STARTLING TOMES

IRON MAN: FEMME FATALES . Robert Greenberger. Del Rey; 2009. In this paperback novel brought out in the wake of the   Iron Man   movie with Robert Downey, Tony Stark -- the inventive genius who is also the super-hero Iron Man -- has his hands full with attacks by both the forces of Hydra ["cut off one limb and a dozen take its place"] and the mafia-like European Maggia. Both groups are being led by sexy woman who coincidentally have scarred faces: Madame Hydra [formerly the Viper] and Madame Masque [formerly Whitney Frost, the daughter of Count Nefaria, who heads the Maggia]. Masque comes to work for Stark in disguise, and Madame Hydra intrigues him and beds him in the guise of a mysterious green-haired woman named Katalin [that should have been his first clue]. This is a moderately entertaining book using concepts and characters created way back in the "silver age" of comics in the sixties. The hoped-for meeting/battle between the two different if similar women nev...

  STRANGE AND STRANGER: THE WORLD OF STEVE DITKO . Blake Bell. 2008; Fantagraphics. Steve Ditko is the comic book artist and writer who is most famous for the co-creation of   Spider-Man , as well as   Dr. Strange , with Stan Lee. Ditko became obsessed with writer Ayn Rand -- especially her novel   The Fountainhead  -- and its principles, and it had a profound effect on his life and work. Like the architect hero of   Fountainhead , Ditko felt he had to remain true to his principles, and was loathe to make money doing what he saw as crap -- anything that didn't smack of Ayn Rand. Unfortunately, most readers did not have the same interest in Rand, and Ditko rejected suggestions to make his stories more readable even as his art suffered, everything becoming subordinate to his "messages." Occasionally Ditko would try more or less mainstream work, such as Marvel's short-lived   Speedball  comic, as well as  Hawk and Dove  and  Shade, the...