Spider-Man saves the oil industry.
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: MAYHEM IN MANHATTAN by Len Wein and Marv Wolfman
Promoted as being the first novel to be written about the Marvel Comics icon Spider-Man, even though it wasn’t the first Spider-Man book to be published, Mayhem in Manhattan was written by two men who already had experience writing for Spider-Man: Len Wein, who had a long run as the writer of the The Amazing Spider-Man comic book, and Marv Wolfman, who followed Wein as the writer of The Amazing Spider-Man. So these guys knew the heroic character and his put-upon alter ego Peter Parker inside and out... although, it can’t be said that they presented him as being a particular fun character in this book. Anytime we’re privy to his innermost thoughts, he’s a miserable mope who’s anxious to accomplish his objectives so he can retire from the Spider-Man gig.
The story begins with the murder of mobster turned oil executive Allen Huddleston, who spends his final moments confronting a shadowy, threatening character who is written in such a dark and powerful way that some Marvel fans might jump to the conclusion (as they seem to do frequently these days) that the villain might be the extra-dimensional demon Mephisto. But if you pay close attention to the descriptions, you’ll be able to deduce that the villain is actually one of the most popular bad guys in Spider-Man’s rogues gallery. Although his identity isn’t revealed until late in the page count and he’s referred to as the Master Planner along the way, his presence in this book could be a selling point for some, so I’ll give it away: the villain Spider-Man is attempting to thwart is Doctor Octopus!
The Doctor’s scheme involves gathering America’s eight top oil magnates together and revealing that he has irradiated their oil supplies, rendering them useless for an entire year. The only way to keep their businesses running will be to buy their oil from the Doctor. Of course, Doctor Octopus (who gets his nickname from the fact that he has attached four steel tentacles to himself) doesn’t have his own oil supplies; he has merely gained access to the oil owned by these companies and will be selling the magnates their own oil, which has not actually been irradiated, back to them. It’s all a scam, and Spider-Man can’t let the Doctor get away with it.
For most of the book, Spidey is investigating the oil scam and trying to figure out who this “Master Planner” is, so most of the action sequences involve him trying to escape from guards or from police officers who believe he’s responsible for the death of Allen Huddleston. The big action is saved for the climactic sequence – which does let us read about a battle between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus on an oil rig. It’s not the most exciting adventure for the duration and Spidey is a sad sack, but Mayhem in Manhattan is a good read overall.
As for the first Spider-Man book to be published, that was a book called Spider-Man Zaps Mr. Zodiac, which hit store shelves two years before Mayhem in Manhattan came along in 1978. It was part of Whitman Publishing Company’s Big Little Books series, where books had a page count in 212 to 432 range, but they were compact; less than 4 inches wide and 4.5 inches high. The page count was also boosted by the fact that there would be a captioned illustration opposite each page of text – so, for example, if a book had 212 pages, 106 of those pages would be illustrations. I haven’t read Spider-Man Zaps Mr. Zodiac (yet), but it involved Spidey taking on a shape-shifting villain who could transform into representations of each zodiac sign. The ComicTropes YouTube channel went over the entire story, and showed all of the illustrations, in this video.
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