"House Divided, Part 3"
by Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir and Aaron Lopresti
Synopsis: Outside the New Mutants Leadership Institute, the four Cuckoos try to comfort Brian Cruz over the death of Quentin Quire, and tell him that they would never see him killing himself. Pondering who could have caused Quentin’s death, Brian looks up to see Sean Garrison looking at him from the broken window above. In Japan, Surge escapes Pierce’s blade as Mercury moves forward to fight with a blade of her own and Jubilee separates the crowd with her fireworks. As the other kids disarm the humans, Surge starts looking for her father. Outside the warehouse, Laurie calls her father to contact SHIELD and tell them that they’ve found the Human Resistance. The Hellions are contacted while looking over the food recycling plant that Emperor Sunfire has identified as Project Genesis.
At the Institute, Shan catches Brian looking through files on Sean Garrison. She dismisses his claims, but as he leaves she looks up his profile on the Institute computer, only to find that SHIELD clearance is needed for it. In Japan, Nori finds her father and punches him in the face, then gets him to call back his men. The two groups discuss Project Genesis, and David offers to help the Resistance get in, but he’s interrupted by the arrival of the Hellions. A small fight breaks out until Surge catches Magik and forces her to teleport them inside Project Genesis. The Hellions find that Emperor Sunfire is performing experiments on humans to force mutation.
At the Institute, Shan gets Doug Ramsey to break into Garrison’s file, where he discovers that he’s a deep cover SHIELD agent. They see info on Project Genesis as well, but are found by Garrison who comes ready to fight. In Japan, Scion argues with Moonstar over whether they should take any action here. Sophie scans their minds to find that only one person knew about this, but that person, Laurie, uses her pheromones to cause the groups to start fighting.
Review: There’s nothing new I can really add to this that hasn’t been said already. It’s a good story, true, but it all seems unimportant. After the next issue, the world will be restored and nothing that happens here will mean anything. Once again, I feel that too many characters have been thrown in, but that’s nothing new. It’s just allowing the book to tread water for four issues, and it’s a shame that this has to be DeFillipis and Weir’s last arc. Sorry there’s not more review…it’s just not that important a story.