Well, at least Brubaker goes whole hog when it comes to unresolved endings. He overwrites the final issue of Deadenders to an exceptional degree and still manages to get away with some of it. His writing skills–his short comic subject, like from Dark Horse Presents or Lowlife–come through and he writes some rather decent scenes.

It’s utter tripe overall. I’d have thrown this issue across the room if I were reading it on its release Wednesday, but he’s got a lot of competent moments.

The art helps. Maybe Pleece and Stewart were slacking the last few issues because they knew Brubaker was going to go crazy with different styles here.

Deadenders started, partially, as a Love and Rockets homage. It finishes a Love and Rockets homage too, a bad one. Brubaker’s narrative intentions are strong, his storytelling is just bad.

Maybe it’s the abbreviated run, maybe it isn’t.

Reading this issue, I do think Brubaker is just abbreviating his plans for how Deadenders would eventually turn out. It’s the only explanation for why he’d string together the issue’s awkward little “chapters.”

Even with the dumb dialogue and terrible new characters, the worst thing about the comic is the art. Pleece and Cameron have completely checked out. A couple of the characters–Beezer and another of the original Deadenders–still look like themselves. One of the other characters from the first arc looks different enough I was confused about his identity.

As for the big reveal Brubaker’s been sitting on a few issues? Boring. He can’t even plot out a dramatic scene, not with the terrible third person narration.

Deadenders isn’t going out with a whimper, it’s crashing to the floor and shattering. Brubaker’s managing to remove every good memory of its early issues with this terrible hurried conclusion.

I guess Brubaker just found out Deadenders was headed for the chopping block because he kicks off a rapid-fire close-up arc this issue.

Instead of going out with some dignity, he’s trying to answer all of the Deadenders‘s questions, whether they’re important in the context of the previous issues or not.

In order to get things going fast enough, for the first time in the series, he adopts an omnipotent third person narrator. He jumps headfirst into all the regular traps–characters act strange, Brubaker reveals ludicrous secrets about them

Reading this issue, I couldn’t even remember the series’s heights. I get it, Brubaker and company (the art’s fine, though there’s not much for them to do) need to sell comics but forcibly reinventing a series every few issues is a terrible move.

As for the big reveal this issue… has Brubaker read (or seen) Frankenstein Unbound?

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.