I’d argue that the Vulture was the first true comic-book supervillain faced and defeated by Spider-Man.
Oh sure, the wall-crawler had battled the Chameleon in his first issue. Still, that antagonist was arguably more of a pulp-ish master of disguise than the physically formidable supervillain for which Marvel Comics would become known.
Steve Ditko’s eye-catching designs were again displayed in Amazing Spider-Man 2 (May 1963). A couple of his sequences stick in the mind even a half-century later. The Vulture attacks unexpectedly from below to rob diamond couriers, then escapes through the sewers and subways. Spider-Man is trapped in a rooftop water tower. That scene neatly underlines the teen’s inexperience, as he thinks himself doomed until he realizes how his superpowers can easily affect his escape.
Gliding over the cityscape, untouchable on his juniper green wings, the Vulture was clearly an old man, something rarely seen in superhero comics. A faint atmosphere of smug bitterness, isolation, and alienation seemed to surround the Vulture — and the teenaged hero himself, for that matter.
“One of the biggest innovations that Stan Lee brought to his stories was making his characters feel like real people, with genuine feelings and reactions to which the reader could relate,” noted comics historian Don Alsafi. “For instance, a common objection to the character of Superman is the meekness that makes up his alter ego of Clark Kent; the reader can understand a desire for anonymity, but it’s his smiling, unbothered response to countless insults and looks of disdain that stretches the credibility. By contrast, when teenage science nerd Peter Parker is openly mocked by his classmates, he doesn’t chuckle and flush with embarrassment. Instead, he becomes surly, tossing back fiery invectives of his own — and it’s this seething anger that we recognize. The patience of a Superman might be what we aspire to, but the hotheadedness of the Marvel heroes is who we often tend to be.”
The sharp age difference between the hero and villain became a theme in the 2017 film Spider-Man Homecoming, with the talented Michael Keaton playing yet another of his birdman roles. The Vulture would have been John Malkovich had the Tobey Maguire Spidey series continued.
Superheroes always tend to fight distorted images of themselves, and the Vulture and the Chameleon were the first in the long line of “animal-man” villains Spidey would face over the decades. The next, Dr. Octopus, would teach the young hero that with great power comes great overconfidence…
Corner boxes were a new thing at the company that was still defining itself.
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