Paraphrased from the Associated Press
By Larry Neumeister
Associated Press Writer

New York, NY (AP) -- It may take a superhuman legal hero to resolve a dispute between News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox Film Corp. and Marvel Enterprises Inc. over fair use of the rights to "X-Men'' superheros.

Both companies are hoping to find that hero in a flowing black robe in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, where each filed a lawsuit Tuesday afternoon.

In the first lawsuit, 20th Century Fox sought unspecified damages from Marvel, alleging that a soon-to-be-produced, live-action television series entitled Mutant X cheapened Fox's X-Men movie.

It said the Mutant X characters are virtually identical to those of X-Men and have been marketed with similar logos and artwork to make the public believe that the television show and the movie are related.

The lawsuit alleged Marvel Enterprises violated state and federal laws by ignoring contracts it had signed with 20th Century Fox in 1993.

The contracts allowed creation of the X-Men movie released in July 2000 and sequels in the future. But they also guaranteed no related live-action television program would be made without Fox's written consent, according to the lawsuit.

In its own set of legal papers, Marvel said the television series was developed by Marvel's chief creative officer, who thought modern science made it sensible to create genetically-engineered mutant characters.

Marvel said in its lawsuit that Fox's claims are without merit because the series is totally different from the X-Men property in terms of character likenesses, character names, character personalities, underlying premise and individual episode stories.

Besides, Marvel argued in a lawsuit filed just minutes after Fox's, it can't be found to be infringing its own trademarks. The company sought a declaratory judgment from the court that it had done nothing wrong.

"Notably, Fox has carefully waited until the last-minute to strike, a time when it would be the most difficult in all ways to cease production of the series,'' the company said.

The television series is scheduled to begin filming June 4 for broadcast this fall.