Spider-Man Homecoming: 8 Reasons Why It's Basically Iron Man 4
6. The Vulture Is A Dark Mirror For Stark
Many of the most effective comic book villains are dark mirrors for the hero they're facing off against, a grim reminder that it could easily be them on the wrong side of the law had their lives panned out differently.
With this in mind, the Vulture has all the hallmarks of a vintage Iron Man foe.
Michael Keaton's Adrian Toomes built an underground criminal empire by selling high-tech weaponry to unsavoury types. Does that remind you of a certain Marvel Universe organisation that prefers the weapon you only have to fire once?
Granted, Stark Industries has since been steered towards a more humanitarian destiny, but everything Iron Man inherited came from sources not too dissimilar to the Vulture's business associates.
What if Stark had lost it all during his formative years, or suffered a life-changing tragedy? Would he still have used his Iron Man tech for such wholesome purposes?
The fans like to think the answer is yes, but anyone who's read the comics depicting his battles with alcoholism will know Stark has an underlying darkness in him.
As we've already touched on, Vulture was born out of Stark's actions in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and was his problem to deal with.
In a sense, he does this indirectly by mentoring a protege to handle the villain, a student who aptly faces a similar dilemma to Toomes when Stark confiscates his tech.