Spider-Tracer: Hunted by the Hitman

What’s in a name? Apparently for Burt Kenyon, his occupation! As straightforward as his villainous name is, though, what else do you really know about the Hitman? For this month’s Spider-Tracer, we’ll be taking a look back at the villainous Hitman, whom, after being dead for close to forty years, recently returned to the land of the living.

 

 

 

During a time when the Kingpin and Hammerhead were (temporarily) out of the picture, other mob hopefuls hoped to step in and take control of the various territories up for grabs; this included a one Boss Morgan. Morgan hoped to recruit the Vulture to his criminal organization to make his takeover all the easier, but alas, the Vulture had no interest in following Morgan, and publically humiliated him. Angered, Morgan decided to take unique revenge on Toomes, and hired the Hitman to kill Spider-Man in order to rob Vulture of a long desired victory. Hitman thus first appeared in Spectacular Spider-Man Volume 1, #4, and he showed up in the following issue, as well.

 

 

After a long battle, and just before the Vulture could defeat his longtime adversary permanently, the Hitman arrived on the scene and broke up the fight. During their initial confrontation, Spider-Man managed to escape, as did the Vulture, but not before Hitman managed to get a tracer on each of the longtime enemies.

 

Hitman soon located and lured Vulture into another confrontation with Spider-Man. During their second battle, not only did Spider-Man have to deal with Vulture, but with the Hitman taking shots at him too! Spider-Man, ever the clever hero, managed to get Vulture into the right position for Hitman’s bullet to strike the Vulture’s suit’s power pack, effectively taking the flight, err, fight, right out of him! Hitman was able to escape, but, still having the tracer used to find him, Spider-Man mentions turning it over to the Punisher, hoping that me might be able to trace the signal and find Kenyon. It’s ironic that Spider-Man would choose to consider turning to the Punisher, given that, at that time, he didn’t know Hitman had a history with Frank Castle.

 

We would find out more about this shared history when Kenyon returned in “The Amazing Spider-Man” #’s 174-175. A new terrorist had group formed named the People’s Liberation Front. Outraged by the damning articles published in the Daily Bugle by J. Jonah Jameson, the PLF decided to make an example out of Jameson and have him silenced. Enter the Hitman yet again, ready to kidnap and kill the mouthy newspaper publisher, with only Spider-Man and the Punisher to save him.

 

 

However, Hitman managed to escape from the Daily Bugle offices in a mini copter, which allowed the Punisher to relate to Spider-Man how he knew the Hit-Man, whom he recognized during their fight.

 

 

While in pursuit of the Hitman and the PLF, Punisher informed Spider-Man that he’d served in the same company as Kenyon in Vietnam. At one point, Frank found himself severely injured by an explosive set by the Viet Cong when Kenyon suddenly arrived and took out all of the Punisher’s would be killers. Kenyon informed the future Punisher that he owed him a life as thanks for saving him.

 

After extracting information and taking down a majority of the PLF, Spider-Man and the Punisher discovered that the Hitman and the PLF’s leader planned to blow up the Statue of Liberty with J. Jonah Jameson left inside! Not wasting any time, the two heroes tracked down Jameson and his kidnappers to the symbol of freedom. With his failure imminent, the PLF’s leader tried to blow up the statue, despite everyone else still being inside. With losing his life not part of the plan, Hitman took out the PLF leader and tried to escape in his mini copter again. However, while Spider-Man managed to stop him from using the mini copter to escape, Hitman managed to shoot Spider-Man in the arm and threw him off of the statue, leaving him dangling for his life.

 

 

With the Punisher in hot pursuit, Hitman grabbed Jameson to use as a shield against his former fellow soldier. Spider-Man managed to reach for and grab Jameson off of the Hitman to give Punisher an opening, but now his life was in danger as well as Jameson’s. Now without a hostage, Punisher opened fire, which nearly knocked the Hitman off of the Statue of Liberty. Punisher was then faced with the choice of either saving Spidey and Jameson, or the man he owed a life to. Punisher decided that while he did owe Kenyon a life, it didn’t have to be Kenyon’s life, and decided to save the innocent Jameson and heroic Spider-Man before Kenyon himself plummeted to his death.

 

 

And that was the end of the Hitman’s story for many years, until recently when he and many long dead Spider-Man characters returned in “The Clone Conspiracy”. Ben Reilly, driven mad, brought back many long dead characters through a new cloning technique. While a great many of the clones died, apparently the Hitman’s clone didn’t.

 

 

The Hitman’s death greatly affected him; not wanting to risk dying again, the Hitman uploaded his mind into a cloud, and when one body is in danger of dying, his mind is uploaded into a new body far away. We discovered this fact in “The Amazing Spider-Man” Volume 5, #35, as relayed to us, the reader, by the Chameleon. The previous issue had Hitman trying to take out Dr. Doom, but it turned out to only be a Doombot.

 

 

It’s also worth mentioning that before Burt Kenyon returned in a cloned body, Roderick Kingsley, the original Hobgoblin, had given the Hitman identity out to another criminal, though little is known about him.

 

And there you have it, the history of the Hitman. I don’t know about you, but I’m excited to see Kenyon return and see who he goes after next. I think it’d be great to see him go after the Punisher again; I think his ability to return in a new body would be a fun angle for Frank to tackle.