Holy lawsuits, Winged Mammal Man!

I have been playing City of Heroes for a couple of days, and I wanted to make a comment about the ongoing case between Marvel Comics and NCSoft, the distributors of CoH. The world of CoH is great, vast and fast-paced action makes it an addictive environment. I spent last night hunting trolls with a large group of players from Spain. Something that has really struck me is the level of imagination and creativity exhibited by the players in the game. Every possible combination of spandex is explored in the game, and the users exhibit an amazing amount of imagination into the creation of the online personae.

Enter Marvel, claiming that their copyright is being infringed by players dressing-up as their characters. People dressing-up as super heroes? Perish the thought! But do they have a claim? Their complaint states that the character building engine constrains users into infringement. This is not the case, the options allow for an incredible amount of choices. I have only encountered very few heroes that resemble trademark characters. There was a large green tank called "The Angry Man", and I also saw a hero that looked like Storm, but that was it.

I must say that this is absolutely preposterous. What next? Will DC and Marvel sue Fathers for Justice?