JOEY TARTAGLIONEJOEY TARTAGLIONE
Real Name: Joey (presumably short for Joseph) Tartaglione
Identity/Class: Human (conventional weapons-user)
Occupation: Professional criminal
Group Membership: Maggia
Affiliations: Chic DiAngelo, Simon Marshall, presumably Silvermane (Silvio Manfredi), others unidentifiedEnemies: Cloak (Tyrone Johnson), Dagger (Tandy Bowen), New York Police Department, Spider-Man (Peter Parker)
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
formerly based out of (and presumably died just
outside) Simon Marshall's laboratory on Ellis Island, New York;
formerly active around Manhattan's lower East Side (specifically Delancy Street, at least)
First Appearance: Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64 (March, 1982)
Powers/Abilities: Joey Tartaglione had no superhuman abilities.
As a Maggia member he was
presumably experienced with firearms and some degree of hand-to-hand
combat. He was also experienced in running numbers and other rackets.
Height: Unrevealed (he was only seen in a few panels in a few pages; approximately 5'9")
Weight: Unrevealed (he didn't look to be particularly fit, so perhaps 195 lbs.)
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Gray
History:
(Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64
(fb) - BTS) - Joey Tartaglione was part of the Maggia family that allied with pharmacist Simon Marshall to develop a
highly-addictive and inexpensive synthetic alternative to heroin.
(Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64 (fb) - BTS) - Marshall was based out of Ellis Island.
(Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64(fb)
- BTS) <Earlier in the year of the main story> - Maggia agents
(including and/or serving under Joey Tartaglione) recruited numerous
runaways at the Port
Authority bus terminal, filling them with promises of food, clothing,
and shelter, and bringing them to Ellis Island.
(Cloak and Dagger III#19 (fb) - BTS) - Maggia agents abducted Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen, taking them to Ellis Island.
(Dark Reign: Mr. Negative#3 (fb) - BTS) - The future Martin Li / Mr. Negative was added to group of runaways on Ellis Island by agents of Silvermane.
(Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64(fb)
- BTS) - The Maggia agents, figuring none of their captives would
survive to tell the tale, discussed their identities and regions of
activity.
(Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64(fb))
- Joey Tartaglione leaned up against a wall as Marshall prepared his
drugs and some of the other Maggia agents restrained and battered one
of their captives.
(Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64 (fb) - BTS) - Simon Marshall noted that if his drug worked, the Maggia would be in possession of a drug that would wipe all of the other drugs off the street and they would become very rich.
(Cloak and Dagger III#19 (fb) - BTS) - Marshall prepared to inject Tyrone Johnson.
(Dark Reign: Mr. Negative#3 (fb) - BTS) - Marshall injected the future Li.
(Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64(fb)) - When he kids began dropping off rapidly, the Maggia discovered that two of the runaways were missing and had likely crawled away. After assuring the others that the missing kids wouldn't last long with the drugs in their system, Joey Tartaglione advised them all to wash their hands of the operation and cut their losses (see comments).
(Dark Reign: Mr. Negative#3
(fb) - BTS) - Escaping through a hole broken by Tyrone Johnson in the
decaying mortar of their cell, the unidentified captive was mutated by the injection
into the dual form of Martin Li and Mr. Negative.
(Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64
(fb) - BTS) - While the rest of the other kids perished, Tyrone Johnson and
Tandy Bowen survived and were mutated to become the vengeance-seeking
Cloak and Dagger.
(Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64
(fb) - BTS) - An informant tipped the police off to Marshall's
activities and location, and they launched a midnight raid, only to
find a number of kids dead for less than half hour (as the city medical
examiner later determined)
(Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64 (fb) - BTS) - An All-Points Bulletin was put out for Simon Marshall, known to the NYPD as a snake and a drug-runner.
(Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64)
- Cloak and Dagger tracked down and slew Simon Marshall despite Spider-Man's intervention.
(Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64
(fb) - BTS) - Dagger incapacitated Joey Tartaglione while he was running numbers on Delancy Street, and Cloak and Dagger captured him -- as well as a number
of other Maggia agents associated with Marshall and his synthetic drug
experiments -- and brought him to Marshall's laboratory on Ellis Island.
(Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64) - Cloak shoved Tartaglione into the room with their other captives, telling him, "In with your fellow scum, murderer." Tartaglione argued that they couldn't do this to him, and he asked where he was, what they wanted, and who they were while arguing of his innocence. He insisted that he had never seen him or the location before, but the other captured Maggia agents told him that Cloak and Dagger were two of the kids from the experiments. Soaked in sweat, Joey argued that all of the kid were dead, but when the others explained that they had already taken out Marshall and that the kids knew the truth, Joey collapsed.
(Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64 - BTS) - When
Spider-Man arrived, Cloak and Dagger conflicted with him over bringing
the captives to the authorities for judgment; while they were
distracted, a Maggia agent who had cut his bonds with a glass shard,
smashed Dagger from behind with a chair (or some other wooden
structure) and took her hostage. While Cloak and Spider-Man held back,
Tartaglione and the other agents got free and followed Dagger's captive
in hopes of escaping.
(Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64)
- When Cloak blackened the room around the escaping criminals,
Tartaglione suggested they slow Cloak down by leaving him a corpse over
which to cry.
As Spider-Man engaged the
villains, Cloak completely blackened the room; when a bit of light
became visible, Tartaglione and the other criminals rushed madly toward
it.
Too late, they realized they were
rushing toward the moonlight shining through the window, and they
shattered the window and apparently fell to their deaths five stories
below.
Comments: Created by Bill Mantlo, Edward Hannigan, and Allen Milgrom.
The initial panel in the flashback in Peter
Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man I#64, Tartaglione is clearly
standing in the background while Marshall was working with the drugs.
Marshall looks a LOT younger than he did when Cloak and Dagger finally
caught up to him, but subsequent appearances have shown him as looking
like that at the time of the injections...obviously being on the run
from super-powered vigilante as well as guilt from having killed dozens
(at least) of relatively innocent teenagers can age you quickly.
When they show the kids dying from
the drugs, it is clearly Tartaglione was pictured on the sidelines
while discussing, and on some level it appears that the person speaking
was the doctor. He even references having administered the drugs,
predicts the children's fates, and recommending their cutting their
losses and getting out of there. While it may seem that this was
Marshall speaking, it is clearly Tartaglione pictured. The gray hair
you see on Marshall at the beginning of the story is similar, but the Dr. Octopus-level glasses
are an obvious match for Tartaglione's, while the person kneeling over
the dying teenager/subject has a hair color more like Marshall as shown
during preparation of the drug (and in subsequent flashbacks).
Presumably when he says "the drug I administered," he means the drug he
helped administer, or that he ordered to be administered...or
something. I would take Tartaglione to be the head of the operation as
he was the only other one named at the time.
Chic DiAngelo was later revealed to have been in
charge, so Tartaglione was presumably serving under him. Cloak and
Dagger later went after Silvermane, and he was presumably the head of
the Maggia family with which DiAngelo, Tartaglione, and Marshall were
affiliated.
Profile by Snood.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Joey Tartaglione should be distinguished from:
images: (without ads)
Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man I#64, pg. 14, panel 2 (thighs up oblique);
panel 6-7 (face straight-on; face close-up);
pg. 8, panel 3 (standing in corner during patient/drug prep);
pg. 9, panel 3 (face, detail);
pg. 14, panel 5 (fall)
Appearances:
Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man I#64 (March, 1982) - Bill Mantlo (writer), Edward Hannigan (penciler), Allen Milgrom (inker), Tom DeFalco (editor)
First posted: 01/08/2020
Last updated: 01/08/2020
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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