Villain Profile: Vulture

A vulture is an ugly, bald headed, carrion feeder. We associate them with death, or worse, the stuff that happens after death. So, naturally, anyone that chooses to use that as their moniker must be a pretty unpleasant person, too. That pretty much fits Adrian Toomes to a T. He’s one of Spider-Man’s oldest and most persistent foes. Which is pretty impressive, given that he was about 60 in the 60s. Old man’s a fighter. Let’s get to it.

When you get right down to it, he's just an insane
old man in long underwear. And an anti-gravity pack

Adrian Toomes was an electronics engineer for most of his life. He was partnered with a man named Gregory Bestman, Toomes handled inventing stuff, and Bestman handled the books. This worked well, until Toomes made his best invention to date. He developed a harness that allowed him to defy gravity. He rushed to show Bestman his invention, but was horrified to learn that Bestman was embezzling funds. Toomes didn’t have legal recourse, and ended up losing his job. He was enraged, and started trashing their office. In his anger, he also discovered that his harness gave him superstrenght. Deciding to turn to crime, he used his harness in the most impractical manner ever. Swooping down and snatching purses. Goodness, it sounds stupider out loud. Seriously, superstrenght and flight, it just screams high priced assassin. But no, purse snatching. He does move up to stealing things like diamonds and armored cars when they try to transfer them outside. This gets Spider-Man’s attention, who beats up the buzzard and sends him packing. This encounter is what gives young Peter Parker the idea to take pictures of himself beating up supervillains and selling them to the Daily Bugle.

He later tried to steal the payroll form the Daily Bugle, and then was enlisted by Doctor Octopus to be part of the original Sinister Six. The hilarious part, Doc Oct originally planned to get every villain Spider-Man had faced, but only Vulture, Electro, Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio, and Sandman responded. One of the most well-known supervillain team ups started off as basically a poorly responded to Craigslist ad. How sad. In their first plan, rather than team up and get Spider-Man all at once, they decide to fight him one at a time, in the hopes of exhausting him. Dumb plan. Vulture was the second to last to face Spider-Man. He forced Spider-Man to drop his web-shooters, coated a rooftop in oil, and tried to blow him off the building with gale force winds caused by his wings. Spider-Man escaped, grabbed a lasso that Vulture tried to hang him with, and captured the winged villain. Toomes and the rest of the Six were arrested.

Closest he's ever come to getting Spider-Man.
Which is really sad when you think about it.

While in prison, he suffered a pretty serious injury in the prison workshop. Believing that he was dying, he told his cellmate Blackie Drago where he kept a backup Vulture costume. Blackie stole the costume, and later revealed that he orchestrated the accident on purpose to get Toomes’ tech. When Toomes recovered, he got his original costume back, and fought Drago for the mantle of Vulture. Somehow, Toomes ended up on top. Later, he arranged for the murder of New York’s top mobsters, and took over as the new crime lord of NYC. A Big Man of Crime, if you will. He got Spider-Man’s attention again, the two fought, and you know how it ends. Toomes is one of those guys who should get some kind of rewards card for how often he checks into prison. Vulture attempted to retire from villainy, until he heard Bestman was back in town. He donned his bird costume and murdered the man he blamed most for ruining his life. Vulture is one of Spider-Man’s most well connected supervillains, surprisingly. He’s good buddies with Electro, and Doc Oct, and dozens of other villains. He’s been a part of several incarnations of the Sinister Six. Who knew the guy who named himself after a corpse eating bird would be such a people person?

Adrian Toomes, using his impressive skills in electrical engineering, developed a special harness that lets him defy gravity. He uses his large wings to direct himself in the air. His harness is described as a “electromagnetic anti-graviton generator.” But, much like Magneto, he can fly because it looks cool. His harness also gives him superstrength. Some versions also have the ability to temporarily drain the youth from a victim, cause reasons.

Toomes has had sporadic appearances in Spider-Man media. He’s right on the edge of being as famous as Green Goblin and Doc Oct, and being as obscure as…hm… I was going to say Rhino, but he’s kind of well know now. Ah… The Big Man? Is he obscure enough? Yeah I think so.

He was a recurring character in Spider-Man back in the 90s. This version used his bizarre life sucking powers on several occasions. He was featured in several episodes, but wasn’t an original “Insidious Six” member, he was part of version 2, replacing Mysterio.

Uhg, he's even uglier than normal in this one.

The most accurate version of the character appeared in The Spectacular Spider-Man. I’ve actually watched the first season since my last Spider-Man related post, so I can now make first hand observations. He was the first actual villain that Spider-Man faced in the first episode, “Survival of the Fittest.” He was introduced as an elderly but gifted engineer. He was infuriated to learn that, after showing Norman Osborn his prototype flight Harness, that Oscorp had stolen the idea and claimed it was theirs. Osborn made the pretty accurate observation that few would believe that “The old Buzzard” made something so amazing. He used his flight tech, and some specialized talons, to try to kill Osborn. When he claims that he’d become a “Vulture” like Osborn said, Osborn, who is surprisingly ballsy for a guy being held several stories off the ground, corrected him and said “you can’t even get the name right.” Say what you want about Osborn, but they guy has cojones. He’s defeated by Spider-Man. He returned in “Group Therapy,” where he broke out of prison and joined Doc Oct’s Sinister Six. This version did the smart thing and attacked Spider-Man all at once. They might have won, if Spider-Man hadn’t been wearing the Venom Symbiote. While Peter slept, the suit took control and thrashed the villains. He returned with the Six on a few occasions, but kept getting their butts kicked.

A completely new version appeared in Ultimate Spider-Man. This version of Adrian is an amnesia suffering teenager that had been experimented on by Doc Oct. Spider-Man and Adrian go to Oct, who was imprisoned on the Helicarrier. Once there, Oct revealed that he’d put special programming into Adrian. By uttering Carrion Feeder, Adrian is thrown into a rage and starts wrecking stuff. Spider-Man helps Adrian recover, and they recapture Oct. He’s later recruited by the villainous Taskmaster as part of his Thunderbolt’s team. He helps Taskmaster commit a mass break out at the Helicarrier, and escapes.

He hasn’t made any live action appearances. He was slated to appear in Spider-Man 4, but the film fell apart. He was going to appear in an Amazing Spider-Man sequel, but again, this fell through. Maybe he’ll get his shot in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Vulture is one of those villains that I don’t particularly like, but I do have to respect him. He’s one of Spider-Man’s oldest villains, and did help Peter Parker figure out how best to finance his Superheroing. And, again, I find it kind of hilarious that he’s one of the more social villains in Spider-Man’s rogues gallery. Oversized bird of prey doesn’t really scream team player, now does it? Also, while I made fun of his choices in crimes, it is kind of nice to have a villain that isn’t often planning on global conquest. We really could use more of “normal” criminals in circulation. He’s the old but persistent, senile but savage bird of prey, The Vulture. Next time, the original sidekick, Dick Grayson aka Robin aka Nightwing.

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