Amazing Spider-Man #2: "Duel to the Death with the Vulture!"/"The Uncanny Threat of the Terrible Tinkerer!"

Summary

A new costumed villain, the Vulture, is terrorizing New York, using a flight suit to commit his crimes.  JJJ is desperate for a photo of the Vulture, but his editor explains none of their phtographers can get one.  At his high school, Pete overhears a bunch of students talking about how much a close-up photo of the Vulture would be worth, making him realize that Spider-Man could get close enough to get a photo.  At home that night, he asks Aunt May for Uncle Ben's miniature camera.  Meanwhile, the Vulture leaves notes for the radio network, police chief, and Jameson Publications telling them that he plans to steal a diamond shipment from under their noses, reveling in taunting them.  As he delivers the messages, he's observed by Spider-Man, who's on a rooftop testing out the camera.  Pete tries to set up the camera to get a photo of the Vulture, but the Vulture sees him and, while Pete's distracted, manages to strike him from behind.  The Vulture then deposits Pete in a water tower and escapes.  Panicked after realizing his Web-Shooters don't have any Web-Fluid left, Pete realizes he can use his Spider-Strength to propel himself from the water tower.  At home, he re-designs his equipment for his "secret adventurer" career, adding an extra fluid capsule on his Web-Shooters and designing a utility belt to hold extra Web-Fluid cartridges and his yet-to-be-purchased special miniature camera (designed to fit on his belt buckle).  He then works on his hunch about how the Vulture manages to fly and works on inventing a device to negate that power.  The next day, Pete successfully sells his photos to JJJ, making him swear not to ask how he got them and not to use his name in the credit.  Pete and the gang go to watch the diamond shipment, to see if the Vulture appears.  He does, but from below (and not above, as the police were planning), striking from the sewers.  Pete uses his Spider-Sense to track him and eventually locates him.  They struggle mid-air, but Pete activates his device, causing the Vulture to plummet to a nearby rooftop, where he's captured by the police (and photographed by Pete).  Pete reveals to the reader that the silence of the Vulture's flying device made him realize he was using magnetic power, so Pete devised an "anti-magnetic inverter" to combat it.  He then sells the photos of the Vulture's capture to JJJ, and Pete uses the money to pay Aunt May's rent for a year and buy her new kitchen appliances.  Meanwhile, in prison, the Vulture swears he'll develop a flying power that Spider-Man can't overcome.

Peter is given a chance by his professor to help a prominent scientist work on some experiments over the weekend.  Pete agrees, and the scientist asks him to pick up a radio he's sent to the shop for fixing on his way to the lab.  At the shop, called (originally) the Tinkerer's Repair Shop, Pete senses odd electric impulses with his Spider-Sense, but ignores it, figuring it was just the Tinkerer's testing equipment.  Meanwhile, in the Tinkerer's basement, where he's gone to fetch the radio, the Tinkerer is revealed to be in cohoots with aliens who are installing things into the radios of "special customers."  Pete is shocked when the Tinkerer tells him it only cost a dime to repair the radio, and the scientist confirms he sent it to there because he had heard of the Tinkerer's cheap rates.  Pete has trouble keeping the radio off his mind, and eventually realizes it's because it's still broadcasting those electric impulses.  When the scientist leaves to give a lecture, Pete opens up the radio and realizes it has some extra parts.  Heading to the Tinkerer's lab as Spider-Man, he observes the Tinkerer and the aliens discussing their plans, revealing that their "special customers" are leading military officials and scientists whose secrets they're trying to learn.  One of the aliens discovers Spidey, and a fight ensues.  The Tinkerer disables him with a ray gun and they place him in a "resisto-glass enclosure."  Spidey manages to escape by shooting a Web-Line to the control panel, releasing the latch before the aliens can siphon off the air in the enclosure.  In the ensuing fight, one of the aliens accidentally blasts the control panel, and a fire starts.  Pete tries to save the Tinkerer, but he escapes.  A space ship is later seen leaving the Earth, with the aliens saying they can "never again return."  Back at the lab, the scientist returns, telling a de-costumed Pete that he thought he saw a flying saucer.  Pete reveals that, in the fight with the Tinkerer, he pulled off his mask (implying that the Tinkerer was an alien).

The Review

Last issue, I wondered when Pete would start snapping photos to make ends meet and, to be honest, I'm surprised it happened this soon.  (Interesting enough, it's for NOW Magazine, a publication of Jameson Publications, and not "The Daily Bugle.")  I'm assuming that the focus on Pete making cash to help Aunt May is going to diminish over the next few issues as a result.  I'm pleased with that, because I'm also assuming it means Peter is going to be less angry.  It's been hard to see him so angry and frustrated all the time, so, hopefully, the money will help ease his mind.  But, I have to wonder why Aunt May didn't ask where a teenager like Pete is pulling down enough cash to "pay the rent for a full year and [buy her] the newest kitchen appliances[!]"  I mean, he's a handome boy in a big city, so I think I'd be a little concerned by his late night disappearing acts... 

Before he resolves the money issue, though, we still get a pretty angry Peter again in this issue, with him telling "Moose" that "at least my brain isn't muscle-bound, like that fat head of yours!"  Quite a zinger, Petey.  However lame, this comment made me wonder when we're going to start to see Spidey's trademark combat wit.  We see some light banter with the Vulture in this issue, but it's mostly just the two of them bragging about who's the better acrobat.

In other notable occurrences, for the first time, we see Spidey run out of the Web-Fluid.  Oh, how many times we'll see this scene over the next 50 years!  That said, I thought it was interesting how Lee has Pete refine his equipment, based on his fight with the Vulture.  (I wonder if we ever see the belt-buckle camera, because I don't remember it.)  I like how Lee, from the start, focused on how clever and smart Peter is.  Along those lines, we also see him build a device to negate the Vulture's ability to fly, having intuited by the lack of sound that the Vulture's device was based on magnetic power.  Dan Slott has re-introduced this sort of ingenuity back into Pete's repetoire, but it's nice to see that he had it back in his first days as well.  I wonder at what point he'll stop making these sorts of devices and just rely on his established equipment.  (It's probably around the time the stories start to stagnate.)  Continuing on the idea of firsts, I think it's also the first time we see the stylized lines above Peter's head to indicate his Spider-Sense (which are still called his "spider senses" or "spider's sense").

The villains in this issue are also top notch.  The Vulture is pretty much the same here as he always is, over-confident and attention-seeing.  I was pretty impressed by him appearing from the sewers to swipe the diamonds.  Also, who knew the Tinkerer started as an alien?  I'm going to have to do some Wikipedia research to see where that story went.  You can see Lee's storytelling getting stronger in this issue.  I was all ready to get angry over the question of how the Tinkerer was getting "special customers" to bring their radios to him to fix, but Lee anticipates that question, telling us how the Tinkerer only charges a dime.  I wish some current authors would re-read these issues and learn what it's like to construct a believable plot...even one with aliens!  I will say, though, that Pete didn't seem all that surprised by the presence of aliens.  You'd think in those early days of costumed heroes, aliens would still get at least a raised eyebrow!