I enjoyed the analysis at Suspension of Disbelief: A Fact-Check for the Four-Color World concerning She-Hulk #19, "The Trial of The Leader". The writer, Loren, applies a gratifying scrutiny to the proceedings. It's a cynicism that warms the cockles of my shriveled, black heart:
In fact, her two witnesses so far may have hurt her argument. Book wants to argue that the influence of gamma rays are what drove her client to want to kill and conquer. Well, both of Book's witnesses are gamma-irradiated people (which Book specifically drew attention to), and neither of them are murderers or wannabe despots. Neither of them are even so much as antisocial. If she wants to put the blame on the gamma rays, then she needs to do some explaining as to why her client's condition is so different from theirs. Once again, that's going to require some testimony specific to the Leader, and not broader talk of gamma rays.
And then there's a small, niggling, detail that the federal courts don't recognize the defense of irresistible impulse, which should make Mallory's entire defense strategy useless and wholly objectionable. But, since the insanity defense is something that courts have fluctuated on over the years, we'll give Mallory the benefit of the doubt and assume that the Marvel Universe Federal Rules allow it.
Also check out Loren's analysis of the JLA/Power Girl/Michael Turner breast issue.
Good argument
Good argument. "Not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect" has been one of the most-used defenses, but the defense couldn't blame the defect on the gamma radiation because Bruce and Jen aren't wannabe world-conquerors, though Bruce is well on his way in WWH. So, it has to be some anti-social, psychopathic tendency in The Leader himself.
Fear of Death is the pretense of wisdom.
- Socrates
Realism
I much prefer some degree of plausibility in comics. One of the things I like(d) best about Marvel's Ultimate Universe was the degree of realism that was baked into it. However, in the last year or two they've moved far away from that, with only Ultimate Spider-Man remaining rooted to more realistic scenarios and outcomes. They've even started bringing back "dead" characters, which pisses me off to no end.
It's a shame, because the early Ultimate Fantastic Four was pretty cool. As an example, the depiction of Doctor Doom having a game controller dangling from his belt (along with a bunch of other implements of destruction) for the purpose of controlling his robot minions was both hilarious and insightful. Of COURSE Doom would be a hacker. Of COURSE he would find his niche sneaking around off-the-grid among grungy techy non-conformist drop-outs in a crunchy European city like Copenhagen. It makes total sense. However, the current creative interpretation of Doom in the UMU is that he is the ruler of Latveria and has unlimited financial, technological and magical resources. Which makes him just exactly like the old Dr. Doom. Yawn.