Scavenged Part Two

The Vulture has attacked Mayor J. Jonah Jameson because he has been convinced that Jameson had a hand in turning him into a monster. Spider-Man has followed the Vulture into a darkened office and is horrified to see the Vulture looming over a body. He thinks it is J. Jonah Jameson until he notices Jonah is cowering in the corner of the room. Lunging at the Vulture and driving themselves out a window, Spider-Man tells Jonah to get the man some help. Outside, the Vulture keeps on using his acidic vomit to melt through Spider-Man’s web-lines and decides to change tactics. He then sprays webbing into the Vulture’s face. While the creature tries to get the webbing off his face, the web-slinger then weaves a net of webbing to catch his foe. As Spider-Man begins trying to trap the Vulture in webbing, the villain begins trying to eat through the webbing with his acidic vomit even at the risk of burning himself. Spider-Man keeps on pouring on the webbing until his web-shooters run out. As the Vulture breaks free, Spider-Man tells the Vulture that Jonah had nothing to do with his creation, recounting how Adrian Toomes, the original Vulture, told him that the mob was responsible.[1] Spider-Man’s offer to help the Vulture bring them to justice is ignored as the Vulture finally breaks free and flies away.

Spider-Man realizes that he just put some mobsters in the Vulture’s crosshairs and follows after him before he kills somebody. However, the Vulture flies much faster than Spider-Man can keep up with, and he is forced to tag him with a spider-tracer. Unfortunately, the web-slinger pulls his shoulder doing so. Back at the mayor’s office his assistant, Lubeck, is concerned that the Vulture’s appearance at Gracie Mansion could be viewed as an admission of guilt. Jameson is upset that one of his security guards sacrificed his life to protect him and tells Lubeck to get out of his office because he’s a bigger vulture than the one that attacked him. Jonah is deeply upset because until the guard sacrificed his life, he didn’t even know his name. As Lubeck leaves Jonah’s office, Peter Parker arrives to try and give Jameson his condolences. Hearing that there were no other surviving witnesses that can attest that Jonah was attacked by the Vulture, Peter blurts out that he might have been around and got a photo of the battle because he feels bad for Jameson. Since Peter didn’t, he spends time at a computer imposing an earlier photo he took of Jonah having a tantrum to make it look like he was fighting back against the Vulture, hoping this can help prevent Jameson’s career being ruined over a lie.

Meanwhile, the Vulture has tracked down one of the other mobsters he worked with on his yacht along the Hudson River. He too tries to blame Jimmy’s transformation into the Vulture on J. Jonah Jameson, but when the Vulture threatens to kill the mobster’s girl he decides to own up to the truth. He reminds the Vulture that he was known as Jimmy the Fixer, a clean-up man for the mob. However, the job was huge and there was a lot of pressure. One day, Jimmy met with his bosses and proposed an alternative to the current way of doing things. He suggested that they spend the time thinning the herd and told them that he had a great idea on how to accomplish that. Jimmy then took them to meet with Professor Charlie Gross who had uncovered the work of Farley and Harlan Stillwell the men responsible for creating both Scorpion and the Fly.[2] He then suggests that they use this technology to create a new clean-up man with the powers of a vulture. Although Jimmy had some candidates lined up, his bosses decided that Jimmy would be the ideal choice. They shot him in the leg then cramped him into the transformation chamber. They then forced Professor Gross to transform Jimmy into the Vulture. At the time they were assured that the process wiped Jimmy’s mind clean so they could mold him into their new operative.[3] Unfortunately, the one thing they never counted on was the Vulture going rogue.

As this is happening, Peter Parker has changed into Spider-Man and follows the signal from his spider-tracer back to the Vulture’s hideout. It is only when he arrives does he realize that his foe had found and discarded the spider-tracer. As the Vulture is killing his former boss, Spider-Man scours the city in a fruitless search for his quarry.

The following morning, Peter’s doctored photo of Jameson fighting the Vulture makes the front page of the Front Line. Peter arrives at his job at city hall to a round of applause from the rest of the staff as they believe he single-handedly saved J. Jonah Jameson’s career as mayor. However, when he goes into Jonah’s office, Jameson tells Peter to leave his camera on his desk and to follow him. Jonah brings Peter to a press conference that Jameson called and instead of praise, Jonah reveals to them all that Peter doctored the photo that is making its rounds in the papers. As a former newspaperman, Jonah can’t abide by the lack of ethics that Peter has displayed and publicly fires him on the spot, telling any news organization to stay away from him in the future as he violated the public trust. He then pulls up the photo on a projector and points out how he figured out the photo was faked because the picture of the office still had a portrait of the former mayor’s children and the first thing he did when he took power was remove it from his office. He then tells the press that security logs show that Peter Parker wasn’t logged as being in the building at the time of the attack. Humiliated and hurt by this public outing, Peter walks out of the press conference before Jonah can finish his rant. Changing into Spider-Man, Peter swings by the rubble of the Daily Bugle building where crews are now finally clearing away the rubble.[4] He can’t believe how this all happened, over something stupid he did for the right reasons and now he is out of the only livelihood he could always rely on. He wonders what his friends and family are going to think and, more importantly, what is he going to do next. He wonders how he lost so badly and how much worse things can get from here.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, the Vulture, J. Jonah Jameson

Continuity Notes

1. Spider-Man was told that the mob was responsible for turning Jimmy Natale into the Vulture by Adrian Toomes in Amazing Spider-Man #594.

2. Farley Stillwell was hired by J. Jonah Jameson to create the Scorpion in Amazing Spider-Man #20, and later had his brother Harlan create the Fly in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #10.

3. Mention is made how Mysterio was hired in the past to the Maggia clean up messes. This was detailed in Amazing Spider-Man #618-620.

4. The Daily Bugle building was destroyed by Electro in Amazing Spider-Man #614.

Topical References

• The date on the Front Line is May 12, 2010. This date should be considered topical.