Author Archives: Ryan Davidson

Gotham Central: Half a Life

Posted on January 16, 2012 | 17 comments

The Eisner award-winning “Half a Life” storyline comprises Gotham Central # 6-10, and was first published in 2003. Rather than focusing on a crime, this story is mostly about the outing of Detective Renee Montoya as a lesbian and the consequences that has. Continue reading →

17 Comments

Posted in labor law, torts

The Adventures of Tintin

Posted on January 9, 2012 | 12 comments

The Adventures of Tintin is the 2011 film adaptation of the legendary comic book series of the same name (it is now available on Blu-ray). The comics were written and illustrated by Georges Prosper Remi, who went by the pen-name “Hergé” and came out from 1929 to 1976, making it one of the longest-running and most popular European comics ever. The movie as such is rather vague about its setting and even its time period, but it definitely raise one legal question we touched on briefly in our post on lost property almost a year ago: treasure troves and salvage. The former post focused mostly on buried treasure, but The Adventures of Tintin leads us to consider a slightly different subject: sunken treasure. The basic question is this: Even assuming Tintin and Haddock can find the sunken treasure, can they keep it? There are some minor spoilers inside. Continue reading →

12 Comments

Posted in admiralty, international law, movies

Gotham City: Daydreams and Believers

Posted on January 2, 2012 | 17 comments

This story was just a one-shot, written basically as a letter from the office receptionist, Stacy, to a friend on the West Coast. There isn’t a crime to be solved here as such, but it’s the most in-depth exploration of the relationship between Batman, the Bat-Signal, and the GCPD we’ve got on record. This implicates the state actor doctrine we’ve been talking about for a while and the discussion we started in our post about “In the Line of Duty”. But it adds two little details which complicate the analysis. Continue reading →

17 Comments

Posted in Batman, constitutional law

Law and the Multiverse Holiday Special: Batman: Noel

Posted on December 25, 2011 | 11 comments

For this year’s Law and the Multiverse’s Christmas post, we’re going to be taking a quick look at Batman: Noel, the graphic novel written and illustrated by Lee Bermejo that came out last month. It’s a sort-of retelling of Charles’ Dickens A Christmas Carol with Batman as Scrooge and various other characters as the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Well, maybe more like Batman’s Past, Present and Future. But it’s set on Christmas Eve, so hey. There you go. The main thing we’re going to be taking a look at is the legality of using wireless tracking devices without a warrant. Continue reading →

11 Comments

Posted in Batman, constitutional law, criminal procedure, labor law

The Muppets

Posted on December 19, 2011 | 8 comments

The Muppets was released a few weeks ago, the first theatrical release in over a decade, and is widely regarded as an excellent addition to the Muppets corpus. But it also contains a bit of legal finagling worth a second look. “What?” you say. “A Muppet movie? With legal conundrums?” Well… yes. In fact, the entire plot revolves around a lease-to-own contract, as pointedly lampshaded by Waldorf… which lampshading is itself lampshaded by Statler, for all your fourth-wall-leaning needs. Continue reading →

8 Comments

Posted in intellectual property, movies, property law

Preacher

Posted on December 12, 2011 | 25 comments

Preacher is the iconic series by Garth Ennis, starring the Rev. Jesse Custer, a Texas preacherman who, accidentally possessed by some kind of supernatural being, unintentionally flattens his church, kills most of his congregation, falls in with a vampire, and goes on a rampage across at least two continents. So it’s basically a traditional, conservative morality play which maintains decent standards of… no, just can’t do it. It’s one of the most violent, disturbing, and alternatively terrifying, disgusting, and downright irreverent but also most interesting comics that’s been written in the last two decades. It’s up there with Sandman in terms of inventive comics, particularly in the non-superhero genres.

Those already familiar with the series will know that Custer gains the power of The Word, i.e. the ability to order anyone to do basically anything, and have them do it. Literally. If it’s impossible, they’ll either do it or (sometimes and) die trying.

Which raises an interesting series of legal questions related to theories of conspiracy and accomplice liability, but also some more subtle ones. There aren’t really any spoilers here, but we’ll move the rest inside for length’s sake.

Continue reading →

25 Comments

Posted in criminal law

Gotham Central: Motive

Posted on December 5, 2011 | 10 comments

The “Motive” arc takes up Gotham Central # 3-5, and wraps up a lot of loose ends from the previous story, “In the Line of Duty,” which we looked at last week. This one actually contains a real gem of a legal issue, which is handled exactly right. Spoilers inside! Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in constitutional law, criminal procedure

Law and the Multiverse on The Legal Tribune Online

Posted on December 4, 2011 | 2 comments

James and Ryan were recently interviewed for The Legal Tribune Online, a partner site of Der Spiegel. The interview is here.

I don’t have enough German to get much out of it—and don’t let the blog’s title fool you: this is definitely a German site—, but James assures me it’s a good article, and we’re honored to have been asked.

2 Comments

Posted in interviews and podcasts

Gotham Central: In the Line of Duty

Posted on November 28, 2011 | 9 comments

Gotham Central is the critically-acclaimed, 2003-2006 book focusing on officers in the Gotham City Police Department, i.e. the cops who live and work “in the shadow of the Bat.” It’s basically a police procedural, which makes it a little unusual for a DC or Marvel book in that while supervillains are still in play, superheroes are largely fringe characters. It’s definitely worth the read, and it’s uniquely suitable for our purposes here at Law and the Multiverse because it has so much to do with normal, everyday life in a world populated by larger than life figures. We’re not going to do much in the way of plot summary here, so as to avoid spoilers, and we’re only partway through the series* but we are going to take a look at the legal issues raised as we go. This post is about “In the Line of Duty,” the story which takes place in issues # 1-2. Continue reading →

9 Comments

Posted in constitutional law, criminal procedure

All-Star Superman II: The Trial of Lex Luthor

Posted on November 21, 2011 | 24 comments

As we previously discussed, Lex Luthor is arrested and put on trial for his actions which result in the death of Superman. In the first issue of All-Star Superman, the arresting officer says that the warrant is for “attempted murder and crimes against humanity.” In issue 5, we see the conclusion of the actual trial, and it seems that at some point the attempted murder charge was seemingly dropped, as when the judge hands down the verdict, he says “Guilty on all counts, of crimes against humanity.”

This is interesting, because there isn’t actually indication of what court we’re in, and “crimes against humanity” aren’t actually crimes in most jurisdictions, in part because the term is at least as much a political term as it is an actual offense. Be that as it may, you will not find “crimes against humanity” listed in any criminal code in the US, state or federal (Well, technically it’s a crime in Puerto Rico (a first degree felony!), so maybe Luthor got busted while returning to his vacation home in San Juan, but we doubt it.). So right off the bat, there’s something we need to talk about. More than that, there’s also the question of what court, if any, would have jurisdiction over such charges. Lastly, we’ll look more generally at the issue of prosecuting supervillains, which as we’ll see is far from simple. Continue reading →

24 Comments

Posted in criminal law, evidence, international law