Daniel Knauf dreamed of writing an Iron Man comic book long before he created the HBO series "Carnivale."

"It’s very rare that Iron Man has been written as well as he could be," says Knauf, who debuted as the writer of Iron Man with issue No. 7, now on stands.

"It presents a real challenge. By all rights, he should be the Marvel Universe’s version of Superman. I don’t know why he isn’t."

Conjured up by Stan Lee and Don Heck in 1963, Iron Man is millionaire playboy Tony Stark. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, he used his money to create top-of-the-line battle armor to fight crime.

With the aid of the suit, he can fly and shoot rays. Inside the suit, though, Tony Stark struggled with a bad heart and alcoholism.

Knauf’s first issue of Iron Man contains international intrigue and cloak-and-dagger escapades. His antagonist is a shadowy figure armed with a laptop of destructive power.

Tony is also coming to grips with the meshing of his armor to his body.

"I want to take Iron Man down a peg or two," Knauf says. "The villain in my piece is there to teach him a lesson."

Iron Man is the kind of character that Knauf wanted to write for his foray into comics. But he wasn’t particularly keen about putting a new spin on the man in the red-and-gold suit.

"Every new writer that comes into his book wants to add something new to Iron Man," he says.

"Coming from TV, I have learned how to be a chameleon. I want to take what has already been established in ’Iron Man’ and build on that."

Knauf says many writers have found Iron Man a hard character to grasp over the past 40-plus years.

"Maybe it’s that, by his very nature, Iron Man is an isolated character," he says. "He’s a man literally inside a tin can."

Knauf is among the growing number of television, film and literary talents moving into the world of comic books these days.

Allan Heinberg, a writer for "The O.C.," pens the Young Avengers. Joss Whedon, who created "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," is author of an X-Men title. BET president Reginald Hudlin has taken over scripts for the Black Panther.

"Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof has recently released a Wolverine and Hulk miniseries for Marvel Comics.

Like Knauf, most of these TV creators have been comic-book readers most of their lives. For many of them, it’s a fulfillment of a childhood dream.

"Having TV creators write comics is the big, new thing right now, especially at Marvel," says Blair Butler, the comic-book contributor for "Attack of the Show" on the cable channel called G4.

"Comic-book companies are savvy that they are hiring writers with pre-existing audiences. I am very curious about what Daniel Knauf will do with Iron Man because the series (theme) is more (about being) anti-technology than mysticism.

"It will be interesting to see him write something that isn’t about mysticism."

Regardless of where Knauf takes the character, Iron Man is about to have his day in the sun commercially. Plans for the feature film are in the works, with reports that Tom Cruise wants to star in it.

"What’s weird about writing comics for me is that I am writing panels, not scenes," Knauf says. "Sometimes I feel like I have one hand tied behind my back because I can’t have an actor go over to a curtain and look out a window.

"It’s an intense form of writing, but I am digging it."