You've got a former NHL goon, the creator of a popular comic strip and a court case involving First Amendment rights. If that's not weird, then we don't know what is.

A Missouri appeals court has upheld a $15 million jury verdict against Spawn creator Todd McFarlane for using the name of former St. Louis Blues and Quebec Nordiques enforcer Tony Twist without his permission.

Twist had charged in a 1997 lawsuit that McFarlane's character -- mob enforcer Antonio "Tony Twist" Twistelli -- hurt his public image and precluded any future career as a product promoter.

Now, without delving too deeply (that is to say, at all) into the First Amendment issues involved in the case or speculating on what companies were going to hand over $15 million in endorsement deals to a player with 10 career goals in 10 NHL seasons, there's certainly an argument to be made that the characterization of Mr. Twist as a mob enforcer is actually a glowing tribute to a man who averaged 6.4 penalty minutes per game during the 1990-91 IHL season and not cause for legal action.

Or at least, we'd love to see someone make that case before the Supreme Court if only for the extremely high likelihood that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg would actually use the phrase "what the (expletive deleted)?" while crafting the dissenting opinion.