COMIC WARS

Ron Perelman and Carl Icahn fight each other and two plucky underdog toymakers to control the home of Spiderman, the Incredible Hulk, and the X Men.

When we last left Marvel Comics, it was of dubious financial value, struggling valiantly to maintain market share while being driven into the ground by owner Perelman. Meanwhile, manufacturers Ike Perlmutter and Avi Arad realize that if Marvel goes down, their action-figure company, Toy Biz, will fail with it. CBS News correspondent Raviv (Friends in Deep, 1994, etc.) opens with Arad telling Perelman he's got to exploit Marvel's advantages by making movies about the characters. Ron drags his feet, investor and Marvel bondholder Icahn starts sniffing around, and the scene is set for a hostile takeover. The two billionaires circle each other while Perlmutter and Arad (mere millionaires, and thus small-fry in this arena) also fight to gain control of the corporation. When Marvel declares bankruptcy, the action moves into the Delaware court system, and Raviv spends the rest of the narrative detailing the machinations that finally led to the reformation of Marvel under Perlmutter and Arad. Though the author battles mightily to keep things brisk, a morass of legal details and a large cast of interested players suck down the author's storyline with the insistence of quicksand. Perelman has some of the trappings of an archvillain, what with his secret life of splendor in a real-life lair called The Townhouse; Carl Icahn makes another flashy bad guy; and Perlmutter and Arad are raffishly appealing. But any dramatic possibilities are obscured in a haze of motions, countermotions, meetings, and schemes that totally resist Raviv's efforts to summarize.

A promising idea that never breaks free from the tedious workings of bankruptcy court.