8 Weird Questions That Courts Have Legally Answered

In the early 2000s, Toy Biz, the division of Marvel Comics that produced their action figures, was looking for a way to lower the tariff they paid on imported toys. Like most action figure manufacturers, they had been paying the import tax applicable to "dolls" (which are intrinsically human-like), but they discovered there was a lower rate available for toys representing "nonhuman creatures."

Toy Biz argued before the U.S. Court Of International Trade that the superhero characters their toys depicted, such as the X-Men and the Avengers, weren't human and were therefore subject to the lower tariff. After reviewing (or, probably more accurately, playing with) more than 60 Toy Biz action figures, the judge agreed, and officially ruled that the toys represented "nonhuman creatures."

Toy Biz and Marvel celebrated their victory, but the decision had an unexpected group of critics: Marvel's own fans.

For years, Marvel storylines had centered around the struggle of mutants (like the X-Men) to be accepted as equally human to everybody else. These stories were frequently lauded as allegories for real-world civil rights issues, and fans felt that Marvel had undermined all of that by legally establishing that the X-Men and other characters were "nonhuman."

Verdict: Nope! Sorry, muties.