Hah. Don't play innocent with me. People as smart as us are always at risk. 
- — Gorgeous
Stormwatch: Post Human Division #8 is an issue of the series Stormwatch: Post Human Division (Volume 1) with a cover date of August, 2007.
Synopsis for "Upstairs, Downstairs"
The PHD are invited by Jackson King to Stormwatch Plaza to establish inter-squad cooperation with Stormwatch Prime. King assigns Fahrenheit and Paris to run combat drills with Winter, Blademaster and Hellstrike; Black Betty is sent to check on Diva on how she activated her powers; Dr. Shaw is sent to consult with fellow scientist Dr. Molly Perkins; the Machinist is paired with Link much to the tech-heads' consternation; and Gorgeous is sent to meet the Weatherman.
Paris and Fahrenheit begin their combat drills with Stormwatch Prime. Paris makes the new Blademaster realize she cannot rely on her swords all the time and gives her pointers to take hand-to-hand combat. Fahrenheit is happy to spar with Winter, but she is not too thrilled to see Hellstrike as the couple had split ever since Hellstrike had cheated Fahrenheit on a parallel version of her.
Gorgeous is being escorted by Malcolm King to meet the Weatherman. During their walk, Gorgeous makes an astute observation to Malcolm that the reason why Jackson assigned his brother to watch her is because he does not trust her and Malcolm, and so he deliberately has both of them to keep an eye on each other. Malcolm is left offended by Gorgeous' deduction, but he admits that he did once betrayed Stormwatch and he regretted it, and has since regained Jackson's trust. Gorgeous is then finally introduced to the Weatherman, William Bendix, the son of the original Weatherman Henry Bendix. William reveals to Gorgeous that he has no close relations with his father since he was born to a call girl whom Henry paid her a lot of money to keep his bastard son out of his life. The younger Bendix also inherited his father’s genius and his genetic code, which made him invaluable to Stormwatch to gain access to Henry Bendix's personal files, the Memory Tower. After being hired by Stormwatch, William is completely loyal to Jackson King. But he fears that he may be at risk from falling into madness like his father and so he requests Gorgeous’ assistance to profile him if he lapses.
Betty talks with Diva, who is Isabella Fermi, the sister of the original and deceased Diva, Alessandra Fermi. Unlike her sister, Isabella was unattractive and very jealous of Alessandra. Betty suspects that there is something more that allowed Isabella to gain her sister’s powers and looks, in which Isabella implies that her sheer jealousy of her sister made her that way after Christine Trelane activated her powers.
Jackson King privately talks with John Doran. John speaks his mind about having his team at the more well-funded Stormwatch HQ, in which he believes it would undermine PHD from their more grounded situations. Then to John's surprise, Jackson wholeheartedly agrees with him. Jackson elaborates that he purposely made PHD to be the antithesis of Prime. But there is also another reason for PHD that Jackson believes John should learn: he wants PHD to serve as a contingency against Stormwatch Prime if it is ever compromised, or worse. It is also why Jackson brought PHD to their HQ in order to be more familiar with Prime's strengths and weaknesses. John now understands Jackson’s intentions before their conversation steers to discussing John's wife's status with her cancer.
That night, Dr. Shaw retires to his room. Then, Gorgeous checks on him and talks about how she made "certain promises" with his alter ego, the Monstrosity, to help them against Lord Defile. So she decides to keep her promise by spending the night with Shaw.
Meanwhile, Winter and Fuji share their apologies to Lauren for not visiting her at the hospital since Prime had been busy dealing with superhuman-related threats. Their conversation is cut short when the building is put on lockdown. PHD and Prime are summoned to Jackson King's room by William Bendix and learn to their horror that Jackson has been shot in the head.
Appearing in "Upstairs, Downstairs"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- StormWatch
- Jackson King
- Malcolm King
- Christine Trelane
- Strafe
- William Bendix (First appearance)
- Lincoln Adams
- Stormwatch Prime
- Blademaster
- Cannon
- Diva
- Fuji
- Hellstrike
- Winter
Antagonists:
- H.A.R.M. (Cameo)
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Stormwatch Plaza
Items:
Vehicles:
Notes
- This issue is collected in the Stormwatch PHD Vol. 2 trade.
- Gorgeous's reference to Malcolm/Strafe's brief betrayal to StormWatch to an "underground band of post-humans," refers to The Changers and the StormWatch story arc "Change or Die".
See Also
- Cover gallery for the Stormwatch: Post Human Division series
- Images from Stormwatch: Post Human Division Vol 1 8