Also this week:

HATTER M #2 - When I reviewed issue #1, I said that this title would probably make more sense to me if I'd read Frank Beddor's original novel - Looking Glass Wars, an inversion of Alice in Wonderland which claims to be the true story that Lewis Carroll bowdlerised.  A review copy of the novel has duly arrived, which I'll cover shortly over at If Destroyed.  Suffice to say that it's pretty darned fun and, as I expected, it does put this series in better context - partly because it contains some necessary exposition about why Alyss and Hatter M were on the run which wasn't actually in issue #1, and partly because it fleshes out the importance of imagination in Beddor's Wonderland, where it pulls double duty as the equivalent of magic.  While none of this is strictly necessary to follow the story, it's also fair to say that the book does a better job of establishing Hatter's character.  Anyhow, Hatter is racing around 19th century Europe searching for Alyss, and ending up having other adventures instead.  This month, vampires prey on a violin prodigy, and Hatter fights them with his lethal hat.  It's all very deadpan, and it features one of my favourite lines of dialogue in ages: "Now go and drink your humble libations and make simple love to your scrubwoman wife."  I'm still bemused by the intended audience for this book - the novel doesn't go on sale in America until the autumn, and in any event it's aimed at a younger readership.  Weirdly compelling nonetheless, though.  B+

PLANETARY BRIGADE #2 - Keith Giffen and J M DeMatteis with their usual comedy superhero routine, and by now you surely know whether you like it or not.  The art is a lot more stable than issue #1's bizarre selection of artists, and there's actually a decent effort to shift tone at the end for a proper dramatic finish.  Mind you, there's some painfully unoriginal stuff here with Mr Brilliant, the fat nerd superhero who runs a comic book store.  A decent two-parter overall, though.  B+

PUNISHER vs BULLSEYE #5 - End of the miniseries, which I thought was worth mentioning because it's by Daniel Way and Steve Dillon, the creative team for the upcoming Wolverine: Origins series.  Obviously you can't go too far wrong with Dillon, who excels at using the details of body language and expression to give more depth to a scene.  And he's an ideal partner for Daniel Way, who writes a lot of slow-paced material that desperately needs that sort of art if it's going to work.  But this isn't particularly impressive - unfortunately, it falls down the gaping and desolate chasm of "nearly funny."  The ending doesn't particularly make sense either - yeah, I get the basic idea that Bullseye's manipulating the Punisher into doing his hits for him, but how does he end up outside the house with the rocket launcher again?  And no, having two characters wandering around with broken noses for an issue is not inherently funny.  B-

SEVEN SOLDIERS: BULLETEER #4 - Another Seven Soldiers miniseries finishes off, and this is one of the stronger ones.  The tie-in to the wider storyline is minimal, mind you, but along with Guardian, this is a book I can really see working as an ongoing title.  The concept of Bulleteer as a reluctant superhuman dragged into a more-than-slightly pervy world of extremely minor league superheroes, corrupted by (effectively) fans projecting their own strange ideas onto basically innocent concepts, stands up surprisingly well as more than just a one-joke concept.  There's easily another series to be done with this character.  She's a woman with perfectly useful superpowers that unfortunately disqualify her from every job in the world except "professional superhero", which basically involves turning up at grim conventions and having no fun at all.  Possibly too close to home for some fans, but excellent nonetheless.  A

X-MEN: APOCALYPSE vs DRACULA #2 - I've got to admit, I was braced for this to be a trainwreck, and it hasn't been.  Halfway through the series, Tieri is still keeping Apocalypse and Dracula apart, and if anything he's trying to drag Apocalypse in the direction of Dracula's stories rather than doing it the other way around.  If he can set up his version of Apocalypse before the two inevitably have to meet then he might just get away with this unlikely pairing.  That said, the series is decidedly lacking in atmosphere, which is in large part an art problem.  Clayton Henry is a perfectly good artist for bright, shiny things, but he doesn't do dark and tense, and he's alarmingly miscast on this book.  B-

Last week's Article 10 on Monday at Ninth Art, and there's more from me shortly at If Destroyed.

Next week, Wolverine #40 concludes "Origins and Endings", Exiles #78 guest stars the original Squadron Supreme, X-Factor #5 follows up on poor Siryn, X-Men #184 continues the Apocalypse storyline, and Storm #2 tries to convince us that we'd like to see her marry the Black Panther.

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