Vulture (Marvel Comics)

Did You Know?

• The first Vulture, Isidoro Scarlotti, first appeared in Young Men #26 (December 1953), created by Joe Gill and Carl Burgos.
• Steve Ditko designed Adrian Toomes to be lean and gaunt rather than heavy-set because he felt the character should be swift and to save panel space.

Fictional character biography

The first Vulture, Isidoro Scarlotti, was an Italian scientist with a doctorate in theoretical physics who became czar of the International League of Criminals. He built super atomic bombs to hold the world ransom and wore a mechanized vulture mask. To stop the Human Torch and Toro, he created robot duplicates of the heroes to discredit them, then kidnapped Chief Wilson's daughter Mary. The Torch and Toro followed his plane to New Mexico, where Vulture trapped them with ionized radiation. After escaping, they stopped the robots from killing Chief Wilson and returned to Vulture's base, destroying his equipment. Vulture revealed his identity, trapped the heroes in a room filling with acid, set his atomic pile to explode, and fled. Later, Vulture killed roboticist Professor Costene to obtain his robot formula, creating crime robots including Metallo. The Torch and Toro defeated the robots by luring them into a swamp and freed Betty Wilson, but Vulture escaped again.

Powers, abilities, and equipment

Each Vulture uses a harness that enables flight with natural winged motion. The costume is synthetic stretch fabric with an electromagnetic harness and artificial wings under the arms, including an anti-graviton generator for silent hovering. Adrian Toomes' harness increases his resistance to injury, allowing him to survive blows from Spider-Man's super strength. Prolonged exposure to its radiation gives him peak human strength despite his age, though these abilities fade when he removes the harness; some writers suggest his strength is permanent. Toomes depends on the suit for strength, speed, and health, and can drain life force to maintain youth. He can levitate without the harness but needs wings for airborne mobility. He later upgraded to battle armor with metallic wings and sharpened feathers, adding various weapons. Blackie Drago gains super strength, durability, speed, and flight from the costume, plus a radio helmet. Clifton Shallot has enhanced strength, resilience, mobility, natural fangs and talons, and flight from grafted wings. Jimmy Natale, the Red Vulture, has inhuman strength, durability, flight, natural talons, and acid expulsion, with bladed feathers.

Alternative versions

In The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, Vulture is a member of Regent's Sinister Six, inspiring the Vulture Gang in Spider-Geddon. On Earth-138, Adrian Toomes is CEO of Bestman/Toomes and uses Toomestone Records to buy out Free Medianet to shut down Spider-Punk, leading to a fight with Spider-Punk's Spider-Army until Ducktor Doom 2099's forces arrived. In Earth X, Adrian Toomes mutated into a vulture-like form after Terrigen Mist exposure and serves as an Enforcer for President Norman Osborn. Marvel 2099's Vulture uses advanced combat armor, is an insane cannibal who wants to rule the sky, and proposes an alliance with Spider-Man that is rejected. On Earth-65, Vulture appears more deranged than his Earth-616 counterpart and secretes a green gaseous cloud. In Spider-Verse, alternate versions of Blackie Drago, Jimmy Natale, Adrian Toomes, and Clifton Shallot are members of the Hounds. In the Ultimate Marvel universe, Adrian Toomes is a Trask Industries employee, while Blackie Drago is a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who becomes Vulture, designed to resemble Jason Statham.

In other media

The Blackie Drago incarnation, called Vulture Man, appears in Spider-Man (1967), voiced by Gillie Fenwick. Adrian Toomes appears in Spider-Man (1981), voiced by Don Messick, and in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, voiced by Eddie Albert as an old man and Alan Johnson as a young man; this version is an engineer seeking revenge on Norman Osborn who drains youth from others. In The Spectacular Spider-Man, Adrian Toomes is voiced by Robert Englund as a former aeronautics engineer seeking revenge against Norman Osborn. In Ultimate Spider-Man (2012), Adrian Toomes is voiced by Tom Kenny as a teenage test subject of Doctor Octopus who can transform into an anthropomorphic vulture, later joining the Thunderbolts and Sinister Six. In Spider-Man (2017), Adrian Toomes is voiced by Alastair Duncan as a middle-aged man with a flight suit that enables sonic attacks, originally an employee of Max Modell. He also appears in the Avengers Assemble episode 'The Vibranium Curtain', voiced again by Alastair Duncan.