Hoping Marvel will step up to assist one of its iron giants

The news just keeps getting better and better for "Iron Man," based on the Marvel comics franchise of the same name. The Robert Downey Jr.-starrer this weekend won the box office derby for the second straight time with an estimated $50.5 million take to render the debuting "Speed Racer" a mere afterthought. The "Iron Man" tally to date: a fairly astonishing $177.1 million in a mere 11 days of release. Everyone's jumping on the bandwagon: Marvel is back in business, baby. "Iron Man" has legs of steel! (Redundant, but you get the idea.)

So while all of this capitalistic grandeur is going down, a fellow by the name of Gene Colan is fighting for his life with a failing liver. The reason this ties in to "Iron Man" is that Colan is a true titan of the Marvel universe. Now 81, he's one of the iconic comic artists who did much to put Marvel on the comic map in the 1940s, '50s and '60s. Besides Iron Man, he worked with distinction on titles including Silver Surfer, Sub-Mariner, Captain America, Daredevil and Dr. Strange. He long labored in the artistic trenches to shape the Marvel brand.

But now, at 81, Colan is in declining health. And further exacerbating an already distressing situation, Colan and his wife Adrienne have no pharmaceutical coverage on their health insurance. The ungodly price for the medications needed to diminish the horrendous complications of his condition (including fluid retention and encephalitis, according to Adrienne Colan) is said to be stretching the Colans to the breaking point.

As this is happening at the precise moment that "Iron Man" is racking up Brinks trucks full of cash, the wrenching irony here is fairly self-evident. But the comic world is coming through to lend a helping hand for one of its own. Artists and writers including the legendary Marvel comic scribe Stan Lee and sci-fi/horror author and screenwriter Neil Gaiman have imminent plans to contribute drawings and/or signed books for auction to defray Colan's mounting medical costs, according to journalist/author Clifford Meth. Meth, in fact, has been spearheading the grassroots fundraiser this weekend via his blog Everyone's Wrong and I'm Right.

This is all very heartening and humane, of course. It's what decent humans do when a friend is in trouble. But naturally, without casting stones, one might imagine that Marvel itself should soon have a plan in place to do the right thing -- and do it quickly -- for a man who helped make the riches that have flooded in over the past 11 days possible in the first place.