Dreamer Nia Nal, as portrayed by Nicole Maines, was a wholesome character amidst the overall wholesome aesthetic of the CW TV Supergirl series. One could certainly be concerned, given both those beginnings and that Maines is now writing the character she embodied for DC Comics proper, that Dreamer would do no wrong, a character the narrative might try to protect.

To that end, I’ve been very impressed with the journey Maines has guided Dreamer on since Lazarus Planet and into the present. Dreamer’s made a series of unfortunate decisions, as it were, that’ve seen her run afoul first of the Suicide Squad and now, Secret Six. And while I felt Maines' Suicide Squad: Dream Team might not have had much new to do with the Squad concept, Six soars for precisely the same reason — it feels genuinely of a piece with Gail Simone’s Secret Six before it as a continuation of those characters.

If I’m reading the tea leaves correctly, maybe this marks the end of Dreamer’s villain turn, given she’s about to appear in a Justice League special and a miniseries. But Dreamer or not, gosh I’d like to read another Secret Six mini from Maines. This book hearkened back to what Simone’s second go-around with Six did not, and maybe separate from the ongoing DCU of it all — Waller and Jon Kent and so on — I’d be curious what trouble Maines could get the Secret Six into next.

[Review contains spoilers]

The thing about the Simone-era Secret Six is that they’re neither heroes nor true villains, and as such they don’t fit in anywhere except with each other. But they also hold their beliefs, their traumas and their vengeances, very strongly, and woe be to someone who gets in any of their ways, be it enemy or friend. And so, the Six were constantly trying to kill one another (when they weren’t each other’s armchair psychologists), each with morally gray certainty on their side.

Maines brings that same push and pull to her newest iteration of Six. There’s trouble from the jump — Super-son Jon Kent loves his boyfriend Gossamer Jay Nakamura and also feels sympathy for his friend Dreamer, who was in Amanda Waller’s thrall during Absolute Power just like Jon was, but Jay blames Dreamer for the death of his mother, to a murderous extent. Meanwhile former Sixer Catman Thomas Blake is half in love with teammate Deadshot Floyd Lawton, which makes it all the more problematic when Deadshot, too, seems to betray Catman for Waller.

When Waller is kidnapped, rescuing her is the good, heroic thing for Jon to do; everyone else’s motives are more mixed. Gossamer and Dreamer, ostensibly enemies, want to kill Waller, both in general and before her memories can be restored, including everyone’s secret identities; that puts them in obvious opposition to Jon. Meanwhile, despite that Catman also wants to see Waller killed, the fact that the undead Deadshot needs Waller’s memories to restore himself puts Catman and Deadshot in the unlikely position of trying to save Waller

So once again, we have a team at cross purposes. This is terribly hard to write, it seems to me, giving six different characters on a team book different, individual motivations and arcs; writers on team books like JSA and Titans, with far more publication credits than Maines, have struggled to do the same. It seems particularly skillful to me that Maines has managed to rope Jon Kent into this, veritably the “Super Son”; keeping Catman and Deadshot among the Six is easy, but making Jon feel like he belongs there is tougher. And I’m enamored too with the Jon/Gossamer/Dreamer love triangle, which unfortunately Maines doesn’t get to put a fine point on in Six’s rather swift ending. To be continued, I hope.

It’s also great to see Maines using Sixer Jeanette. That there should be a Washington, D.C., club called “Checkmate” that’s a front for the actual Checkmate to collect political intel seems ridiculous, and Jeanette’s role as manager not quite intuitive, but Maines gets the important parts right — Jeanette as a Byrne-era “banshee,” her tendency to go on about having her head chopped off, the references to her relationship with Deadshot. In contrast, while Black Alice is also an “original”(-ish) Sixer — though not as central as some others — Maines' use of her feels surface level, the stereotypical “mean girl,” same as in Dream Team (I’d like someone to remember Black Alice saving the day in Mark Waid’s Lazarus Planet).

There was a moment where I thought Maines might be headed toward Waller as the team’s Mockingbird (because what are the Six without a mysterious benefactor?). Gossamer’s “You were never in their club. You were never one of them” speech to Waller hearkens back to some of the themes of Absolute Power: Origins and underscores the Six as a team that’s unique among the DCU not only in their antihero status, but in their racial, gender, and sexual identities. It seems to me a semi-repentant Waller would fit right in and add more tension to an already tense team.

As mentioned, the end of Secret Six comes too swiftly — the team fights among themselves, Jon and Gossamer break up, and that’s the end, with little resolution for Dreamer, Waller, Deadshot, or Catman. Unfortunate, though perhaps the best we can say about a book is that Nicole Maines spent six issues well and I’d still have happily read a few more. Onward to Maines' Justice League Intergalactic and more.

[Includes original and variant covers]