Winging in from the events of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #12 and PETER PARKER: SPIDER-MAN #12, the Vulture swoops in for a vertigo-inducing thriller! Adrian Toomes blacks out part of New York City to pull off his most audacious plan ever! And when Spider-Man gets on his tail, you'll see airborne acrobatics the likes of which have never before been experienced! It's a fight to the finish set in the Vulture's domain, and it's the Vulture at his most vicious!
The Vulture's first stop on his little shopping spree is the penthouse apartment of a wealthy British couple. Spooked by the blackout and trying to protect his terrified wife, her husband manages to fire one bullet through his living room window before coming face to face with Adrian Toomes and collapsing with severe chest pain. His wife agrees to give the Vulture what he came for - "the 'Heavens of Aphrodite', eighty diamonds set in ropes of gold" - to appease him, and he flies off into the night in search of his next bauble.
While this is happening, Spider-Man is on the other side of town taking care of your typical carjacking, thumping two of the bad guys and trapping the other two in the stolen car with a considerable amount of web fluid. He just finishes by the time the police arrive. Instead of pulling the standard "Spider-Man is just as bad as the crooks, we must arrest him!" line, the cops actually treat him like a human being and even offer him some donuts. Before he can break bread with New York's finest, however, a report of the blackout comes over the police scanner and Spidey swings off to investigate.
By this time, the Vulture has arrived at the penthouse of Jill DeMarley and his plans have hit a snag. It seems Jill has divorced her loser husband and he has the "Sapphire Garden" necklace that Mr. Toomes wants for himself. Realizing his dilemma, the Vulture takes Ms. DeMarley's daughter Tamara hostage. He threatens to leave her on a building treated with a chemical compound that reacts to electric current, detonating it unless Jill gets the necklace from her husband. He then leaves, naturally flying right into ol' Spidey. After a brief scuffle, the Vulture soakes Spider-Man's costume and webline with his chemical, then ignites the webline. Spider-Man manages to let go before the fire reaches him, but that gives the Vulture time to fly away.
Meanwhile, two people who are either police, Con Ed workers or both (it's a little unclear exactly who these people are!) have discovered the source of the blackouts and that the chemical accelerant (the Vulture's compound) has "an outrageous - I mean outrageous - infrared signature." While they contemplate getting some helicopters poking around with infrared scopes, Spider-Man catches up to the Vulture again, but has to break off to save a shopowner endangered by the looting the blackouts have caused. He saves the man, but refuses to go back and protect his store. Just as the man leaves in disgust, a helicopter arrives, guns blazing. After all, the Vulture's chemical has an "outrageous" infrared signature, and Spider-Man's whole costume is drenched in it...
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