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Fox’s legal battle with Warner Bros. over Watchmen is starting to have the feel of a Red Sox vs. Yankees slugfest, but David Poland feels that all is fair in love and contract infringements.

Poland’s The Hot Blog has a pretty cut and dry explanation of why fanboys need to ease up on the Fox bashing. His reasoning goes a little something like this:

“If any of you lent a friend $10,000 to start a business they needed $200,000 to really start and you had the understanding that if they ever got their funding, you would be paid back, and if not, you would own some percentage of the business… and your friend took your money, almost got funded but didn’t, then ultimately did, but acted as though you didn’t exist…”

It’s an argument I can definitely understand. As mad as I am at Fox, the reality is that Warner Bros. needs to do whatever it takes to settle this dispute. They went to court, they were found in the wrong, end of story. Does the way that Fox is handling the situation damage their reputation? Yes, without question. But the true damage stands to be done to Watchmen and Warner Bros. if they can’t find a way to get this stain on their project removed.

Hand it to Poland, he doesn’t pull punches. He goes on to say that “if ‘geeks’ want to be treated like serious adults, they need to start banging on WB to eat their porridge and pay what they owe, so y’all can see Dr. Manhatten hang out on Mars. If someone steals from someone you don’t like, you don’t just keep blaming the guy you don’t like because he is ‘evil.,’” and “all this geek whining tells you just why the geek community is not taken seriously.”

I can’t say I blame the “geek community” for being upset. They just want to see the greatest graphic novel of all-time in a theater near them. I think Fox and Warner Bros. need to be like Spike Lee and do the right thing. If they can’t get this worked out so that we get to see Watchmen on March 6, 2009 then maybe we need to start a movie lover lynch mob, lock them in a room and tell them they aren’t coming out until they come to an agreement. You can read the rest of Poland’s argument here.

What do you think of David Poland’s comments? Where do you stand in the battle for the Watchmen soul?