Wolverine #42
Writer: Marc Guggenheim
Artist: Humberto Ramos
$2.99

While most of the Wolverine-related hype the last few months had centered around the new (and thus far, mediocre) Wolverine: Origins ongoing series, Marvel quietly announced that new creative team Marc Guggenheim and Humberto Ramos would take over the character’s flagship title with issue #42. The first of a six issue crossover with Marvel’s Civil War mega event, Wolverine #42 is a surprisingly funny, engaging read, with an action-packed opening scene, and only drags when having to make room for the Civil War gook. But Guggenheim makes this a Wolverine story through and through, from solid characterization (Wolverine is at times threatening, warm, and smart) to steady pacing, while Ramos’ pencils have an appropriate roughness for the character, balanced with a Saturday-morning cartoon vibrance. A good start for Wolverine’s Civil War adventures.
KFR Rating: B+

Transformers #5
Writer: Simon Furman
Artist: E.J. Su
$2.99

The latest iteration of the famed robots-in-disguise, penned by longtime Transformers scribe Simon Furman, is a decidedly different take on the franchise than ever before. Gone are the crazy, epic space battles of yesterday. Instead, the emphasis is on the disguise aspect of the Transformers — which in the Generation 1 mythos, has never really been explored — making for a much smaller story, narrated by humans caught in the middle, and building slowly. Indeed, it’s building so slowly, that we’re up to issue #5 and we still haven’t seen Optimus Prime. Intriguing for sure, but Furman’s humans are of the cookie-cutter variety, if not borderline annoying, while E.J. Su’s art doesn’t come close to Pat Lee’s beautiful work on Dreamwave’s Transformers series. Still, Furman does introduce Megatron here, depicting him as a genuinely terrifying threat, and the action seems to be amping up. It may be worth sticking around for another few issues, just to see where it goes.
KFR Rating: B-

Superman/Batman #26
Plot: Sam Loeb
Writer: Various
Artist: Various
$3.99

As many comic fans know, Superman/Batman writer Jeph Loeb lost his seventeen-year-old son Sam to cancer in June of 2005. Sam, an aspiring comic book writer, had already been published in Dark Horse’s Tales of the Vampires #5, and was working on a standalone Robin/Superboy story at the time of his death. That story became Superman/Batman #26, a post-Infinite Crisis tale which finds Robin tearfully retelling one of his adventures with the now deceased Superboy. It’s a story filled with surprises and lots of humor, as Superboy and Robin bicker playfully while trying to survive the Toyman’s several elaborate booby trap scenarios (the best being a reverse level of Frogger, where Robin and Superboy have to cross a highway filled with giant leaping frogs). The friendly jabs that the two take at each other get a little stale over time, but Sam was onto something with the fun teenage superheroes-as-odd couple dynamic. Sam is credited with plotting the story, and seemingly everyone in comicdom came to help see his story told; Arthur Adams, Joe Casey, John Cassady, Joyce Chin, Ian Churchill, Allan Heinberg, Geoff Johns, Joe Kelly, Mike Kunkel, Jim Lee, Pat Lee, Rob Liefeld, Paul Levitz, Jeph Loeb, Joe Madureira, Jeff Matsuda, Ed McGuiness, Brad Meltzer, Carlos Pacheco, Duncan Rouleau, Time Sale, Richard Starkings, Michael Turner, Brian K. Vaughan, Mark Verheiden, and Joss Whedon share writing and art duties throughout. The sheer turnout of these talents who’ve made Sam’s idea a reality is a moving tribute in and of itself, but most touching is the closing short tale, “Sam’s Story,” by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. In six brief pages, Jeph Loeb shows his son to have strength and ideals that can inspire even Superman. In the end, this one comic manages to be an example of Sam Loeb’s gifts and potential, as well as an uplifting remembrance. Highly recommended.
KFR Rating: A-

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