead, "because the top brass knew I was Captain America." Let's pursue that for a moment. Here we have a man who single-handed and without weapons, other than a Frisbee with delusions of grandeur, goes off to fight such anti-socials as Red Skull and Baron Zemo. Those guys would as soon kill someone as spit on the sidewalk. Actually, they'd probably rather kill than spit on the sidewalk. Both acts are criminal, but Skull and Zemo have their professional standing to consider. I'm sorry, but if Cap didn't come back after fighting one of them, I'd assume he had cashed in his chips, declare him dead, and be done with it. Who's going to dispute the issue anyway? Steve Rogers was an orphan and an only child, at least under the Cap origin we've been given for this year. Moreover, with the budget deficit the way it is, I can't believe the government would go out of its way to shell out seven figures on someone who no one was trying to get the money for and who told them he didn't even want the money in the first place.
We're told the bureaucracy won't let the Army declare Rogers dead now. Bunk! Bureaucracy lives for classifying. All the Army has to do is order some flunky to re-classify Steve Rogers dead and be done with it. As I said, who's going to fight it? Steve Rogers has no next of kin. And Steve gave every indication he wouldn't fight the issue. Even if he did, what judge is going to rule that some Adonis who looks like he's thirty tops actually fought in WW II so should be in his seventies and is entitled to forty years back pay? Not only could the Army declare Rogers dead, they would probably do it. In fact, I'm amazed that they hadn't done it already. And, even if they hadn't done it yet but did so now to avoid paying Steve Rogers one million dollars that he didn't want and wasn't pressing the issue over, who would care? The long and the short of it is, at some point the Army would have declared Steve dead rather than pay the money.
No, I don't accept the reasoning in Cap # 312 at all.
A second concern I have is, will I be able to write about this something that is probably wrong in a funny manner. How am I doing? (I was afraid you'd say something like that.)
I will also look at a minor legal point with the idea that once I bring up a certain story, I can go off on a tangent. Example: now that I've brought up Captain America # 312, I can talk about Flag-Smasher. The newest super-villain from the House of Ideas: a guy who despises nationalism and patriotism so much that he wants to stamp them out by breaking flag poles at the U.N. building. This is a super-villain designed to strike terror into the hearts of the world? A geek who breaks flag poles. Lordy, I haven't been this scared, since I saw the Keebler Elves! And what good does he think breaking flag poles is going to do. Way I see it, after his flag breaking rampage, the nations of the world will have one of two choices: disband all national governments or put up new flagpoles.
Gee, I wonder which they'll do.
Another trick I will employ is to look for legal happenings which seem unlikely so I can talk about them and explain why they are unlikely. X-Men # 200 is a perfect example. Magneto was on trial for crimes against humanity in the World Court. Largely as a way of simplifying things (not necessarily for the court but for the writer), the court decides that when Mutant Alpha turned Magneto into an infant, that old Magneto ceased to exist and was reborn into a new person. As it's a new Magneto, he can only be tried for crimes committed after his resurrection.
Why did the justices of the World Court decide this way so quickly and easily? As I said, it made things easier for the writer. See, Chris Claremont wanted to have Magneto acquitted so that he could lead the New Mutants. In the old Lee-Kirby days, Magneto was clearly a terrorist who engaged in rampant and highly-visible, difficult-to-ignore illegalities such as attacking and trashing Army bases. The new Magneto has more complex motivations, which might be more forgivable. So this way Chris Claremont didn't have to deal with the insurmountable problem of Magneto's actions in the old Lee-Kirby days, which aren't as easily defended as what Magneto's been up to recently.
Okay, from a convenience to the writer aspect, I can see it. But would the World Court judges really decide this way? I'm not so sure. What I am sure of, however, is that the judges would not make their decision as quickly as they did; without any testimony, briefs, or opinions from experts on the subject.
Here we have a unique legal issue: is a person who has been returned to infancy and then undergoes rapid aging back to adulthood, legally responsible for whatever actions he took, before his second childhood? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think this question has ever come up before. I would think the judges ruling on the question would want to get some expert opinion on aging, psychology, mental processes or something in order to help them make their decision. I think they might want briefs to see if either side could find situations which, while not identical, might be close enough to give them guidance. I think they might want to delay as long as possible the potential riots that would ensue, if they released Magneto. I find it very unlikely that the judges would take it upon themselves to make so unpopular a ruling without some testimony or opinion that they could base it on, or better yet blame it on.
One last question on Magneto: why is his name pronounced Mag- neat-oh and not Mag-net-oh? After all, he's the master of magnetism, not a part of a car engine.
X-Men # 200 shows another thing I will look for, when reading a story for possible column exposure: does it deal with things that might need a more detailed explanation? For example, how did the World Court come into being and how is international law created? Both came into being by way of treaty. Countries meet and decide what laws or rules should govern their relations with each other. Then organizations like the U.N. or the world court are created to enforce the rules created. Finally, the various countries ignore the rules, whenever it's convenient or on every alternate Tuesday--whichever is more frequent.
Crossfire # 14 shows yet another ploy I will use in looking for column material: does the story raise some interesting conjectures that I can ramble on about for a few pithy paragraphs? In Crossfire # 14 we are told that chronologically Rainbow is a minor (she was born March, 10 1979, she's six going on seven) so the contract she signed agreeing to pose for a girlie magazine is null and her posing for a girlie magazine will result in corruption of minor charges.
I have no problem with this resolution. I can't see anyone risking the consequences of kiddie porn prosecutions for the sake of those Rainbow pictures. Hell, they weren't even really worth the fight; Rainbow covered up all her good parts during the session. (Easy, people, I'm not really a sexist. I'm a realist. The people who buy girlie magazines to look at the pictures, as opposed to people like me who--ahem--buy them for the articles, do so to look at specific female body parts. And it ain't the staple in the navel we're talking about either.) Still, the story did raise some questions.
What if publisher Guidry had fought to use the pictures and argued that Rainbow's mental age, not her chronological age, is what matters? He'd have had some good case law to work stemming from in Surge's recent murder trial in the Surge mini-series. Remember, when Surge was tried and convicted of murder and set to die in the electric chair? Well, seeing as most states have a presumption that children under seven are incapable of forming a criminal intent so cannot be guilty of a crime, Surge's trial would be an excellent precedent for the principle that the DNAgents, despite their chronological age, are mentally and physically of age and adults. Another argument is that Surge was tried as an adult not as a juvenile. Both of these arguments show that the state of California recognizes the DNAgents as adults, despite their chronological age.
The second question I have is this: what happens when Rainbow stops, as Jay Endicott put it, "settl[ing] for his couch," and sleeps with him? If she is a minor under the age of seven, then Jay will be up on statutory rape charges faster than you can read Cerebus.
Why, the morals boggle the mind. And the moral of the story is: don't practice law in a comic book universe. It's hazardous to one's well being.
There you have a brief tour into my mind and a look at what I consider, when trying to think up a column topic. For those of you who have wondered what goes on in my mind, I hope the question is answered. For those of you who wondered what mind, I guess that question's been answered too.
Now do me a favor and don't tell me what answer you came to.
BOB INGERSOLL
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