There are many ways Spider-Man: Homecoming is attempting to distinguish itself from previous Spider-Man movies, and one of those is by using villains that haven't been seen in any of the Wall-Crawler's older cinematic adventures. One of those baddies will be The Vulture, who will be played by former Batman Michael Keaton. Aside from the above concept art and some rumors here and there, no official details have been released about what this iteration of the high-flying super villain will be like, but according to Tom Holland, his introduction will be scary.
In an interview with USA Today, Tom Holland, a.k.a. the newest big screen Peter Parker, mentioned how when moviegoers see Adrian Toomes for the first time in Spider-Man: Homecoming, they'll be terrified. As he put it:
The first time we see the Vulture is terrifying. It's like a horror movie: really scary, very intense and shocking.
Some of the older Spider-Man movies had their own horror-like scenes, like when Norman Osborn turned into the Green Goblin in 2002's Spider-Man and when Otto Octavius' tentacles killed those surgeons operating on him in 2004's Spider-Man 2. So hearing the Vulture's debut will be "shocking" is interesting, as it means Spider-Man: Homecoming is taking care to make the scene memorable. Tom Holland didn't mention whether the villain will be wearing his flight suit or not, but I'm assuming the latter. I have an image in my head of Adrian Toomes wearing the getup above and snatching someone off the street and taking them to parts unknown, emulating a freakish bird monster. That could certainly be classified as "terrifying," but there are still many months to go until we learn what Holland is actually talking about.
Director Jon Watts also talked in the piece about how The Vulture is different from other MCU villains, like Loki and Thanos. He stated:
It's fun to think that if Spider-Man is a regular kid who becomes a superhero, there's got to be a bunch of regular guys who become supervillains, too
For those unaware, Vulture will reportedly be accompanied by The Tinkerer (played by Michael Chernus) and The Shocker (played by Bokeem Woodbine) in Spider-Man: Homecoming, both of whom also derive their abilities from technology. Although The Vulture never appeared in any of the previous Spider-Man movies, his wings were shown at OsCorp in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, hinting that he would have been introduced in the Sinister Six spinoff. Alas, that movie never came to be, and now Michael Keaton will channel his bird skills once again to portray Vulture in front of longtime comic book fans and viewers who have never heard of the villain before. It's also somewhat fitting that both Vulture and Tinkerer are appearing in Spider-Man's first solo MCU movie, since they were the second and third super villains the hero ever faced in the comics, preceded only by The Chameleon.
Spider-Man: Homecoming will spin its web in theaters on July 7, 2017.
