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THE LAW IS A ASS for 05/15/2001
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment # 95
Originally written as installment # 84 and published in Comics Buyer's Guide issue # 668, September 5, 1986 issue
As I was preparing this column for reprint on this page, I noticed that it--with it's throw-away reference to a joke in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy--is coming out on the same week that the talented Douglas Adams died. Sometimes synchronicity sucks!
******
"The Law is a Ass"
Installment # 95
by
Bob Ingersoll
The time has come, the Lawyer said, to talk of many things. Of shoes and ships and ceiling wax, of cabbages and gold spiral notebooks. Which is just a nice, poetic way of saying, yes, Don I'm finally getting around to that column you requested about five months ago: the one about the gold spiral notebook that Spider-Man took from the destroyed building.
But--and you just knew there was a but coming, didn't you--before I can speak of that thing, I must speak of some things. Those little set-up and background things so the readers all know what I'm talking about. (Which puts them at least one up on me; I never know what I'm talking about.) Back when the Beyonder still graced us with his presence, in much the same way that Idi Amin graced us with his presence, there was this ten-month long plot line about Spider-Man and a gold spiral notebook. It went something like this...
In Secret Wars II # 2 The Beyonder hired Heroes For Hire, because they were heroes and they were for hire; which probably explains why they didn't call themselves Ne'er-do-wells for Gratis. And, because they were for hire, they expected to be paid. Of course, The Beyonder didn't have any coin or the realm. In fact, he didn't have any coin of any realm. What he did have was a transmuting power which allowed him to turn worthless things into valuable things, although not even he could turn Secret Wars II into something valuable. So he decided to pay Heroes for Hire by giving them gold, which he knew was valuable. And he decided to get them gold in the most expedient way possible. So he used his transmuting power to turn the building where Heroes for Hire had their offices--the entire building, including the fixtures, furniture, and trash on every floor, in every office--into gold. One hundred per cent gold. I don't know how many karats, but it was enough to give giving a whole new meaning to the phrase gold bricks.
Which, of course, created lots of problems. What kind of problems. Let's start with strength problems. Remember the old Metal Men comics? You know why Iron always did the strong-man stuff? Gold couldn't. Gold is a weak metal, too weak to support the weight of a solid gold skyscraper. The gold building collapsed in on its own weight.
Then there were other problems, like the whole ruining the world's economy problem and how The Kingpin told the Unites States government about the gold building in Web of Spider-Man # 6 then cut a deal with the Feds to protect the world economy. Why? Well, along with being a weak metal, gold is also a rare metal. That's why it's so valuable; there isn't a lot of it. (Pay attention, now. Louis Rukeyser doesn't give this stuff away for free, like I'm doing.)
Or there wasn't a lot of gold, until this twenty-plus story building went on the gold standard, literally. Now there was bullions and bullions. (An audience participation joke; you have to read the last sentence like Carl Sagen.) World economy, which is backed by gold, threatened to collapse faster than the building did. See, when there's that much gold, it isn't rare anymore. The supply exceeds the demand, and it isn't valuable anymore. Don't believe me? Go check how much a copy of adjectiveless X-Men # 1 is selling for and tell me that when supply exceeds demand, things just ain't worth anything.
The government declared martial law and cordoned off the street. It paid the building's owner what it considered a fair assessment of the building's worth before it transmuted, against the owner's wishes. (He wanted to keep a building worth its weight in gold.) Then the government took the building apart, put it on naval destroyers, and dumped it into the Great Puerto Rican Trench (Amazing Spider-Man # 268.) However, it paid off the Kingpin for his help by letting him keep several gold typewriters.
Spider-Man, who had defied martial law in order to save the lives of the persons trapped in the building, was angry that the government dealt with Kingpin. So angry he took a solid gold notepad out of a solid gold trash can. He figured it was garbage anyway, so no one had any claim in it.
And therein lies the flaw of the government's plan. Spider-Man was the good guy, and he gave into temptation to take some of the gold. With hundreds of underpaid soldiers all sifting through solid gold bric-a-brac, do you expect me to believe that none of these underpaid people didn't pocket the occasional brick or a little brac for themselves? A paperweight? A doorstop? A dumpster? There was probably more gold on the market than holographic, gyroscope covers in the early 90s. The economy of the world would have collapsed. But don't worry, it couldn't become too drastic. It's not like we'd be seeing two-dollar-a-gallon gas or anything ridiculous like that.
But, again, I'm getting away from the notebook. For the next ten months, Spider-Man wondered if he could legally and/or ethically cash in the notepad. We're talking months of angst and anguish here. Some of it was even Spidey's, as opposed to mine.
Ultimately Spidey fenced the notepad for $3,000 (Web of Spider-Man # 15) and paid off the hospital bills of Nathan Lubensky, the then main-squeeze of Aunt May, who had been mugged a few months back. Spidey figured spending the notepad on himself would have been unethical. Spending it on someone else was hunky-dorey.
Well, I didn't say it was a good ten-month plot line. It was about as bad as the "Trial of the Flash," but for one notable exception: it was fourteen months shorter. Let us go then, you and I, and analyze this error-ridden epic for accuracy. Did it have mistakes? Does Heinz have varieties?
A building in the middle of Manhattan has turned into gold and collapsed. The government paid the Kingpin several hundreds of thousands of dollars, because he told them about this before anyone else. I plan to ask the government for a cool million for being the first one to tell them the sun came up yesterday.
I don't care if the building did change early Sunday morning; it happened in the middle of New York, New York; the city Ol' Blue Eyes said never sleeps. Someone other than the Kingpin would have noticed. ("Now there's something you don't see every day, Chauncy." "What's that, Edgar?" "A building turning into gold and falling down." "I don't know, Edgar, gold just ain't worth as much as it used to be.") Someone other than the Kingpin would have broken this news item to the Feds with more than enough time for them to save world economy. I'll bet this person, whoever he was, wouldn't have asked for whole typewriters. He probably would have settled for a few lousy "S" keys.
Then there's the concept of the government buying the entire building from an owner, who didn't want to sell. Can the government do that? Well, yes it can. Under the principle of eminent domain, the government can buy property from an unwilling seller, if it needs the property for the general good. Saving the world economy from collapse does qualify as the general good. The government declares eminent domain, buys the property, condemns it, tears it down, and converts the land to whatever use it claims is in the public's interest. Anyone who's ever lost their house so that a new A&P could service the community presently underserviced by two only IGA's and a 7-Eleven, or had his planet destroyed to make way for a new hyper-space bypass, could tell you that. However, the government can't do it overnight.
No one shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, that's what the Fifth Amendment tells us. Before the government can take any property by condemnation, it has to give the property owner due process of law. (And you thought these technicalities only protected the criminals, didn't you?) The government must pay a fair price for the property. If the owner doesn't think the price offered is fair, he can contest said offered price in court. That's part of due process of law.
Is a land owner with a gold building going to think that a fair price is, what the building was worth when it was only glass and steel? No, he's going to want, what the building is worth now as solid gold. He's going to fight the offered valuation in court. He might not win, but he'll fight.
Even if the building's owner was happy with the inadequate check he got, the government forgot a few people. A few thousand, to be exact. Landlords own buildings. Landlords rent space in said buildings. Empty space. The tenants fill that space with desks, files, chairs, potted Ficus trees, and 8-by-10 glossies of Erma and the kids. This property belongs to the tenants.
Oops! Didn't hear anything about the government paying off the tenants, did we? The government had no right whatsoever to take this personal property without first compensating the owners for it. And, of course, we're going to get into the same fight with each individual property owner: is a gold chair worth what it would cost to replace it at the local Writshafter's, or is it worth its weight in gold? (Cripes! Forget about the cost of buying all this gold. The government's legal fees in fighting all these valuation suits is going to bankrupt the country.)
Now let's talk about Spider-Man and the gold notepad. Did he steal it? No. Stealing is taking property with the intent to deprive the owner of it's value. Spider-man found the notepad in a garbage can. It didn't have an owner. Once someone throws something away, he abandons it and loses all claim to it. Remember when one of the tabloids was going through Henry Kissinger's garbage looking for a story? ("Dr. K squeezes his toothpaste from the middle, top scientists say that means he's a moderate.") Dr. Kissinger sued to stop this refuse rummaging. He lost, because garbage is abandoned property available too all.
All Spidey had to do was consult a good lawyer, and he could have spent that notepad with a clear conscience. Don't tell me lawyers are useless bloodsucking leeches. We have our uses.
Spider-Man also wondered if ethically he could keep the notepad, given that he got it by trespassing. Seeing as how the government agent in charge of the operation gave Spidey tacit permission to keep the notepad, I wouldn't have wondered, but we know that I'm a lawyer, I have no ethical fiber. Still Spidey had the answer for this ethical brainbuster. If he simply used the money for someone else, there was no ethical violation.
Ah yes, the old Robin Hood philosophy. Of course, robbing from the rich to give to the poor, still makes one a robber, ethically pure, but still a robber.
Hey, Tony, I've got this great idea. You take one hundred grand from one bank; I'll grab it from another, then we'll give each other the money and...
******
ROBERT M. INGERSOLL, Cleveland based attorney and comic book fan wants to know one thing. If I'm the CBG's legal analyst, what's an illegal analyst? A psychiatrist who tears those DO NOT REMOVE THIS TAG UNDER PENALTY OF LAW tags off of their couches?
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