Comic Wars (2002)

The subtitle suggests a fundamental lack of drama: ''How Two Tycoons Battled Over the Marvel Comics Empire—And Both Lost.'' The main tycoons are financier Ron Perelman, who acquired the home of Spider-Man and X-Men in the late '80s and ended up in bankruptcy court, and rival Carl Icahn, who tried a hostile takeover. Ultimately, toy-business magnates Ike Perlmutter and Avi Arad, though smaller fish, managed to swallow the company and set it on a path to financial health. Raviv, a national correspondent for CBS News, displays no particular interest in comic books themselves—in which regard he mirrors his chief subjects, Perelman and Icahn. Instead, he uses Marvel to tell a story of '90s economic overreaching and macho egotism. B