Amazing Reads: Amazing Spider-Man #7

Well, here we are, and our first return appearance of a villain. Of course it isn't the menacing Doc Ock, or well, I'd say Lizard, but a bit much, since it was the last issue. Come to think of it, we really haven't had that many impressive villains thus far. Chameleon was dull, Sandman was crappy. Oh, and Tinkerer was an alien, but not really, but that isn't revealed for a 100 or so comics, so let's just go with the alien. For those who want to imagine that line would sound when spoken, just say it out loud without pausing for breath. 

Back to point. Amazing Spider-Man #7. The Vulture returns. Yay...

The most dangerous foe of all. An 80 year old man!

And we open with that marvelous Spider-Man/Vulture fight. Can you just hear the sarcasm? Spider-Man defeated the Vulture using technobable, and sent the octogenarian to prison. And that is where we join him. He is referred to as the Vulture, in prison. So when we left him last time, he had kept his suit, and apparently no one bothered to find out his real name. But he is a model inmate, who doesn't have a name.

But surprise, surprise, the evil old man is rebuilding his flight thingy.

Gizmo. Only the highest in scientific terminology for Spider-Man.

Also. Aren't you glad they just didn't shoot the old man? And so the Vulture escapes.

We move to Midtown High, where the gang of annoying teens play Volleyball. For a panel, a young man with a radio is listening to the Vulture's escape. That young man disappears once that information is given. And so, Pete wanders off, giving off excuses to why he must leave. He doesn't feel well. He changes. During so, we get Peter talking to himself about how everything works. Like he knows he's being watched. What does he know that we don't? Oh, and a little boy sees him as he leaves.

Or, you could...you know, have a plan B. Just a thought.

And the Vulture flies around New York. A helicopter finds him, and he decides to test out his new "gizmo". He flies into a building, a jewelry showroom, robs it, and flies back out of the window. And then he flies around the streets. The cops can't fire, because he is around civilians.

I do recall something about pride.

Spider-Man sits calmly along the wall, prepared with a camera and his anti-magnetic techno-device. And boom, he fires. The Vulture spirals out of control, or faking to as we can plainly see. I do believe Spider-Man needs to learn a little humility.

BOOM!

And so, the Vulture beats the living heck out of our neighborhood wall-crawler. And as our wall crawler falls, he fires a web line, and misses. The young man falls for his horrible splattery death. Or not. Damn you physics. (or lack there of.)

It doesn't work that way!

Vulture believes Spider-Man is dead. As he rightly should be if the laws of physics worked as they should. Spider-Man has sprained his arm, and he limps off. Or moves off, since his legs are quite fine. He gets back to his room, and Aunt May just wanders in. Seriously, he's like sixteen years old, right? Why doesn't he have a lock?

And thus, Pete adds to her dementia.

So Aunt May leaves our hero clinging to the ceiling, and he precedes to change. He sneaks back out to come in through the front door. We cut to later at the doctors, where our young hero has his arm in a sling. Aunt May tells him not to play Volley Ball again, and he promises, for the next week. He then arrives at school, where he is mocked by the other students.

Oh just kill them all. I want to.

And so we cut to Vulture in his old hideout. Which apparently the police never found out about. He sits, celebrating over his defeat of Spider-Man. He decides to rob J. Jonah Jameson's payroll. And we cut to the offices of the Daily Bugle. Betty Brant asks how Peter sprained his arm.

Sitcom sting, please.

Well, J.J. admits the photos are nice, but they have lots of photos of the Vulture. So only a smalls stipend is paid to our young sitcom hero. And as we all knew this was going to happen, The Vulture appears through the window. He wants J.J.'s money. This of course goes over as well as one might expect, and J. Jonah Jameson starts arguing with the villain. So Pete sneaks out the back, and changes into his costume.

Spidey spins up a sling for his sprained arm. He arrives just in time to web up the gun the Vulture magically makes appear of panel. The old man throws J.J. in the way of Spider-Man, so he can escape.

LEAP FROG!

And so our hero is off! He leaps over Betty, and J.J. chases after, yelling for someone to call the police. And thus we have Vulture and Spider-Man make a mess of the newsroom, with J.J. bemoaning all the way. The Vulture flies down the stair case to the printing room, and Spider-Man soon follows.

Those be some brightly colored spooks.

In the printing press room, our hero and villain duke it out. We get some added danger saying that if Spider-Man hits a giant roller, he'll be a squashed bug. (Arachnid). And so the Vulture takes the moment of Spidey's fall in the fight to fly out a window.

Heh. Classic.

The Vulture grabs hold of Spider-Man and drags him high into the sky. He gloats and taunts, and Spider-Man does the only thing he can think of. Webbing up the old man's wings. The Vulture claims they'll both die, and Spider-Man is rather flippant at this point.

Just punch him. He's like eighty.

And so they fall, and they fall, the Vulture sobs like a baby. And Spider-Man makes a webbed parachute. And they float down to safety. The crows below cheers, with one many crying "By some miracle, Spider-Man won!" Question: was it really that touch and go for the people on the street? Really? 

And so J.J. sees out friendly neighborhood wall crawler, and yells for him to come back. Which he does. Jameson threatens Spidey for a bit and we get a wonderfully hilarious moment.

Yes...breath through that bastard.

Spider-man swings around and goes back into the building to change into Peter Parker. Pete finds Betty hiding behind a desk and the two share a moment. It's cute, it's caring. And they laugh at J.J. as he runs through the office.

At least he wasn't trying to get with anyone else this issue.

And thus brings the end of Vulture's return. If you haven't guessed by now, my biggest problem with The Vulture, or Adrian Toomes' Vulture, is that he's an old man. one swift kick should take him out. Spidey has super strength, how can he not just clock the old man and him be out like a light. There seems to be a lot of false tension and gimmicky stuff attached to defeating the Vulture. 

But that's merely my opinion, and all and all this isn't that bad of a story. A good solid 3 out of 5.