BURGLAR

Real Name: Unrevealed; last name possibly Carradine (see comments)

Identity/Class: Normal human, conventional weapons user

Occupation: Professional criminal

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Dutch Mallone

Enemies: Baxter Bigelow, Mysterio (Quentin Beck), Ben Parker, May Parker, Spider-Man (Peter Parker)

Known Relatives: Jessica Carradine (daughter), possible unidentified sister, Jimmy Costas (possible nephew)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
    formerly the Acme Warehouse, Jamaica, Queens, New York City

First Appearance: Amazing Fantasy I#15/1 (August, 1962)

Powers/Abilities: The Burglar was a competent thief, and was in good physical shape, despite a heart condition. He carried a handgun, which he was willing and able to use.

Height: 5'9"
Weight: 150 lbs.
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blond

History: (Sensational Spider-Man#1 (fb) / Senational Spider-Man#3 (fb) ) - The criminal known only as the Burglar had a daughter with a woman who died shortly afterwards. His daughter, Jessica Carradine, bounced from foster home to foster home, as the Burglar was in jail for most of her childhood. He was out of jail briefly, and attended one of her childhood birthday parties.

confronted by Spider-Man(Amazing Spider-Man I#200 (fb) ) - The Burglar became the cellmate of elderly gangster Dutch Mallone. Suffering from insomnia, the Burglar listened as Mallone talked in his sleep about a fortune he'd hidden in a house he used to own. Mallone eventually died, and the Burglar was released from jail soon afterwards. When the Burglar watched a TV show about Mallone's life, he saw a picture of Mallone's old Forest Hills house. He devoted himself to finding it and claiming Mallone's treasure.

(Amazing Fantasy I#15/1 / Amazing Spider-Man#200 (fb) / Amazing Spider-Man III#1/6) - The Burglar broke into the RKP Palace TV studio; he was discovered by security guard Baxter Bigelow, and fled. Nearing the elevator, he raced past the costumed entertainer Spider-Man, who callously refused to do anything to stop him. 

    The Burglar escaped, and headed for the house in Forest Hills, where he was confronted by the house's owners, Ben and May Parker. Ben told him he could have whatever he wanted, but the Burglar wanted to be shown to the treasure, and grabbed May. Ben lunged for him, and in the ensuing struggle, the Burglar shot Ben dead. 

    The Burglar fled to the old Acme Warehouse; the police soon surrounded the building. Spider-Man, secretly Ben Parker's nephew Peter, snuck into the warehouse and quickly defeated the Burglar by webbing up his gun. Knocking the Burglar's hat off, he was shocked to discover that the killer was the same man he'd let escape earlier. Leaving the Burglar webbed up for the police, Parker devoted his life to living up to the great responsibility that came with his great power.

(Amazing Spider-Man I#194 (fb) / Amazing Spider-Man I#200 (fb) ) - In prison, the Burglar was declared mentally ill, and diagnosed with a heart condition.

(Sensational Spider-Man#3 (fb) / Sensational Spider-Man#4 (fb) ) - When he was released from jail, the Burglar took care of Jessica. He convinced her that Ben Parker's death was an accident, and that Spider-Man had planted evidence to make him look guilty.

(Amazing Spider-Man I#170) - The Burglar was shown the Parker house by a rental company agent, and instantly agreed to rent it. The agent left so the Burglar could look around the neighborhood; once he was out of earshot, the Burglar told the house that he swore he'd return to it someday - but this time, he wouldn't leave until the secret it possessed was his!

(Amazing Spider-Man I#193) - The Burglar tore the Parker house apart, but could find no sign of the treasure. Suspecting that May Parker had found it and hidden it somewhere, he resolved to get the answer out of her. He found her at the Restwell Nursing Home on Long Island, and confronted the nursing home's director "Dr. Ludwig Rinehart" (actually criminal illusionist Mysterio) in his office, telling him that he'd killed May's husband - and with Rinehart's help, he'd kill her, too!

(Amazing Spider-Man I#194) - As he drank a beer in Rinehart's office, the Burglar watched Peter Parker leave for the day. Rinehart told him that Parker doted on his aunt, and that his plan would never work, prompting the Burglar to suggest they "take care" of Parker, too. Rinehart told him he was insane, and the Burglar lashed out, hitting him with his beer bottle and drawing his gun, promising to kill him too unless he helped him. Rinehart acquiesced.

(Amazing Spider-Man I#195) - As they watched May play chess, Rinehart told the Burglar that he'd come up with a plan to get rid of Parker.

(Amazing Spider-Man I#195 - BTS / Amazing Spider-Man I#196 - BTS) - At the Burglar's behest, Rinehart faked May's death.Spider-Man unmasks in front of the Burglar

(Amazing Spider-Man I#197) - Rinehart told the Burglar what he'd done, and asked what his plan was. As he planned to kill Rinehart anyway, the Burglar began to explain...

(Amazing Spider-Man I#198) - The Burglar finished his explanation - and Rinehart, having gotten what he wanted from the criminal, released a cloud of hallucinogenic smoke that subjected the Burglar to terrifying visions of Spider-Man. With the Burglar subdued, Rinehart told him his true identity - Mysterio! He explained his scheme to bilk his elderly patients out of their savings, and announced his own intention to steal Mallone's treasure. He drugged the Burglar with ether, but let him live, in case Mysterio needed his knowledge again, and then left.

(Amazing Spider-Man I#199) - Mysterio tied the Burglar up in a storeroom and taunted him before disappearing. With Mysterio gone, the Burglar broke a nearby mirror with his foot and began to move one of the glass shards towards his bound hands.

(Amazing Spider-Man I#200) - The Burglar finished cutting his bonds, and set out to find Peter Parker. He tracked down his apartment, and waited for him there. Parker proved to be a capable fighter, though, and soon had his hands at the Burgler's throat, until the Burglar hit him over the head with his gun. He tied up Parker and took him to the Acme Warehouse, where he told Parker about Mallone's treasure. Parker refused to tell him anything, so he left and boarded a crosstown bus to the Restwell Nursing Home, where the still-living May Parker was hidden. Parker freed himself and followed him as Spider-Man; he ambushed the Burglar outside the nursing home, but the Burglar shot at him and ran inside. Spider-Man pursued him, but the Burglar got the drop on him, and shot him in the side. He left Spider-Man for dead and left with May for the Acme Warehouse. There, he saw that Parker had escaped; he explained Mysterio's scheme to May, but was interrupted by the arrival of Spider-Man. Spider-Man, wounded and still fighting off the effects of a battle with Mysterio, had trouble with the Burglar, until the Burglar disparaged Ben Parker's memory. Spider-Man summoned the strength to knock the Burglar aside; the Burglar wondered why he cared so much about Parker, prompting the enraged Spider-Man to tear off his mask, revealing that he was Peter Parker, Ben's nephew! Terrified that the vengeance-crazed Spider-Man would murder him, the Burglar ran and fired his gun wildly, but he couldn't escape. Spider-Man cornered him, and told him that he wasn't going to kill him - but the Burglar didn't believe him. Terrified, the Burglar's heart gave out, and he died.

(Sensational Spider-Man#4 (fb) ) - Only Jessica and a priest attended the Burglar's funeral.

(Sensational Spider-Man#6) - Having learned that her boyfriend, Ben Reilly, was Spider-Man, Jessica visited the Burglar's grave as she pondered what to do.

Comments: Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

    The Burglar holds the distinction of being the first criminal Spider-Man ever fought, and one of the first to learn his secret identity...minutes before he croaked, of course.

    The Burglar's storyline has certain parallels with that of Joe Chill, the mugger who killed Bruce Wayne's parents, which ultimately resulted in Wayne becoming Batman. In certain versions of DC's continuity, at least, Chill returned to menace Batman years later, prompting Batman to reveal his identity to Chill, resulting in Chill's death. In the case of Joe Chill, however, it was his fellow criminals who killed him for the crime of creating Batman - and, of course, they did so before getting Batman's real name out of him.

    Marv Wolfman presumably introduced Dutch Mallone's treasure as a reason for a burglar to schlep all the way from Manhattan to Queens to rob a random house. It does explain that, but I'll admit it is a little silly.

    Interestingly, the mystery man who we later learn is the Burglar first reappears in Amazing Spider-Man I#170, in an issue written by Len Wein, and then the plot wasn't picked up for another 20 issues, by which time Wolfman was writing the book. I wonder what Wein's original plans were - and, for that matter, if he intended the mystery man to be the Burglar at all.

    To establish him as a sort of avatar of crime and violence itself, the Burglar has never been named. Well, sort of.  His last name could be Carradine, because that's his daughter's last name, but I'm inclined to believe that isn't the Burglar's last name - even though his name has never been revealed in a comic, Peter Parker (and Ben Reilly) would surely know it, and they were both taken completely by surprise when they found out Jessica Carradine was his daughter.

    Spider-Man I#30 has Spider-Man encounter Jimmy Costa, a young would-be criminal who is strongly implied to be the Burglar's nephew.

    The Burglar, of course, is a staple of Spider-Man media adaptations, and his appearances usually hew pretty close to Amazing Fantasy#15. The Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies named him Dennis Carradine (getting his last name from his daughter Jessica, evidently); they also reveal that his partner, Flint Marko, had been Ben's real killer (jeez, that movie was convoluted). The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon, meanwhile, revealed that the Burglar was Walter Hardy, the Black Cat's father.

    Thanks to the sliding timescale, Dutch Mallone can't really be a Prohibition-era gangster anymore, nor can he have been tracked down by Eliot Ness, who died in 1957. His criminal career presumably took place 40-50 years before the ever-moving present.

    Oh, and Mallone's fortune? The Parkers found it years ago, but it had been eaten by silverfish.

    The Burglar has OHotMU profiles in Marvel Legacy: The '60s Handbook and All-New OHotMU A-Z HC volume 2.

Profile by Minor Irritant.

CLARIFICATIONS:
The Burglar who killed Ben Parker has no known connections to:

Dutch Mallone

(Amazing Spider-Man I#200 (fb) ) - Decades ago, gangster Dutch Mallone lived in a house in Forest Hills, Queens, where he held a series of wild parties with his ill-gotten loot. When one of his rivals informed on him, he was arrested and convicted on tax evasion charges, but not before he hid a fortune in cash in his Forest Hills home. He was transferred to several prisons, and eventually ended up as the cellmate of the Burglar. Mallone talked in his sleep, giving the insomniac Burglar knowledge of his hidden treasure. Shortly afterwards, Mallone died in prison.

--Amazing Spider-Man I#200


images: (without ads)
Amazing Spider-Man Annual I#1, p42, pan1 (main image)
Amazing Fantasy I#15/1, p11, pan4 (Spider-Man discovers who killed Uncle Ben, also he has weird pupils for some reason)
Amazing Spider-Man I#200, p31, pan2 (The Burglar discovers who Spider-Man is)
Amazing Spider-Man I#200, p15, pan4 (Dutch Mallone)

Other Appearances:
Amazing Fantasy I#15/1 (August, 1962) - Stan Lee (writer/editor), Steve Ditko (art)
Amazing Spider-Man I#170 (July, 1977) - Len Wein (writer/editor), Ross Andru (pencils), Frank Giacoia & Mike Esposito (inks)
 Amazing Spider-Man I#193 (June, 1979) - Marv Wolfman (writer/editor), Keith Pollard (pencils), Jim Mooney (inks)
 Amazing Spider-Man I#194 (July, 1979) - Marv Wolfman (writer/editor), Keith Pollard (pencils), Frank Giacoia (inks)
Amazing Spider-Man I#195 (August, 1979) - Marv Wolfman (writer/editor), Keith Pollard (pencils), "M. Hands" (inks)
Amazing Spider-Man I#196 (September, 1979) - Marv Wolfman (writer/editor), Al Milgrom (pencils), Jim Mooney & Frank Giacoia (inks)
Amazing Spider-Man I#197 (October, 1979) - Marv Wolfman (writer/editor), Keith Pollard (pencils), Jim Mooney (inks)
Amazing Spider-Man I#198-199 (November-December, 1979) - Marv Wolfman (writer/editor), Sal Buscema (pencils), Jim Mooney (inks)
Amazing Spider-Man I#200 (January, 1980) - Marv Wolfman (writer/editor), Keith Pollard (pencils), Jim Mooney (inks)
Sensational Spider-Man#1 (February, 1996) - Dan Jurgens (writer/pencils), Klaus Janson (inks), Bob Budiansky (editor)
Sensational Spider-Man#3-4 (April-May, 1996) - Dan Jurgens (writer/pencils), Klaus Janson (inks), Bob Budiansky (editor)
Sensational Spider-Man#6 (July, 1996) - Dan Jurgens (writer/pencils), Klaus Janson (inks), Mark Bernardo & Ralph Macchio (editors)
Amazing Spider-Man III#1/6 (June, 2014) - Dan Slott (writer), Ramon Perez (art), Nick Lowe (editor)

Last updated: 06/19/16

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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