Amazing Spider-Man #128 wraps up a nifty little two-part mystery featuring the Vulture. To quickly recap, in Amazing Spider-Man #127, Mary Jane witnesses a young girl being murdered by the Vulture. Mary Jane is so terrified that she refused to tell the police what she saw. However, the winged villain kidnaps Mary Jane from the Empire State University campus, sending Spider-Man into action. He rescues the damsel in distress, but gets carried into the air by the Vulture. Amazing Spider-Man #127 ends with Spider-Man falling to his apparent doom.

"I'm too high up to snag a building with my web - there's no way for me to catch myself!" Spider-Man exclaims. "Looks like this time - I've had it!" Fortunately, it's no so easy to squish a spider. Spidey spins a web net and bounces safely to the ground - just before he runs out of web fluid! Now, he's got to figure out this puzzle. One key unanswered question is why the Vulture went after a young Empire State University lab assistant named Christine, who looks a great deal like the girl who was murdered. Peter Parker checks out the lab and comes across a man by the name of Dr. Clifton Shallot, who specializes in organic mutation. The professor mentions that his course recently was cancelled by the university. Peter goes by the Daily Bugle and discovers a couple of interesting facts: The Original Vulture (Adrian Toomes) is still in prison and Christine is the roommate of the murdered woman.

That evening, Peter, now acting as a Daily Bugle photographer, snoops around the waterfront after an underworld informant mentions that the Vulture was last seen in that area. Sure enough, he finds a badly injured dock worker and some broken chemical bottles. The Vulture shows up and curiously mentions that this is the second time he has found Peter snooping around. "And my friend, that's two times too many!" he says. The Vulture snatches Peter up and drops him into the water, thinking the fall will stun him and he'll drown. He doesn't know about Peter's spider-strength and our hero climbs out of the drink unharmed. Peter returns to Mary Jane's apartment. She's agreed to tell what she knows to the police. However, they don't get far when the Vulture attacks again. Spider-Man again rescues Mary Jane from the villain and asks a brave cab driver to get her to safety. The Vulture retreats. Spider-Man goes back to the biology lab he visited earlier in the issue. Christine, the lab assistant, is there and Spider-Man demands to see Dr. Shallot, whom he has deduced is really the Vulture. Shallot, as the Vulture, emerges from a bio-engineering device ready to fight. However, Spider-Man pours a bottle of chemicals (the same chemicals we saw at the docks earlier in the issue) down the Vulture's throat. The Vulture quickly reverts into helpless Dr. Shallot and the fight is quickly over.

Spidey then lays out the scheme: Dr. Shallot found a way to transform himself into an actual vulture-like creature, using the costume of the original Vulture. However, he needed expensive chemicals to transform himself back to his normal form. When the University cut his program's funding, he had to start stealing those chemicals. He tried to silence Christine, the only person who knew his secret, but accidentally murdered her look-alike roommate instead. With the villain subdued, Spider-Man turns his attention to Christine. Why, he asks, didn't she tell the police? She claims she was too frightened of what he might do. "So instead, you let him try to kill someone else.... If you help guys like him with your silence, then there really isn't very much difference between a murderer and those who merely stand by and do nothing!"

All in all, this two-part story isn't in the same league as some of the other classic Spider-Man stories published during this time period. But it's still a pretty good little yarn and shows that the self-contained mystery story can work well in a comic book setting. There's no secondary plot development to speak of in this issue, as the Vulture mystery takes center stage.

Dr. Shallot is actually the third man to don the guise of the Vulture. The original - and most deadly - is Adrian Toomes, first introduced all the way back in Amazing Spider-Man #2. He's been a staple of Spider-Man's rogue's gallery ever since. The second Vulture was a convict named Blackie Drago, who stole the original Vulture's equipment and had a brief run with the wings starting in Amazing Spider-Man #48. However, he was a stumbling amateur compared to the original and it didn't take long for Toomes to resume his rightful role as the Vulture. Both the original Vulture, and Blackie Drago was also seen in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man #63-64, which was the last time we saw Blackie Drago. Dr. Clifton Shallot has not been seen since this issue, or hardly even referenced to, making him one of the most obscure Spider-Man villains ever.

Next issue: It really doesn't get much bigger than Amazing Spider-Man #129. Sound like hyperbole? Don't believe it? Well, this landmark issue not only introduces the Jackal, one of Spider-Man's greatest foes, it also marks the first appearance of -- the one and only Punisher!

Reviewed by Bruce Buchanan.

Reprinted In:
Marvel Tales #105