Amazing Spider-Man #2
Duel to the Death with the Vulture!
New York City is being terrorized by a new criminal called the Vulture. He is equipped with artificial wings that allow him to swoop down on his victims, snatch their valuables, and fly away before they know what is happening. Nobody has been able to photograph him, and J. Jonah Jameson needs pictures to illustrate his Vulture feature article for NOW Magazine. Peter Parker decides to try to photograph the criminal in action. Selling the photographs will help him and his Aunt May make ends meet.
Meanwhile, the Vulture is in an abandoned silo, his Staten Island hideout, making plans to hit the Park Avenue Jewelry Exchange. As he flies out over the city, he is spotted by Spider-Man, who is equipped with a miniature camera once owned by his late Uncle Ben. Spider-Man manages to take some photographs of the Vulture, but the Vulture sees him, attacks him from behind, knocks him out, and dumps him into a water tower. After breaking out of the water tower, Spider-Man heads home, where he adds some improvements to his devices and develops his photographs.
The next day, Peter Parker arrives at J. Jonah Jameson's office with pictures of the Vulture. The publisher is very impressed and pays him well. The next day Peter heads for the Park Avenue Diamond Exchange, which the Vulture tauntingly announced to the public as the site of his next robbery. While everybody expects the Vulture to strike from above, he strikes from beneath a manhole cover, seizes a case of diamonds, and flees through the New York City sewer system. Spider-Man uses his Spider-Sense to track him down and wins their battle with an anti-magnetic inverter, a device he built to counteract the magnetic power that the Vulture uses for flight. The Vulture is left for the police, and Peter Parker has photographs of the Vulture's capture, which he sells to J. Jonah Jameson for a large sum of money. Peter and Aunt May are able to make ends meet.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Aunt May, Vulture, J. Jonah Jameson, Eleanor Brant, Sally Avril, Flash Thompson, Liz Allan, Raymond Warren
Continuity Notes
This story is expanded upon in Amazing Spider-Man (vol 3) #1.2-1.3.
A number of details in this story are considered topical references per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616. These details are: The type of camera that Peter uses, the technology used that allows the Vulture to fly, as well as the Magnetic Inverter.
Although unnamed here, the secretary at the Daily Bugle building is Eleonore Brant. She is first identified in Untold Tales of Spider-Man #12, that story also explains what happens to her following this story.
Peter’s Uncle Ben is invoked here. He was shot in Amazing Fantasy #15.
In this story, Peter asks Jameson to keep his name a secret, and to credit his photos to a staff photographer. This was an attempt to prevent his classmates from making a connection between Peter and Spider-Man. Eventually, he revealed that he was taking photos for the Daily Bugle during a class presentation, as seen in Untold Tales of Spider-Man #11.
The Uncanny Threat of the Terrible Tinkerer!
Peter Parker is busy in the Midtown High School science lab when Mr. Warren introduces him to Professor Cobbwell. The professor needs an assistant for the weekend, and Peter Parker comes highly recommended. The next day, Peter runs an errand to the Tinkerer Repair Shop, where Professor Cobbwell has left a radio to be fixed. But in the basement of the shop, a group of what are apparently extraterrestrials have been placing spy devices into the radios of certain customers. The spy devices evidently enable them to estimate the earth's strengths and weaknesses in secrecy before they strike.
Spider-Man's Spider Sense detects an odd kind of radiation emanating from the shop basement. Later, this same kind of radiation is detected from the radio brought back to Professor Cobbwell's laboratory. His curiosity aroused, Spider-Man secretly returns to the Tinkerer's shop and sneaks into the basement, where he sees the "aliens" and the Tinkerer and deduces their plans. Unfortunately, he is spotted, and, in the ensuing battle, he is stunned by one of the Tinkerer's electrical weapons. He is placed into a "resisto-glass" enclosure, from which the Tinkerer and his gang believe he cannot escape. They plan to kill him by withdrawing all the air from the enclosure.
Spider-Man thwarts their plan by shooting web fluid out of the holes through which his air supply is being withdrawn. He hits the button on their control panel that opens his glass prison. A misdirected weapon starts a fire, and the Tinkerer and the "aliens" all flee. They appear to leave the earth in a large spacecraft, while all that remains of the Tinkerer is a face mask in Peter Parker's hands.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Flash Thompson, Liz Allan, Sally Avril, Raymond Warren, Tinkerer, Quentin Beck (unidentified), Professor Cobwell
Continuity Notes
A number of details in this story are considered topical references per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616. These details are: Any references to the Tinkerer specifically fixing radios. Amazing Spider-Man (vol 3) #1.4 states that Peter was sent to get Professor Cobbwell's antique radio repaired. Likewise should the price of the Tinkerer's repair jobs (10 cents) be considered topical.
The "aliens" in this story are revealed to be criminals disguise and the entire thing was a charade to throw off anyone who might discover their operations. This fact was explained in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #51. That same issue reveals that one of the crooks is Quentin Beck, who becomes Mysterio in Amazing Spider-Man #13.
Peter's part time job with Professor Cobbwell is short-lived, the details of how he loses this job are revealed in Amazing Spider-Man (vol 3) #1.4-1.5.
