Mayhem in Manhattan

This book is for the fans of the 1970's Spiderman. It is not for people who are "brand new day" fans. Wolfman (long time writer of Fantastic Four, Teen Titans, Amazing Spiderman, Doctor Strange and the surprisingly underrated Tomb of Dracula series. As well as creator of tons of characters including Bullseye, Blade, Starfire, Cyborg, Vigilante, and Nova to name a few.) is a great writer who knows how to add the details to a story that keep it from being either too one dimensional or too unnecessarily complicated and hard to follow. Len Wein is no slouch himself. He is semi-legendary in the comic book industry as a writer for pretty much all the major DC titles out there. He co-created Swamp Thing, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Storm, and he was also editor for the Watchmen series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. He helped make the X-men famous again with the legendary Giant-Sized X-men #1. If that doesn't give the authors comic book street creds, then nothing will. Mayhem in Manhattan is a good read that co-stars two great characters from the Spidey's world, Joe Robertson and J. Jonah Jameson. They are very interesting characters who have a great camaraderie and also bring the story it's human element. Yes, Peter Parker also has his struggles as Spiderman, but two regular joes in the mix allows for the street level perspective to Spidey's skyscraper view. Also, there is no more lovably confrontational character than J. Jonah Jameson. He delivers the coarse no-nonsense brusqueness that I imagine any real New York newspaper editor used to have (that is back when newspapers were read instead of used for kindling). The book is short, but well paced and entertaining. There is some datedness with some details of the story (ex. the late 70's energy crisis mentioned), and there is entirely too much shoulder shrugging for some reason, but it remains a solid read. If you like old-school Spidey comics you will love this book. It is worth the read for Comic book nostalgiques. Other people who want hard core sci-fi or riveting adventure and realism will find this hokey and boring. As for me, I say make mine Marvel and a big thanks to Marv Wolfman and Len Wein for a great book from '78.