Spider-Man: Homecoming: Who Is The Vulture?

With Spider-Man: Homecoming hitting
theaters on July 7, you may be wondering who a few of the
characters are in the movie. Everyone knows Peter Parker, especially after two separate franchises
and five solo films. However, some of his villains are not as well
known. In Homecoming, Spider-Man faces The Vulture, played by Michael Keaton. This Silver Age
villain is over 50 years old, but where did he come from and who is
he?

The Vulture first appeared in The Amazing
Spider-Man #2 back in 1963. He was created by the legendary
Steve Ditko and Stan Lee. The villain’s real name is Adrian Toomes, an
electronics engineer who was stabbed in the back by his business
partner. This betrayal led Toomes to a life of crime, using a
device he invented which gave him the ability to fly, as well as
super-strength. The Vulture is primarily known for being an old
man–Spider-Man’s senior citizen foe.

While Vulture isn’t the biggest or most formidable of
Spider-Man’s villains, he did meddle in Parker’s life on more than
one occasion. Toomes was partially responsible for Nathan Lubensky‘s death. Lubensky was the love
interest for Aunt May, and after a battle between Vulture and
Spider-Man, Lubensky suffered a fatal heart attack when he jumped
on Vulture’s back in hopes of stopping a fight between the villain
and the web-slinger.

During a really bizarre storyline, Chameleon and Green Goblin created lifelike androids of Peter
Parker’s parents, hoping it would drive Spider-Man insane. Vulture,
who recently developed life-force-sucking gloves, stole all the
energy from Peter’s “mother,” and transferred it into himself,
making the Vulture young once again. Like everything in comics,
this didn’t last forever, and he returned to his elderly state.

Aside from being adept at inventing, Vulture proved
himself to be a master strategist during the mid-’00s miniseries
Identity Disc. In that story, Vulture–along with the help
of Sandman–manipulated a group of supervillains to work together
in order to get a disc with the identities of SHIELD agents on it.
This list included Toomes’s daughter. This is one of the few times
we get to see Vulture as an empathetic villain, as he wanted to
protect his child from other evildoers.

We last saw Vulture during the volume Superior
Spider-Man, when Doctor Octopus put his mind into Spider-Man’s body.
Spider-Man blinded Vulture and sent him to The Raft, a prison for supervillains. To this day, he
is still blind and imprisoned.

Looking to read more about The Vulture? Check these
stories out:

• Return of the Sinister Six: Vulture joins the
  Sinister Six, and they have a plan to defeat Spider-Man. the story
  takes place in Amazing Spider-Man #335-339.
• Lifetheft: Vulture becomes young again after draining
  the life of Peter’s mother, who is an android. Read it for yourself
  in Amazing Spider-Man #386-388.
• Civil War: After Peter Parker reveals himself as
  Spider-Man on television, there are a few revelations involving
  Vulture. While Spider-Man’s story goes branches out through a lot
  of the Marvel event, this story can be found in Astonishing
  Spider-Man #55-56.
• Funeral Arrangements: Vulture gets too involved in
  Peter’s home life. This ’90s classic story takes place in
  Spectacular Spider-Man #186-188.
• Identity Disc: Vulture puts together a team of
  villains for a mission. All five issues of the Identity Disc story
  are available on Comixology.

Spider-Man: Homecoming hits theaters on
Friday, July 7. You can check out our review here.