You think magical pseudo-science de-aging would really give you your hair back? Good job by Bags making younger Vulture still look like The Vulture. On pages 1 & 2, it does what it sez on the tin, restoring Vulture to youth.
Me, I’m all for young-ing up The Vulture via pseudo-science. I’m sure OGs like Roger Stern could talk eloquently and at length about Vulture vs. Spider-Man, old vs. young, symbolism, etc, but to me, a 4000 year old man whipping around town at 100 miles per hour crashing into people as his primary method of attack and not just SHATTERING is harder to believe than getting super powers from a spider bite. And now Vulture’s calling attention to that very problem in his dialogue here. “Let Spider-Man know what it’s like to be as fragile and weak as me! Wait, aren’t I supposed to be a terrifying threat when I’m old?”
Genuinely love Spidey taking the time to say “Please don’t feel bad about this!” Some suspicious business there. Spider-Man is rightly freaking out, and decides he’s got to get home. I used to own, and was shocked to learn I don’t anymore, a What If? (drawn by Bags, even) where Spider-Man bonded with the alien costume. It drained him of his youth and left him more or less just like this. In traditional What If? Fashion, that story was just a bunch of people dying grizzly deaths, but I woulda swore that liver spots line was actually from that comic? How weird is that, to have 2 instances of prematurely elderly Peter Parker to mix up. Well, Vulture flies to his “most special” secret hideout, where he designed a new costume and new power source that doesn’t, you know, cause cancer. He says they were just a dying man’s dream, but now they’re reality. And as he gets them out, an shadowed figure watches him. Love a shadowy figure.
Sad times at the Parker residence. Elsewhere, Vulture’s gotten into his very 90s new costume, but at the height of his joy, he starts to feel weird and doubles over in pain. Meanwhile, Peter’s gone to see Aunt May, but of course realizes he shouldn’t. This also happened in that What If?. It was published 5 years before this, but the similarities are interesting. She hears someone at her window…
Where’d he get those clothes, anyway? At Vulture’s lair, he’s raging about being old again when the shadowy figure reveals himself to be the guy from Dr. Sanchez’ office, who says a lot of cryptic things, and thinks he can help. Instead of going home to comfort his traumatized wife, Spider-Man’s gone back to Dr. Sanchez’ office, only to find guys loading her goofy machine into a truck. He accuses them of robbery and is told it’s an authorized transfer. And then Vulture shows up, brand-new gun blazing, and it’s fightin’ time.
Gee, who could that be? Spider-Man thinks he knows. But he’s lost track of that truck, so first he goes to see if Ben Urich can trace its plate, and then… he STILL doesn’t go comfort MJ, but instead does this:
What a shock! What! A! Shock! Who would have guessed it!? How could anyone reading this have suspected? Yes, the thing that was obviously going to happen when it started more than 20 (!) issues ago is happening. But what is going to happen, exactly? What’s really going on? Don’t expect a satisfying answer. So! There are 4 monthly Spider-Man titles, plus a double-sized quarterly issue. This month, they started the 3-issue Spider-Man: The Mutant Agenda miniseries, and before it ends, they’ll start Spider-Man & X-Factor, also 3 issues. That seems like enough, right? Apparently not!
Hey now. I didn’t know about that Ann Nocenti book. Or the Puma one, but that’s less important. Did that really come out? I would track that down. It does not appear to have actually been published. They’re shoveling all these product out and they couldn’t give me that? I wonder if it just became her 2 issues of TAC? Name seems odd for that, tho. Ah, well. Next time, the conclusion.