4 Weird Pop Culture Lawsuits That Are Straight Out Of Movies

4Marvel Denied Its Own Canon For A Tax Break

The X-Men are humans. There's no debate about this. They're not aliens, monsters, or talking chupacabras. They're humans with a special genetic trait, like the cherry Coke of people. Only an absolutely clueless geek poser would argue otherwise. Like, um ... Marvel?

In 1993, international trade lawyers Sherry Singer and Indie Singh -- both employed by Marvel -- discovered a bizarre mutation in how federal import tax tariffs are applied. If a company wants to import "dolls" that represent humans, they have to pay a tax of 12%. If that company imports "toys" that represent nonhumans, however, they only have to pay a 6.8% tax. For an entity like Marvel, which licenses scads of action figures, that works out to a massive potential savings. Thus, they petitioned the government to reclassify all of their imported wares as nonhuman toys.

The ensuing legal battle went on for over half a decade, and saw Marvel and the U.S. government go through each character in the company's canon -- from Spider-Man to the Fantastic Four to, yes, the X-Men -- and write real legal briefs about their humanity (or lack thereof).

The figure of 'Kingpin' resembles a man in a suit carrying a staff. Nothing in the storyline indicates that Kingpin possesses superhuman powers. Yet, Kingpin is known to have exceedingly great strength (however 'naturally' achieved) and the figure itself has a large and stout body with a disproportionately small head and disproportionately large hands. Even though 'dolls' can be caricatures of human beings, the court is of the opinion that the freakishness of the figure's appearance coupled with the fabled 'Spider-Man' storyline to which it belongs does not warrant a finding that the figure represents a human being.

It took until 2003 for a judge to declare Marvel as the "winner." It wasn't a decision she made lightly. When describing how she reached her ruling, she explained that she based her verdict not just on the masses of legal papers that both sides had provided, but also a litany of action figures -- as well as close examinations under the clothing of said figures. No, really. That's not a joke.

It was a Pyrrhic victory for Marvel, though. When news reached fans that the X-Men had been stripped off their humanity (for tax reasons), they responded with as much understanding and empathy as you'd expect from scorned nerds. As the editor of one popular fansite beautifully articulated: "This [decision] is unthinkable. Marvel's super heroes are supposed to be as human as you or I. They live in New York. They have families and go to work. And now they're no longer human?" Marvel wound up getting so much heat, in fact, that they were soon forced to issue a statement saying that of course everyone's favorite superheroes are still human -- an about-face that was visible from Asteroid M.

Related: 16 Pop Culture Staples That Are Massive Cash-Grabs

3Netflix And Sabrina Were Dragged To Hell By The Satanic Temple

When The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina first hit Netflix in 2018, it was praised for its writing, characterization, and design. Despite being the obvious target market for this show, however, the Satanic Temple wasn't onboard. Instead they filed a $150 million lawsuit against Netflix and Warner Bros. for stealing their copyrighted design of Baphomet.