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Over the past few years, the raging debate in economic development has been over whether cities should be cool or uncool. Should cities pursue “the creative economy” by going after arts, culture, creative research & development, and innovation? Or should they focus on the bread-and-butter economy: hard infrastructure, traditional industries like manufacturing, and blue-collar jobs?

Usually a raging debate is an indication that the wrong question is being asked, and that’s the case here. The question is not whether cities must be cool or uncool in order to prosper. Clearly, there are some cities in each camp that prosper, and some cities in each camp that do not. The question is deeper: In both cool and uncool cities, what is the underlying nature of the economy? Does the city simply import money from other places, or does it export goods and services to other places? Because it is this distinction – not cool or uncool – that serves as the dividing line between prosperity that is real and prosperity that is illusory.

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Every supervillain or supervillain organization worth its salt needs a secret lair, and a location outside the jurisdiction of any government would be ideal. The legal benefits are numerous: no pesky employment laws or civil rights for henchmen, no local police, no taxes.  But in the age of air travel and GPS is there anywhere left for a supervillain to set up shop? Here we consider three possibilities: unclaimed land, the high seas, and outer space.

One of the coolest aspects of being a supervillain is that you get Minions and Henchmen. I’ve always wanted Minions and Henchmen, but alas my income has never been in that range; presumably they don’t work for free.

Where to they find these guys? Is there a Minion & Henchmen Employment Agency somewhere? Look at The Incredibles — Syndrome has at least a couple of battalions of guys in uniform, not counting the scientists and assembly line workers needed to create his machines, plus administrative staff. And Underminer didn’t build that huge drilling machinein his garage.

And how doe the doctrine of respondeat superior work when you’re laying waste to a city? I worry about these things.

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Probate law is just one aspect of the law affected by death and resurrection. Criminal law and contract law are also implicated.

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The superpowers of many comic book heroes and villains are often in a state of flux.  Powers can be gained, lost, used up, given away, abandoned, shared, and stolen, which sounds a lot like the attributes of property.  Comic book characters even speak of powers as though they were possessions.  Here we consider whether superpowers should be treated as personal property and the legal consequences of that view.

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Superheros and supervillians too numerous to count have, for various reasons, been killed, lost, or otherwise presumed dead, only to come back at a convenient date. It’s gotten a little silly at times.

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Is being immortal illegal?

Probably not as such, but living longer than the standard three-score and ten, as many superheros in both major multiverses are wont to do, does create some interesting legal issues.

Grant McCracken has some interesting observations.

The old model of retail says, in effect, “you come to us.”  You, the buyer, must stop what you are doing and come to the mall, the high street, the retail outlet.  The trip there is time consuming.  Parking is almost always a high stress exercise.  The place is crowded.  The choices too numerous.  The undertaking mostly joyless.

How better it is to visit Amazon.com and make the purchase in our “work flow.”  Amazon then takes care of virtually every thing else, and the package stacks, quite literally, on our door step.  It’s ready when we are.  Not the other way round.

This spells the end of retail as we know it.  We might use a traditional model and say this represents the “disintermediation” of the buying process and the elimination of the middle of the chain.  And this much is exactly what is happening.  But I think the deeper, cultural motive here, is the wish to respond to the dynamism and sheer press of our lives with a model of interaction that organizes time more intelligently.  To do everything called of us we are embracing another kind of disintermediation, dispensing with that to-do list stop and go model for something more fluid and just-in-time.  Thus does “time management” gives way to “improv.”  Thus does planning gives way to something closer to an instantaneous “sense and respond” model.  Thus do we move in the direction of what Stuart Kauffman calls complex adaptive systems.