Spider-Man: Mysterio Manifesto #1 synopsis

the plot: As Spider-Man and Daredevil are forced to fight recreations of their greatest villains, the truth about Mysterio and Mad Jack stand revealed, and readers learn just whether or not Quentin Beck killed himself in Daredevil #7.

the review: I was pleased with this book. Well, not fully though, mind you. The revelation of the mastermind being the "distant" cousin mentioned in the first issue wasn't that big of a surprise. What surprised me is that Marvel had the sense to leave Quentin Beck alone. I'm a huge Mysterio fan. I love the character, and he's probably my favourite Marvel villain. I even shelled out a couple hundred bucks to buy Amazing #13 a couple of years ago. You would think I'd want Beck to return, but I feel that he got a great send off in Daredevil, and that he was really being underused. He when out with a literal bang, and I am very pleased that he's still dead.

The fact that Quentin Beck has been left alone was enough for me to give this issue high honors, but beyond that there were some other nice bits here. Some of Spidey's comments to the duplicate Electro said what fans have been thinking for years and the clearing up of Betty/Betsy's name was a nice touch. My only complaint lies with the fact that the connection between J. Jonah Jameson and Mad Jack seemed to be completely overlooked by the end of the book. Well, at least there was some resolution to the Mad Jack thing anyway. That was a big thing for a while and then dropped entirely.

On the art front, Lee Weeks does nice work. Very classic Spidey. I like it. In my review for "Spider-Man/Marrow" I mention Ale Garza's very stylistically modern artwork, and how it's very fitting for stories focusing on Peter as a young man. Well, Weeks, like John Romita jr. is most certainly to right man for Spider-Man in action stories. He has a very classic style. It's really great on books like this, and the fact that he goes totally old-school with the villain spread on page's two and three, shows that off perfectly. Weeks is a great Spidey artist and if should either get a regular Spidey book, or become the designated fill-in guy, like Tom Raney over on X-Men.

I don't understand why some people really disliked this book. Sure it may have been annoying that the whole Jameson/Mad Jack thing was dropped, but I just assumed that Maguire "Terry" Beck was targeting Jameson for his anti-Mysterio articles. This was a good book and is a great wrap-up to the whole Mysterio mess.

I give Mysterio Manifesto #3 *** out of *****

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