I mean, Vulture was arrested for being an evil inventor, and you put him in charge of machinery??But perhaps the more important point is this:
Now, I've made this riff before about other villains (hello, Trapster!). But good old Adrian Toomes has INVENTED A FLYING HARNESS. And instead, of say, patenting that sucker, and being richer than Bill Gates...he goes out and robs a jewelry store. Putz.Now, as the sequence above makes clear: the flying harness was not some once-in-a-lifetime accident that couldn't be re-created; it didn't require exotic elements like vibranium or such.
Nope, he made a low-tech version of it--from parts in a 1963 prison machine shop, which I'm pretty sure isn't some bastion of high-tech. And Toomes puts the sucker together in his tiny little cell.
So it sure as hell seems like something that would easy enough to mass produce and market and sell. Hell, make 1,000, charge $1,000 for it, and you're a millionaire. And you know that you'd sell more than 1,000...
There's more--the numerous times that the Vulture has been captured, and the harness impounded...surely someone has taken that sucker apart and studied it. Surely someone could see what a flipping goldmine is just laying around.
SO WHY THE HELL DOESN'T EVERYONE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE HAVE THEIR OWN GODDAMNED PERSONAL FLYING HARNESS??
Seriously, if I were running for President in Marvel America, my platform is simply this--"If I'm elected, everyone gets their own flying harness. Free!"
I'd win in a landslide, AND take a substantial cut out of greenhouse emissions. I'm thinkin' Nobel Prize, at least.
So to hell with the whining about flying cars...I want my flying harness!!!
From Amazing Spider-Man #7 (1963)
Everyone probably assumes the harness has side effects, like baldness, or old age.
ReplyDeleteBut that would be interesting: we've seen Tony Stark wage war to protect his unpatented designs. What would the Vulture do, if his work was stolen?
Actually, that's make for a good storyline, and I think there was a second Vulture at one point. So they could be original while still continuing their apparent goal of remaking every story ever.
ReplyDeleteDidn't the harness give him cancer over time...?
ReplyDeleteHarry,
ReplyDeleteYes, but...
A) That wasn't until many years after this story, so it wouldn't have been a reason for Toomes or someone else not to market the hell out of it
B) It was vaguely explained that his cancer was caused by long-term exposure to the "essentials" of what was needed to power the harness, which *could* easily be interpreted as exposure to the raw power supply, as opposed to the completed harness itself (just like huffing gasoline is bad for you, but doesn't mean driving a car has the same effect).
C) He magically got better, and it was never, ever mentioned again.
Did you read that Spidey story a year or two back in which the Vulture ran a gang of teen-Vultures? Good stuff!
ReplyDelete