And here comes the secret identity stuff. Kingpin is going to find Peter out! But wait, doesn’t Peter know Nick Fury? Can’t they do something? Nick Fury would move heaven and earth for Aunt May but not against Kingpin? That story’s a lot more interesting than the one Bendis is going to tell, I’m sure.

Otherwise, it’s a pretty good issue. Jonah realizes he’s been wrong and he tries to be a reporter. There’s a funny fight scene with the Enforcers. It’s way too long, but it’s funny.

Bendis once again tells some of the story in the opening recap, this time about Jonah changing his mind about the District Attorney race. He easily could’ve spared two pages of the fight scene for a good real scene.

Then there’s the standoff with Peter and Kingpin and it’s only okay. The jokes aren’t good enough (from either of them).

I just love how Bendis handles Ultimate Kingpin and Peter. I know I’ve already said it, but it’s even better this issue. The relationship between the two obviously has to do with Peter’s idealism, which is just the inherent lack of reality of superhero comics. Bendis, with Bagley’s art beautifully working against it, is trying to bring some gravitas to Ultimate Spider-Man.

He’s not doing it with a dark story or whatever, he’s doing it with politics and corruption and Jonah being a really shallow guy. It’s a great issue. I don’t remember the last time the comic was so impressive, actually.

And I started this arc nonplussed. Bendis shaved the weaker story arc for this issue (the secret identity) and married the Kingpin and District Attorney candidate nicely. Using Ultimate Ben Urich helps, of course, since Bendis writes him so well.

The moment with May is outstanding too.

Bendis introduces three new plot lines–the Kingpin is back, too many people know Peter is Spider-Man and the Bugle is backing a mayoral candidate who’s out to get Spider-Man. Well, maybe not a mayoral candidate. I wasn’t paying too much attention.

To stay true to his form, Bendis will likely tie these three plot lines together, which doesn’t make much sense. In a lot of ways, it feels like Bendis doesn’t know what he’s doing here.

But he’s at least doing it in good scenes. He excels at the Bugle stuff, even when people are being quiet, and he also excels at Ultimate Kingpin. Bendis writes a very funny Kingpin. Unfortunately, the Spider-Man identity question gets the least treatment.

Having reunited Peter and Mary Jane, Bendis is at a loss for how to write them together. Without drama or tension, there’s nothing for them to do.

Well, there’s a disappointment. It’s like Brubaker forgot all the build-up he’d been doing towards the race and its location. He had a chance for a sublime issue and instead he used it as background for getting Anna back to Beezer’s home sector.

He also continues the villain arc, which seems like an incredible misstep so far. As Brubaker gets further and further away from Deadenders‘s best moments, it seems unlikely he’s going to return to that quality. He’s definitely moving forward, he just doesn’t seem to have anywhere to go.

I can’t remember the last issue where something consequential played out in scene. All the events in this issue and the previous couple could be related in a paragraph of well-written conversation without losing anything.

Showing as opposed to telling only works if there’s something to show.

The writing’s okay, the art’s good, but Deadenders is floundering.

It’s hard to tell where Brubaker’s going with the series at this point… besides the inevitable moped race.

He’s revealed some more about the big terrible event, but not exactly. He’s hinted there’s more to the story. At the same time, he’s finally established the girl enough I can remember her name–Anna (though I swear it was something else)–and he’s introduced yet another mystery from the past.

The mystery from the past moment is actually the best thing in this issue, just because Pleece and Campbell illustrate it like a teen comic “gee whiz” moment. That moment gives the issue some character, while the rest of it (Beezer and Anna going through a futuristic hospital) is sterile and boring.

Brubaker’s problem seems to be with maintaining his interest in his protagonist. The moped race preparation scenes are a lot more animated than anything else in his writing here.

Besides a little framing scene at the beginning of the issue, Brubaker manages to stick with Beezer (his protagonist) for the entire issue. Brubaker layers the narrative a lot with a flashback catching the reader up to the environment suit girl being out of her environment suit.

There’s a real lack of drama–she and Beezer meet another psychic or visionary or whatever they’re called (or aren’t called), but the scene’s short and somewhat pointless. Brubaker’s shifting his focus to the girl, which would be fine–he’s already established Deadenders shifts that focus–except she’s so poorly defined.

Maybe he’s got a better story in mind for her, but he’s holding it back way too much. There are a lot of good possibilities in the issue and he doesn’t explore any of them.

It’s sort of a bridging issue, sort of a treading water issue. Still, it’s fairly good stuff.

Beezer gets a nemesis this issue. Instead of seeing things in an idyllic, pre-disaster light, this guy sees them the other way. Bleeding eye sockets, end times sort of thing.

I assume Brubaker has a point to the juxtaposition but it doesn’t really matter. The nemesis angle is a lot less interesting than it should be. It overshadows–complete with a soft, ominous cliffhanger–the story developing between Beezer and the environment suit girl.

She has a name, I’m sure, but use has to wear an environment suit around all the time and everyone talks about it so her name doesn’t make much impression.

Brubaker sets about half the story back in the regular setting, the outer sector, and it’s a mistake. The story feels too artificial. He had a great chance to stick with Beezer on this strange quest and, instead, he drags all the comic’s baggage along.

Cameron Stewart joins as inker this issue, which Brubaker splits between the present action of Beezer exploring the nicer sectors and flashbacks to his departure.

The way Brubaker layers the narrative is sort of nice. He’s doing it to keep Deadenders more compelling, which he might not need–Case and Stewart’s vision of the perfect future from the ground up is compelling enough. The flashbacks, which don’t have much (if any) conflict, make the issue hostile to new readers. A look between characters only means something if one has read the previous issues; Brubaker still needs a character map at the start of each issue.

Brubaker refocuses around Beezer this issue. He’s not a side character in his own book anymore. It’s unclear what it means for all the subplots….

It’s excellent writing, full of humor and subtle emotion. The comic’s all of a sudden about undefinable longing.

Great stuff.

This issue might be the most Love and Rockets influenced issue of Deadenders yet. It might even just be homage.

Brubaker follows a relatively unfamiliar member of the supporting cast–she’s so unfamiliar I thought she was someone else. Brubaker really needs a better recap system for the supporting cast. There are like two dozen characters so far.

He’s very obtuse about the structure, especially how it figures in as a resolution to the previous issue’s finale. It takes place some months later. I think Brubaker contradicts himself on the exact timing.

But the timing doesn’t matter. What matters is the sublime story he tells here, all from the perspective of a basically new character. He follows up on some developing subplots (in some ways, he’s always just reducing Deadenders main plots to someone else’s subplot).

It’s a great comic book. Even if Pleece and Case don’t differentiate characters well.

Once again, Bendis tries to humanize Ultimate Cap. He gets to close out Ultimate Six with the observation he’s basically a fascist pawn. Bendis doesn’t go so far as to call the United States fascist, but there’s the implication.

Sadly, it’s the only interesting thing Bendis comes up with. Oh, he comes up with some amusing stuff this issue. There’s a good scary moment with Otto, there’s a great moment with Aunt May yelling at SHIELD agents (it’s another of those “where’s Bagley when we need him” moments). But there’s nothing with Peter and the Ultimates, nothing substantial with Peter and Norman Osborn.

I guess Hairsine and Miki do a better job for the finale than they did on the previous five issues. None of the art is jaw-dropping ugly like it had been.

Six feels a little like Bendis testing his writing muscles.

He comes up really short.

More double-paged action crap from Hairsine, though Bendis does eventually come up with a great sequence for the Wasp. It’s in single pages though.

I’m still a little confused how Kraven gets taken out. Apparently a random bit of lightning or electricity hits him and he goes down. Meaning Peter doesn’t actually succeed in anything. He just lucks into living. Kind of makes him a side character in Ultimate Six.

There is a great little moment between Ultimate Cap and Peter (making this issue Ultimate Captain America’s first ever good moment). I wish Mark Bagley had drawn it. Bendis might figure out how to write the Ultimates for this series, but he can’t figure out how to write Peter for someone other than Bagley.

I don’t like the comic, I recognize it’s a bit of a ripoff in terms of cost versus payout, but it’s got some good stuff.

Just when I thought the Hairsine art couldn’t get any worse, it does. Given a huge action sequence from Bendis, Hairsine flubs it and then he somehow worsens it.

There are a lot of double page spreads this issue; Hairsine produces less bad art but on a larger scale.

Putting it mildly, this issue of Ultimate Six is an ugly read. Bendis mildly recovers, revealing Norman isn’t quite as insane as he previously implied, which is good. Norman being able to outthink Nick Fury and all the SHIELD geniuses if he were totally insane is a little much.

Though it’s too bad Bendis doesn’t go anywhere with the alternative life style thread Norman suggests between himself and Doctor Octopus.

The issue also shows no one can write Ultimate Captain America and make him an appealing character. Bendis makes him a dick too.

While the writing’s not incompetent, the comic’s bad.

Well, there’s a crappy issue.

More of the bad art from Hairsine and Miki and no story from Bendis. The bad guys break in to kidnap Peter from SHIELD at the end, which should be a good action scene, right? Maybe, if Hairsine and Miki weren’t drawing everything silly.

And there’s an Ultimates action scene a little earlier. It’s terrible too.

The issue opens with the faceless president (not Bush, the vocabulary is too advanced) yelling at Nick Fury. It’s a useless scene because there’s no weight to it. Bendis also fails at any of the good bickering (Nick Fury and Peter, Fury and Osborn). Actually, all of the characters are without personality here.

Worst is the bad guys. Hairsine has stopped bothering to draw Kraven and Sandman any different so the conversation scenes are hard to read.

It’s a terrible comic book. I can’t think of any redeeming qualities.

For this issue, Hairsine and his inker, Danny Miki, all of a sudden decide they’re doing a comedy. The art is very emotive, comical and sketchy. There’s no slickness to it.

It ought to work too, because it’s Peter Parker meets the Ultimates mixed with a little of the Nick Fury and Peter Parker bickering. It ought to work with a comical art style.

It does not.

Worse, it feels like Bendis is dragging things out. Instead of enjoying Peter’s trip to the big leagues, he uses it for the bickering (which is good) and exposition (which is bad).

When he finally does get to the big cliffhanger, it feels like he’s missed out on every opportunity the story presented.

The issue starts out okay and Bendis writes the dialogue and emotion fine, it’s just not a good finished product.

And that big cliffhanger implies tedious, contrived plotting to follow….

I remember this issue. It’s the first Marvel comic–with the text recaps–I remember having a spoiler for the end of the issue. Norman’s so nuts he thinks Peter is his son (Peter being the Ultimate Sixth). Shame no editor caught it, because it’s a good little moment at the end.

There’s another good moment in the issue, one of Bendis’s better ones, actually. Hank Pym reveals he’s already got all of Norman’s secret formulas. Norman freaks out. It works with the Hairsine art. Six is Bendis doing the big action Ultimate series and it turns out he does it well. The first issue he was a little restrained, more in the comedic Spider-Man mode. Here he’s doing big action melodrama.

It’s a fine issue. Though he could’ve done it in half the pages.

Shame Nick Fury has to act moronic for Bendis’s plot to work though.