Iron Man 3 Spoiler Alert: A Key Detail About Ellen Brandt's Role

In the Junior Novelization of Iron Man 3, already in stores, we've already given you a handful of plot points gleaned from a cursory read-through of the book. Warning: While junior novelizations are notorious for simplifying, brightening or changing story beats and endings for films, the fact that there's an official adaptation out there before the film actually hits the cinemas means that probably a good chunk of what we talk about here will be spoilers for Iron Man 3, out in theaters in about a month. One of the most interesting characters in the book, though, and one that we didn't really touch on last time, was Brandt, assumed by most to be Ellen Brandt (though she doesn't get a first name in the book, either). In the comics, Ellen Brandt is the ex-wife of Man-Thing's alter ego, who turns on him (and is, in turn,  horribly disfigured by Man-Thing). Ted Sallis, Brandt's husband, had been working on a variation on the Super-Soldier Serum, which she hoped to obtain for A.I.M., when the confrontation went down. (As an aside, it seems as though, should they elect to explore Ted Sallis a bit, he's got some personality traits in common with Reed Richards that could make him a satisfactory replacement if the story required one.) In the movie, she's being depicted by Stephanie Szostak, and if we assume that her comic book history is intact, we're meeting her down the road a bit. When she's first given the Extremis virus in Iron Man 3, Brandt is already disfigured on her face and is missing an arm, according to the book. This suggests that Man-Thing may already be out there, unless for the sake of the films they're going to either assume that Brandt was disfigured in a different way. Of course, even if he theoretically exists, that doesn't necessarily mean we'll see Sallis's leafy alter ego anytime soon; the filmmakers could easily have put Brandt, disfigured and all, into the film as a fun little reference for the fans without any plans to follow up on it right away. Or, as we've speculated before, her involvement could point not to a Man-Thing movie but could instead lead to Doctor Strange.