This comic includes three short stories: "Lessons", "Superhot", and "Sanctuary".
Lessons
In Manhattan, after the Darkforce Dome has gone up, an elementary school principal attempts to reassure her students. She says that many of the children got stuck inside the dome even though their parents are outside it, and acknowledges that a few of the children have vanished, but promises that heroes will save them eventually. She then brings in a substitute teacher for their class, which turns out to be Eric "Blade" Brooks. She threatens that she'll be watching him closely, then leaves, and Brooks introduces himself to the class.
Brooks thinks to himself that the permanent state of darkness in the city has enabled vampires to roam around in the open without worrying about sunlight. In a flashback he fights and kills a vampire who hints that his (the vampire's) master has ensconced himself in an environment with many children, as children's blood tastes especially delicious to vampires. Back during the present, Brooks tests the kids in the class by exposing them to garlic spray, but none of them react and Brooks concludes that any vampires present have built up a tolerance. He then gives the students finger paint mixed with holy water but again fails to find any vampires, musing that any vampires present must be atheists. Finally, he serves the students raw bloody meatloaf and notices a student named Timmy devouring it. He thus concludes this student is the master vampire. He orders the other children to go play soccer but keeps Timmy inside. He then pulls a stake on Timmy, but the principal reappears with a double-barreled shotgun and forces Brooks to leave for threatening a student.
Brooks leaves, but steals a garbage can from the nurse's office so as to obtain bloody tissues left behind by a student with a nosebleed. He leaves the garbage can in a janitor's closet and then comes back in a few minutes to see if Timmy has gone in to lick up the blood. However, he instead finds the principal, who reveals that she is the master vampire for the brood. The two battle and Brooks finds himself outmatched by the principal's raw strength, but just before he loses the fight, Timmy kills the principal with the stake Brooks dropped earlier.
Timmy reveals that the presence of the dome allows him to go outside during daylight hours for the first time in two hundred years, and he's taking advantage of the opportunity to go back to school. He also tells Brooks that he has subsisted on blood banks for two centuries, then asks for Brooks to let him attend school until the dome comes down. Brooks agrees and asks if Timmy really believes the city will survive, and Timmy says that New York has taught him that it will never fall.
Superhot
In the mutant-controlled nation of New Tian, Neena "Domino" Thurman aims a sniper rifle at Emma Frost from a distant cliff. She muses about how beauty can be helpful, such as when Frost's beauty enables her to get men to do things for her, but it can also be a curse, such as when it puts a target on someone's back. She then thinks that someone is paying her a huge sum of money to shoot Frost, and that she (Thurman) has positioned herself very far from the beach where Frost is walking in order to evade Frost's telepathy. As Frost can shift herself into a diamond form, Thurman is using a special sniper rifle which fires at an extremely high velocity.
Thurman sees Frost begin flirting with two male mutants and murmurs that she needs them to get out of the way before she can shoot. The men proposition Frost for sex, who jokes that she must be in luck. The men then move enough for Thurman to take her shot. However, Frost shifts to diamond, and her skin thus becomes tough enough to bounce the bullet away. The bullet ricochets into one of the mutants and the other one flees. Thurman sighs and, as Frost toasts Thurman for helping her to get rid of the men, Thurman muses that beautiful women always get what they want.
Sanctuary (Part 5)
An enraged mob attacks Namor McKenzie and screams complaints about his increasingly dictatorial rule. Meanwhile, Jim "Inhuman Torch" Hammond and Thomas "Toro" Raymond are surprised to see that the guard freeing them is actually Bucky "Winter Soldier" Barnes, another of their old comrades from the Invaders team. Hammond complains that Barnes didn't help them earlier and Barnes notes that he was trying to lay low, and that Namor may have been able to help him and Raymond more had they done the same. Barnes offers to sneak Hammond and Raymond out of the city before it devolves into a full-blown riot, but the two heroes want to stay and help. Barnes accepts this and says, in response to Hammond asking whose side they're on, that they're fighting for peace. He's been trying to keep Namor's opposition contained until he could bring Namor around, but he failed and now the opposition wants blood. The Invaders, therefore, will try to stop the fighting.
The Invaders burst into the mob and attempt to extricate Namor but are stopped by Aquaria "Namora" Neptunia. Neptunia tells Namor that she planned everything to try to bring Namor to his senses and get him to stop mistreating his people; since Namor had sequestered himself away with only Barnes for company, she had hoped that bringing him into the public eye where he could be confronted with the bad things he had done would help get him back on the right path. Thus she arranged for herself to be captured and sentenced to a public execution where Namor, the executioner, would have to see his subjects in the audience. Namor admits his error and Neptunia in turn hails him as their king.
Later, with regular order restored, Namor, Neptunia, Hammond, Raymond, and Barnes plot strategy. Hammond and Raymond volunteer to remain behind and get Atlantis ready for any HYDRA reprisals. Namor accepts this but is brusque, causing Raymond to snap that Namor mistreated them and should be more grateful for their help. Namor eventually admits his mistakes, including that of trying to buy off HYDRA by surrendering his shard of the cosmic cube and oppressing his people to ensure they did not do anything that might bother Steve "Captain America" Rogers. Hammond says that Namor could have maintained sufficient control of his people by simply asking them to voluntarily avoid any provocative actions, and Namor agrees. He then says he'll take the blame, but Neptunia insists that she share the burden of leadership until Namor has regained the trust of his people. Namor agrees. He then muses that the surface world has many threats, and even if they beat HYDRA another will surely come. Barnes, though, says that Namor has him to defend it, and Namor agrees.
Tropes:
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Frost shows these off despite not actually using a gun. She's able to accurately bounce Thurman's shot in just the right way to kill a guy who is bothering her.
