THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #128

"The Vulture Hangs High!"

• Writer: Gerry Conway
• Artist: Ross Andru
• Inker: F. Giacoia & D. Hunt
• Print Date: Jan., 1974

Featuring:

Plot Summary:

Picking up immediately after last issue, it's your average day in the average life of a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man where Spidey has just been dropped from a few hundred feet up by the Vulture. I think we've seen Spider-Man in this situation before though and two pages and one "web-net" later Spider-Man is safe and sound on solid ground with empty web-shooters.

Next, we sit through a page of flashbacks catching us up on last issue's events and wondering why the Vulture attacked that lab assistant. Thus, five minutes later in the battle-wrecked biology lab, Peter looks for the victimized lab assistant. He find no one there when he arrives, but a Doctor Shallot enters the lab shortly after Peter arrives to begin cleanup. Peter remarks that a friend of his had Doctor Shallot in Organic Mutation last semester, but Doctor Shallot laments that the trustees of the college cancelled it.

Flash and MJ catch up with Peter later, but Peter bails on them telling them he got photos of the fight and needs to run to the Daily Bugle. Keeping us in suspense long enough, Peter goes to start unraveling this so-called "mystery". He stops in the registration office, and gets his first clue. Not only are the dead girl and lab assistant dead ringers for each other, they were roommates as well. The plot thickens...

His next stop for information, the Daily Bugle, doesn't turn out quite as well. Caught rifling through the Daily Bugle's back-issue file, Jonah dresses Peter down for not getting photos of the fight on campus. However, Peter finds the information he's looking for: The Vulture is still in jail! On his way out, Spider-Man stops by a notorious street informant: "Mouthpiece" Moylan. Putting the scare in Moylan works, and he tells Spider-Man where this Vulture imposter was seen last.

On that note, Spider-Man leaves and heads straight for the docks. Apparently, the Vulture has been seen flitting around the waterfront, and as Peter Parker, our hero decides to stakeout the area. Wandering around, Peter miraculous stumbles across an unconscious dock worker and several broken vials of chemicals. And, just to dispel any doubts that this is all related, Peter is confronted by the Vulture who seems to recognize him. Commenting that this is the second time he's found Peter snooping, the Vulture scoops him up into the skies and drops him into the bay. Climbing out of the drink unharmed, Peter catches a cab to Mary Jane's apartment. First, he questions the janitor about the girl that died and her roommate, next, he gathers up MJ and insists on taking her to the police. Hopping back in the cab, the pair don't get far when they are assaulted by the Vulture again. Running the cab off the road, the Vulture drops down to drag MJ out of the back seat. Luckily, Peter manages to slip away in the confusion and changes into his fighting clothes.

Spider-Man snatches an stunned Mary Jane from the Vulture's clutches. The Vulture flees from confrontation, and Spider-Man loads MJ back in the cab and sends her off with the cab-driver. An hour later, Spider-Man returns to the biology lab to find lab assistant Christine working late hours. Spider-Man demands to know where Doctor Shallot, and (surprise! surprise!) the Vulture emerges from a nearby machine announcing, "Then you have found me, dolt!"

As a fight breaks out Doctor Shallot (as the third Vulture) reveals that since Christine agreed to assist him, he's decided to let her live. Unfortunately for Doctor Shallot, Spider-Man has his number and during the fight he force feeds the Vulture an antidote to the bio-chemical mutation he's caused himself, and he reverts back to Doctor Shallot.

Finally, to wrap up what must be one of the hokiest Spider-Man stories I've ever read, Spider-Man recaps the whole mystery. Christine and Doctor Shallot were involved in a bio-mutation project involving the wing-outfit of the real Vulture which they requisitioned from the state prison authority. For some reason, Doctor Shallot decided to become the Vulture by donning the outfit and stepping into a mutation device. He transformed into a vulture-like creature where the wing-outfit became a part of him. The only person standing in his way was the one person who knew his secret: Christine. Accidentally killing Christine's roommate, he also decided to target Mary Jane who witnessed the murder. Finally, Shallot couldn't reverse the transformation without certain chemicals in larger and larger doses. No longer able to afford the chemicals on the department's budget, Doctor Shallot was forced to begin stealing them. And, somehow, Spider-Man was able to put all these clues together and figure this all out wrapping the whole story up with a morality lesson to Christine.

Comments:

Wow, we might have a new contender for "WORST ISSUE EVER!" This was bad. I'm not sure I'm up to the task of giving this issue a decent review, but with the help of my buddies Jack Daniels and Jim Beam, I'm going to try. I encourage you all to find out where Gerry Conway lives these days (or his next of kin if necessary) and write to them him how BAD this story is. I'm hopelessly behind with site updates, but I might be able to catch up soon. Right now, I'm at our hunting cabin. It's Thanksgiving week, and I've been spending the evenings playing cards and spending my days in a futile attempt to shoot helpless animals in the woods. At least the cards have been going well.

Hehe, and I should mention, I had a good laugh at the Charles Atlas "Hero of the Beach" ad on the inside of the cover. I've been reading Grant Morrison 4-issue "Flex Mentallo" mini-series this week. I'm not sure it makes sense, but it's been entertaining. More entertaining than this issue.

Plot Analysis:

So, this issue starts with a cliched cliffhanger. Spider-Man has been dropped by the Vulture from several hundred feet up. Haven't we been here before? Good grief, I don't even have to turn the page to know that Spider-Man is going to spin a web-glider, a web-chute, or a web-net to save himself. The only suspense I feel is wondering which of those it's going to be.

Whoops.. Looks like it's going to be a web-net this time. Spectacular. Oh wait, sorry, wrong series, 'Amazing' is the term I meant to use. And, oh my gosh, that was close, Spider-Man used ALL of his available webbing to save himself. He could've been KILLED! Thank goodness, he managed to squeak through.

On page 6, we go through the obligatory re-cap for those three people that read this issue without reading the last. In case you can't remember, Mary Jane witnessed the Vulture kill a helpless girl. She refuses to go to the police or tell Peter the identity of the killer. Peter soon finds out though as the Vulture assaults both MJ and some biology lab assistant in the same afternoon. They pair only escape death by the timely intervention of Spider-Man which leads us to this issue.

And of course, the mystery remains over WHY the Vulture killed the girl last issue. He's never done anything without a reason. Peter, being the ace sleuth that he is, resolves to solve the mystery. It's off to the Mystery Machine!!! Or, well, the biology lab at any rate. There, Peter meets the enigmatic Dr. Shallot, teacher of the ever-popular 'organic mutation' class that they teach in every college. Anyway, the spend a whole page on the discussion with Dr. Shallot, so you KNOW he's going to be important to the plot somehow. Of course, he can't be the bad guy cause he's not bald, right?

Good grief, to be honest, I'm not even sure I can make fun of this issue properly. Peter walks right into registration and the 'hip' secretary at the front desk gives him full access to EVERYONE'S file. Ahh, those light and cheerful 70's back when crime was completely unheard of! I miss those days. In any case, they spend 2/3 of a page establishing that the dead girl and the lab assistant are virtually twins and roommates to boot. You don't suspect.. No, it couldn't be.. It's too horrible to contemplate.. Could.. Could the wrong girl have been killed??!?

We waste an entire page at the Bugle. Jonah rants. Peter chats with Ned. Nothing of significance happens. It's not even until after Peter leaves the Bugle that he went there to see if the original Vulture was still in jail. And, I'd like to point out that through this whole issue, he comes off as incredibly sleuthy, but it never occurs to him to double-check what might have happened to the Vulture's equipment. Whoops.. Might have saved some time there.

Peter then shakes down the drunks. Apparently, much knowledge is found in the bottle of whiskey because one of the transients knows that Vulture has been hanging around the waterfront lately.. leading Spider-Man to his next destination.. The Waterfront! Not only did the drunk know about the waterfront, he was able to pinpoint a particular dock and ship. He also had a great recipe for chocolate chip cookies to pass on to Aunt May and the answers to Peter's math homework from 3rd grade. Smart guys those drunks.

Deciding Spider-Man is too much of an attention getter, Peter goes incognito as "Peter Parker". The Vulture clues Peter in that "This is the 2nd time I've found you snooping!" Now, later, this turns out to be a HUGE clue that Dr. Shallot is the Vulture because he's the one that caught Peter in the biology lab. However, I should point out, the Vulture also could've recognized Peter on his own since he was riding in the car with MJ last issue when the Vulture attacked.

In case you didn't pick up on it earlier, the writer spends an entire page with Peter and the janitor (Who is "Sam Erwin"?) beating you about the head and neck with a large club in case you were too dense earlier to pick up that the TWO GIRLS ARE ALMOST INDISTINGUISHABLE!!!!! Then, Peter, in a effort to protect MJ, paints a large target on her chest, posts a neon sign shouting "Here's your target Vulture!!!!", and loads MJ in a cab to take her to the police station to report on what she saw the night before. Predictably, the Vulture attacks again, causing the cab to crash, and allowing the Vulture to haul a struggling MJ in the back seat. Apparently, Peter crawled out of the cab through a secret door and vanished unseen into a stairwell to emerge as SPIDER-MAN!!!! This, in no way, compromises his secret identity. Not even when he addresses the cab drive by name with the lame excuse "Peter Parker told me all ABOUT you!"

One hour later, Peter returns to the biology lab. He has, of course, solved a mystery that would've baffled even Sherlock Holmes. Well, Holmes would've been baffled more by the illogic and plot holes than the mystery I'm sure, but still.. Peter looks through all the extraneous stuff like plot, characterization, and logic and solves the mystery for all. The new Vulture is none other than: Dr. Shallot!

Ok, fight ensues. Normally, this would be a two-page slugfest, but even though we've been with Peter non-stop over the course of the evening (Sorry, almost non-stop. He takes an hour to get from MJ's to the bio lab that isn't covered in detail), he's managed to do what even the biology professor couldn't do: Come up with a permanent cure to the professor's Vulture mutation! How he figured this out and when he had time concoct the cure is the real mystery here, but we'll save that for another day. And, if that wasn't enough, Peter still manages to threaten the bio assistant because she didn't turn in the Vulture immediately when she knew what was happening. In fact, she didn't even turn him in for killing her best friend, and even went back to work for him for fear of her life. I was hoping that Spidey would put the smack down her too, but no such luck.

Art Review:

Wow, I'm not sure if the horrible art was as bad as the horrible plot, but it was pretty close. The art was just terrible in this issue. First, why does Dr. Shallot look JUST LIKE the original Vulture when he undergoes his "organic mutation". I'm sure that was a decision of the writer's, but that's what you get for letting the writer's dictate the art. Next, Ross Andru's scenes from a sky view to show an aerial perspective are horrible. Everything is grossly out of proportion and out of perspective. In the scenes where the Vulture is chasing the cab, it actually appears as if the cab is the one swooping and flying through the air and not the Vulture. It's not subtle at all. The artwork is really jarring in this issue.

Action Factor:

Action? What action? We have.. Spidey being dropped by the Vulture. Peter being dropped by the Vulture. And a less than one-page slugfest where Spidey force-feeds the Vulture a cure to his condition. Excitement no knows no limits here folks.

Spider-Villain lessons 101:

Tip #1:
Never, ever, EVER lurk around the docks. EVERYONE lurks around the docks, and EVERYONE knows EVERYONE lurks around the docks. Good grief. I don't know why a hero would ever hang around anywhere else: "Well, the Vulture is back in town again. I bet if I go mill around down by the docks, he'll show up!"