Living Laser breaks into a bank vault to test his wrist lasers and the police call the Avengers to the scene after he gets away. Wasp encounters her friend Lucy Barton at the bank. Also present is Lucy’s ex-boyfriend, Arthur Parks, who becomes obsessed with Wasp and aims to win her away from Goliath as Living Laser. He follows Goliath and Wasp to Pym’s lab, where Bill Foster signs back on as Goliath’s assistant. After Wasp leaves, Living Laser attacks Goliath and Foster. Goliath defeats the villain, but when Captain America and Hawkeye take him away, he escapes from their Aero-Car, causing the aircraft to nosedive. Cap and Hawkeye save themselves. After returning to his headquarters to increase the size of his laser beams, Living Laser goes on a destructive spree. He lures Cap, Hawkeye and Wasp to his lab and captures them.
Because the shield used by Captain America here is mangled in the next issue, it is theorized that it is a substitute shield, made from materials inferior to the steel/Vibranium alloy of the original, and perhaps made by Tony Stark for testing by Cap; Cap notes that he coated this shield with a special alloy recommended by Tony Stark to reflect Living Laser’s weapons.
